 From backwoods Southern hollers and sun-baked cottonfields to the ancient, mythic Southwestern deserts - with a lot of America (and the rest of the world) in between Chipper Thompson is chronicling the world he sees around him and the world inside him with the eyes of a journalist, the mind of a poet, and the heart of a troubadour, and it's all colored with the palette of folk-n-roll sounds he's collected on his ongoing musical wanderings. Welcome to Chipper Thompson's world of Folk-n-Roll!
The descendant of Irish immigrants, Chipper Thompson was born and raised in Athens, Alabama; perhaps an unlikely place for such an eclectic songwriter and musician, but in the spirit of great Southern rock-n-roll, it makes perfect sense.
Chipper grew up in Limestone County, Alabama, in the heart of the Tennessee Valley, and he calls his homeplace "... a microcosm of the Old South, with both cottonfields and Appalachian foothills." It's a place awash in memories, both of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, and it's a place steeped in history: presided over by elegant antebellum mansions and rustic cabins, yet only a few miles from Huntsville, Alabama, one of the highest-tech enclaves of NASA. It was in this rich and diverse setting that Chipper was so well grounded in the musical traditions of his Scots-Irish ancestors, Appalachian Mountain people, and the blues. . . in fact, the very foundations of rock-n roll.
 Chipper started playing music (the electric bass guitar was his first instrument) during his college years, when he was studying journalism at the University of North Alabama. He would often accompany his father, a talented pedal-steel guitar, dobro, and dulcimer player, at bluegrass and dulcimer festivals in the area, where Chipper's appreciation of Appalachian musical traditions was nurtured. However, college-prompted curiosity about the larger world encouraged Chipper's wide-ranging interests in global ethnic folk music (long before "world music" was a fad - and certainly long before it was easily available in Alabama!) classical music, blues, and rock-n-roll, all of which collectively inspired him to start writing his own songs. It was also during this time that Chipper started collecting and playing a wide range of instruments, and he now considers himself a viable threat on guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, and the Irish drum bodhran. He still occasionally plays the bass and the dulcimer, and is struggling with the banjo, dumbeq, and several weird, middle-eastern, stringed things.
After quitting school, working a variety of odd jobs, and spending several months abroad (where he played night after night with traditional pub bands in the west of Ireland) Chipper eventually married and moved to the mountains of Northern New Mexico, where he honed his songwriting and performance skills at open mics and small gigs around the famous art colony of Taos. He played solo and with various groups, which eventually led to the April 1997 release of his first CD, "Strange Lullabies." This auspicious debut glowingly displayed Chipper's amalgamation of the many musical styles he's explored over the years, and the regional critics raved. The Taos News called it "A brilliant debut", The Santa Fe New Mexican said "One of the true joys of being a music critic is discovering stuff like this," and Thirsty Ear Magazine called Chipper "The Southwest's finest roots musician."
 Chipper has since played countless gigs, produced a CD (along with Don Richmond, his production collaborator on "Strange Lullabies") for the Taos band Burning Joan (which, incidentally, took its name from one of Chipper's songs they recorded, "Burning Joan Again"), released a live CD of his songs ("Folk-N-Roll, Live!") and, most recently, recorded two collaborative discs.
First, he and frequent partner Mason Brown produced "Am I Born To Die," a collection of traditional Appalachian and Irish ballads and songs, which was eagerly picked up by the highly-regarded New York record label Dorian.
Next, he and well-known fellow bouzouki player Roger Landes recorded a collection of original, eclectic music for the bouzouki titled "The Janissary Stomp", which was released at the Taos-based, 2001 edition of Landes' annual gathering, Zoukfest.
Chipper continues to perform and record with Brown, Landes, Burning Joan, and his ever-changing band, "The Feast", and is at any given moment is writing songs and preparing for his next solo release.
From backwoods Southern hollers and sun-baked cottonfields to the ancient, mythic Southwestern deserts - with a lot of America (and the rest of the world) in between Chipper Thompson is chronicling the world he sees around him and the world inside him with the eyes of a journalist, the mind of a poet, and the heart of a troubadour, and it's all colored with the palette of folk-n-roll sounds he's collected on his ongoing musical wanderings. Welcome to Chipper Thompson's world of Folk-n-Roll!
Click here to go to Chipper's Web Site
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DISCOGRAPHY |
 PENNY DREADFULS
Disque Aurophonique du Banjo Snake presente Penny Dreafuls - Morphine Melodies, Laudanum Songs. Musique originale & traditionale de Chipper Thompson.
