Front Parlour Ballads

Front Parlour Ballads is the twelfth studio album by Richard Thompson, recorded in 2004.

Front Parlour Ballads
Studio album by Richard Thompson
Released	August 2005
Recorded	2004
Studio	Trellis Sound, Pacific Palisades, California
Genre	Contemporary folk
Length	46:47
Label	Cooking Vinyl
Producer	Richard Thompson, Simon Tassano
Richard Thompson chronology
Live from Austin, TX (2005) Front Parlour Ballads (2005) Grizzly Man (2006)

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	75/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Rolling Stone
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Allmusic

Released on the Cooking Vinyl label in August 2005, Front Parlour Ballads was literally a homemade album. Thompson's aim was to create an album that sounded small and intimate. It was hailed as his first solo, all acoustic album since 1981– but strictly speaking it's neither of those things – percussionist Debra Dobkin played on two tracks ("Let It Blow" and "My Soul, My Soul") and Thompson himself added electric guitar to the same two tracks.

Thompson had a small studio built in his garage at home and recorded the tracks onto his laptop computer, adding his own overdubs as he deemed necessary. Dobkin's contributions were recorded in the same way.

Thompson did not expect to sell many copies of Front Parlour Ballads. The critics, as usual, acclaimed the new release, but rather more surprising were strong early sales in both the U.S. and Britain, and Front Parlour Ballads debuted in the indie charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

Reception

Reviewing the album for The Guardian, Robin Denselow said: "Recording at home suits him. Even with the over-dubs, this set has the vitality of a live performance, and he clearly feels relaxed enough to take chances with the sometimes elaborate songs, delivering both the expected guitar skills and some fluid, difficult vocals. As with Dylan, Thompson's singing is something of an acquired taste; here it ranges from the wild and declamatory to slow, brooding and often complex ballads... Thompson has always mixed humour with a bleak sense of impending danger, tragedy and anger (it was only appropriate that his retrospective compilation was titled Watching the Dark) and the songs here are often more bitter than sweet."

Track listing

All songs written by Richard Thompson.

1. "Let It Blow"
2. "For Whose Sake?"
3. "Miss Patsy"
4. "Old Thames Side"
5. "How Does Your Garden Grow?"
6. "My Soul, My Soul"
7. "Cressida"
8. "Row, Boys Row"
9. "The Boys Of Mutton Street"
10. "Precious One"
11. "A Solitary Life"
12. "Should I Betray?"
13. "When We Were Boys At School"

Personnel

Musicians

• Richard Thompson – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, accordion, bass guitar and vocals
• Debra Dobkin – percussion

Technical

• Producer – Simon Tassano, Richard Thompson
• Mixing – Simon Tassano
• Mastering – Jim Wilson
• Package design – Tornado Design
• Art direction – Al Quattrocchi, Jeff Smith
• Cover illustration – Lou Beach
• Photography – Ron Slenzak & Associates