Live from Austin TX

1	Cooksferry Queen 3:36
2	Uninhabited Man 5:50
3	Walking the Long Miles Home 4:01
4	Al Bowlly's in Heaven 5:28
5	Mingus Eyes 4:15
6	Dry My Tears and Move on 3:47
7	Easy There, Steady Now 4:54
8	Persuasion 4:18
9	Bathsheba Smiles 3:47
10	Mr. Rebound 3:30
11	Ghosts in the Wind 5:40
12	She Twists the Knife Again 3:33
13	Shoot Out the Lights 5:09
14	Crawl Back (Under My Stone) 6:22
15	1952 Vincent Black Lightning 5:17

Barnes & Noble

Since Richard Thompson has a reputation as the ultimate "musician's musician," it's fitting that he'd be at his best in the ultimate musician's town -- and this recording, culled from the folk-rock stalwart's recent appearance on Austin City Limits, bears that out. It's an intriguing collection, since it offers up stellar versions of some Thompson concert staples -- including a harrowing version of what's arguably his best-known composition, "Shoot Out the Lights" -- but spends just as much time on relative obscurities. Some of the disc's best moments bubble up during these lesser-known gems, from the evilly twisted kiddie-tale wordplay of "Uninhabited Man" to the melodic eloquence of "Bathsheba Smiles." Thompson's always-witty between-song banter gets short shrift here, which is too bad, since it usually provides important leavening in his heavy-on-the-heaviness lyrical recipes. But with full focus on the songs, it's possible to pay full attention to both his guitar work -- the disc is split between acoustic and electric segments, the latter highlighted by the icy "She Twists the Knife Again" -- and his timeless storytelling. David Sprague

All Music Guide

There are few more reliable live performers than Richard Thompson, who never fails to impress on-stage in any context, and in recent years Thompson has been issuing a steady stream of live recordings (available through his website and at live shows), finally filling a void that bootleggers had been attempting to satisfy for some time. Live from Austin, TX is a slightly different animal than most of Thompson's self-released live offerings -- while many of Thompson's live offerings were culled from several dates from the same tour, this is a direct audio recording of the set he played at a taping for the great PBS music series Austin City Limits on July 2, 2001. It's also available through normal retail outlets, which means more people will be able to get hold of it, though in some ways it isn't quite as strong as Semi-Detached Mock Tudor, Thompson's 2002 release which includes much of the same material and a stronger, more dynamic sound mix. Still, there are those who will argue you can't have too many recordings of Thompson singing his songs or offering up his dazzling guitar work, and it's difficult not to agree after giving Live from Austin, TX a spin -- his interplay with bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Michael Jerome is remarkable, his wiry guitar playing is largely sublime (though the version of "Bathsheba Smiles" features that modern rarity, Thompson actually flubbing a phrase!), and the set list strikes a lovely balance between material from Mock Tudor and gems from his back catalog. In short, this disc features Richard Thompson playing 15 excellent songs in concert, and really, how far wrong can you go with that? Mark Deming