Songs:
Speed the Night Behind
On the Fly
Down In Flames
Steel Vines
The Month of January
Pillar of Salt
Will You Let Me Stay With You?
Tons of Rain
The Scarlet letter
Mrs. Elizabeth Freake and Baby, Mary
By a Thread
Once I Could Glide
Sunrise Somewhere
Buy these tunes by direct download in our "Downloads Store" Section
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 STRANGE LULLABIES
Released in April 1997, "Strange Lullabies" was Chipper Thompson's debut CD, and what a beginning it was!
In the autumn of 1995, Chipper was working on demo tapes for his first recording project, but things were not going well. In his own words, "I thought I knew everything about recording and was acting like a big shot, when really I knew almost nothing." Reality hit him between the eyes and soon he was depressed and hardly playing music at all… his only gigs were playing mandolin as a sideman for his friend and country singer, Celeste Rivard. Chipper continues: "One day Celeste asked me to help her record a demo, which was quite an act of faith considering how my own demo sessions had gone." But Celeste took Chipper to Howlin' Dog Studio in Alamosa, Colorado, and introduced him to musician and recording engineer supreme, Don Richmond." "Once I met Don, that was it', says Chipper. "The combination of what I'd learned during my demo sessions and the ease and comfort Don brought to recording were all it took… before Celeste's demo was finished, Don and I were discussing doing an album together."
There was only one problem, though: Chipper didn't want to re-record the same songs he'd demo'ed back in the previous sessions - there were just too many disappointments in his memory. Then, one weekend when his wife took a brief trip out of town, Chipper sat down and poured out twenty new songs, much to his surprise. "Obviously I was trying to write, but I couldn't believe the volume! Apparently I was more excited by the opportunity to work with Don than I had realized." Chipper culled the best work form his new songs, added a few older works he was happy with, and the line-up for "Strange Lullabies" was ready.
"People say if you don't like the weather in the mountains, wait five minutes and it'll change," says Chipper. "I tell 'em that same thing about this album - every song is different, so just bear with it." "Strange Lullabies" eclecticism was born from the first experience on the demo sessions - one of the problems then was that Chipper had had some of the songs waiting to be recorded for years… and his ideas for how they should sound was so specific that it was impossible to attain. But here was a whole new selection of material, with no "baggage" attached, so in Chipper's words "we just let each song become what we wanted it to become." Sure, this resulted in a variety of sounds, but it also amply demonstrated the breadth and range that makes up Chipper's music.
"If I'm to Blame" starts off the CD with the driving folk-n-roll beat (every instrument on the track is acoustic, believe it or not!) and from there you can go anywhere you want. "Keep the Cold Wind Away" is a beautiful, simple, love song sung in a duet with Burning Joan's Kirsten Parsons. "I Want to Haunt You" is a fast ride where rockabilly meets James Bond music and Edgar Allen Poe. "Afraid of Rain" is a quiet elegy to Chipper's late mother and "Rainwater Bottle" a wild hillbilly rant in the name of social freedoms.
The variety continues with the Celtic-flavored "The Fall of Dun Aengus" (a duet with the much-lauded Celtic singer Connie Dover), the weird, creepy, theatricality of "Walk on Water" the Appalachia-meets- New Orleans insane asylum of "Dust an' Floods", and Chipper's own, revitalized arrangement of the Old-English ballad "Barbry Allen" (the first song Chipper learned on guitar, and the only song on "Strange Lullabies" he didn't write.)
The recording concludes with a blazing bluegrass instrumental, "Briars and Brambles"; a quiet, humble folk song, "When it's My Time"; a joyous, romping church service, "Wade in Water (with the Adams State College Jazz Chorus); and one last paean to realizing his dream, "Lay Down this Body to Rest".
Altogether, it's a stunning piece of work, especially for a debut release. Ambitious, eclectic, and deep, it's sure to amaze and delight you with it's energy and variety… and if this is Chipper's first CD, just imagine where he'll go from there?!
Songs:
1- If I'm to Blame
2- Keep the Cold Wind Away
3- I Want to Haunt You
4- Afraid of Rain
5- Rainwater Bottle
6- The Fall of Dun Aengus
7- Walk on Water
8- Dust an' Floods
9- Barbry Allen
10- Briars and Brambles
11- When it's My Time
12- Wade in the Water
13- Lay Down this Body to Rest
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 FOLK-N-ROLL
Recorded on two cold February nights in 1998, Chipper Thompson's second CD "Folk-n-Roll, Live!" showcase's Chipper's live acoustic show, where he's armed only with a pile of great original songs, his distinctive voice, an acoustic guitar, and one seriously talented sideman in Alamosa, Colorado's own Don Richmond.
The performances taped were at Caffe Tazza in Taos, New Mexico, and Café Maya in Alamosa, and the disk features harmony singing, fiddle, banjo, Hawaiian guitar, and standard acoustic guitar all blazing to great effect on eleven of Chipper's songs.
Although Chipper's been performing in a strictly acoustic setting for almost ten years, the CD was conceived when many potential venues expressed some doubt the Chipper might be able to effectively present the incredibly wide range of songs on "Strange Lullabies" in an acoustic or small band setting… boy were they wrong! "Folk-n-Roll, Live!" came to be much more than merely a demo to get gigs, of course, but to illustrate this point Chipper included three songs from "Lullabies" on "Folk-n-Roll, Live!" - and deliberately chose three of the most heavily "produced" cuts from his debut release. (Lay Down this Body to Rest" and "Walk on Water" are both performed solo by Chipper… on "I Want to Haunt You" he's joined by Don on some burning Hawaiian slide guitar…)
Chipper's also included eight brand-new songs that range widely from the bluegrass-gospel inflected "Don't Let Me Stand in the Way" and "Down to the Riverside" to the proto-rockabilly of "Cut an' Run" and "Train with No End" to the wrenching ballad "No Reason" to the dilapidated elegance of "Once I Could Glide".
Chipper has always said that music doesn't have to be made on electric instruments to make it rock-n-roll, and the enthusiastic, rockin', - and acoustic - joyous clatter of "Folk-n-Roll, Live!" certainly makes the case for that argument. Certainly, some of the songs may show up again in a more "produced" studio setting, but as they stand, there's no doubt who put the "Roll" in "Folk-n-Roll, Live!" - Chipper Thompson!
Songs:
1- Cut an' Run
2- Lay Down this Body to Rest
3- Down to the Riverside
4- A Simple Love
5- Walk on Water
6- Don't Let Me Stand in the Way
7- Canebrake Rattle
8- No Reason
9- I want to Haunt You
10- Once I Could Glide
11- Train with No End
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 AM I BORN TO DIE?
Chipper Thompson's latest CD, "Am I Born To Die" (recorded with his newest musical partner, singer and multi-instrumentalist Mason Brown) showcases his deepest roots: the traditional songs of Appalachia and their roots - ancient songs from the British Isles.
Chipper had already included "Barbry Allen" on his first CD, "Strange Lullabies", but ever since he and Mason were introduced by a mutual friend in 1995 they've discussed expanding that single foray into the folk realm into the project they've just completed.
Mason Brown was born and raised just outside Battle Creek, Michigan, to a musical family. He took his first guitar lesson at age five and in high school formed the rock-n-roll band "Agnostic Birdcage". Of these formative years Mason likes to say: "Even though I was the youngest full professor of chemistry at MIT at age 11, and then turned down a steady job as a trans-continental Concorde pilot, I gave it all up just to play folk music."
It was after Mason moved to the Washington, D.C. area that he learned to frail the banjo in the old-time way, and started concentrating on playing the traditional music of Appalachia and the British Isles. He has performed in Japan, and in 1993 was a cast member of "Doc Butler's Emporium of Magic and Mystery," a re-creation of a turn-of-the-century tent medicine show.
Mason and his wife Kathy have made Taos, New Mexico their full-time home since 1995 (having first visited in 1988) and Mason has played upright Bass fiddle for two local bands, Posse Amor (Latin Jazz-Rock) and Psycho Kitten (Pop-Rock).
Chipper and Mason first formally performed together at Zoukfest '98, a gathering of bouzouki players and students in Weston, MO, where Mason was the bass player for Chipper's band "The Feast." Shortly after returning home to Taos, New Mexico, Mason invited Chipper to accompany him at his regular gig at Eske's - A Brew Pub, where he played traditional music. The two were soon spending all their time concentration on a folk repertoire, so the progression to recording together was completely natural.
"We wanted to play and record folk songs with the same intensity and near-apocalyptic passion we'd heard on old field recordings," says Chipper. "So often folk music has a flowery, sweet image, but that's not how Dock Boggs or Roscoe Holcomb play it, or how it's performed by the old-time sean-nos singers in the pubs in the west of Ireland. We wanted to try to get that smouldering sound."
"Am I born To Die" is the result. This CD features both Appalachian songs such as the haunting title track, "Oh, Death", and "Banks Of The Ohio", as well as Celtic material such as "Pretty Peggy-O", "The Trees They Grow Green", and "Lady Gay".
Typically, this duo throws a few curve balls: the "Appalachified" version of "The Verdant Braes of Skreen", a song usually thought of as Scottish; "Rove, Riley, Rove" a song from Mason's medicine-show days ; the slippery, gospel-infelected "God Moves on the Water" ; and their near-rockabilly version of "Jesse James." When Mason wasn't looking, Chipper also slipped in one of his original songs, the folk-compatable, spooky "No Man Can Hinder" which he describes as "a mountain murder ballad that floated downstream and got tangled up in some weird New Orleans hoodoo ritual."
Traditional singing hasn't burned this hot in a long, long, time. "Am I Born To Die" is a must-have for any folk-music library, and is available now.
Songs:
1- Pretty Peggy-O
2- Jesse James
3- Wars of High Germany
4- Bruton Town
5- Going to the West
6- The Verdant Braes of Skreen
7- Banks of the Ohio
8- Oh, Death
9- God Moves on the Water
10- The Trees They Grow Green
11- The Pesky Sarpent
12- No Man Can Hinder
13- Lady Gay
14- Rove, Riley, Rove
15- Am I Born to Die
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 THE JANISSARY STOMP
"The Janissary Stomp" is a joint effort by Roger Landes and Chipper Thompson, two of Taos, New Mexico's finest players. These two dramatically different musicians had long appreciated each other's abilities and styles, and had even jammed together at some Irish-style sessions and live performances (one backing the other, or a third party, never playing in true collaboration) but they'd never actually recorded together until this landmark CD of original bouzouki music was produced.
The Janissaries were the elite "shock troops" of the Ottoman Sultan, and the intense, vaguely militaristic, rather eastern tenor of much of the music Chipper and Roger wrote for the project suggested it's name... but the recording has gone far beyond those beginnings.
The original idea was that even though Roger and Chipper played the same instrument, the Irishstyle bouzouki, the resulting music was dramatically different Chipper's background was an eclectic blend of Appalachian ballads, rock-n-roll, blues, and a smattering of Mediterranean-based "world music", Roger's mainly the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland, as well as medieval music and that same dash of Oriental flavor. As much as they loved each others different styles, couldn't they compose some tunes to play together. . .?
The result is an amazing tour de force of startlingly exciting and interesting music played entirely on the bouzouki, supported by the brilliant percussion of Paddy League, the bass of Mason Brown, and two blazing vocals by Chipper. There are no guitars or mandolins or dulcimers to cloud the sound of this versatile and personality-dripping instrument. (We might add that all the bouzoukis on the CD were built right here in Taos by master luthier Stephen Owsley Smith, and they are a sound and sight to behold.)
Composed mostly of original tunes, with a few nods to the traditional musics that inspired them, the CD ranges from the Balkans and Greece, the home of the original bouzouki, with the slippery "Jovano Jovanke" and the rocking title track, to Mexico on 'The Guanajuato Mummies' Farewell to Budapest" and "Los Penitentes," to the Celtic homelands on "The March of the King of Laos" and two Galician and Asturian Spanish Celtic tunes, and from there to the Mississippi Delta to the Appalachians and all the way to 'The Mountains of the Moon." These two bouzouki guerillas leave no stone unturned, and you will be stunned and amazed.
Songs:
1- The Border Skirts / The Fair Missouri Command
2- The Banks of the Nile
3- Los Penitentes / Emergence
4- The Arrival of the Khevsoor in Tiblisi
5- The Burned Letters
6- The Guanajuato Mummies' Farewell to Budapest / Quando Los Santos Entren Marchando
7- The March of the King of Laos
8- Los Dervisomangas
9- Out in the Sticks
10- Danza de Asturias
11- Whippersnapper Snake / Snake Road
12- Mountains of the Moon / Zarafa / mZungu
13- Taksim Tigrissippi / Threshold / The Janissary Stomp
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99¢ DIRECT DOWNLOAD SINGLES
The songs from Chipper Thompson's "Penny Dreadfuls" CD have been released for direct download online by taosmusic.com. You can listen to 30 second demos of each song. "Penny Dreadfuls" is Chipper's fifth compact disc release. Songs now available for 99¢ direct download are: Speed the Night Behind, On the Fly, Down In Flames, Steel Vines, The Month of January, Pillar of Salt, Will You Let Me Stay With You?, Tons of Rain, The Scarlet letter, Mrs. Elizabeth Freake and Baby, Mary, By a Thread, Once I Could Glide, Sunrise Somewhere.
You can listen to demos and purchase 99¢ direct downloads online by clicking Here. |
