Teddy Thompson: Up Front & Down Low

Not every song on Up Front reaches the same depths of pathetic abjection, though most ponder some aspect of love gone horribly wrong. While Thompson’s delicately sad rendition of Dolly Parton’s “My Blue Tears” does its writer proud (to the point of echoing her vocal inflections), “The Worst Is Yet to Come,” one of two Liz Anderson compositions, illuminates the limits of the “woe is me” approach—wallowing in misery to the point of self-parody.

Elsewhere, Thompson taps into the hurt to fuel boiling anger, turning in a slow-burning version of Merle Haggard’s “(My Friends Are Going to Be) Strangers.” Amidst brooding, hypnotic strings, he murmurs, “I should be taken out, tarred and feathered / To have let myself be taken in by you.” He puts this same dismissive bitterness to more amusing use in the perky rockabilly grooves of Charlie Louvin’s “You finally Said Something Good (When You Said Goodbye),” where he bids farewell to an unwanted lover, brightly exclaiming, “Don’t want to rush you baby / But I’ll help you pack.”

Thompson’s singing reveals a frisky streak that would make him a standout full-time rockabilly performer if he didn’t have grander aspirations. His brisk reading of Elvis Presley’s Sun Records classic “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” is daring and delightful. Taking the song at a tempo similar to The King’s version, Thompson mixes snappy, vaguely Latin percussion and billowing strings to create something brand-new using familiar ingredients.

This same respectful audacity resurfaces in covers of other standards nobody in their right mind would try to interpret. Thompson transforms Ernest Tubb’s “Walking the floor Over You” into an uneasy shuffle that avoids the campiness of the original and intensifies the song’s anguish. While he can’t bring anything new to George Jones’ “She Thinks I Still Care,” and while nobody could steal the honky-tonkin’ “Touching Home” away from Jerry Lee Lewis, at least Thompson displays excellent taste.

The stellar supporting cast of Up Front includes guitarists Marc Ribot and dad Richard, Dobro/mandolin ace David Mansfield and pedal-steel master Greg Leisz, whose plaintive licks blend beautifully with the elegant string arrangements by Robert Kirby, of Nick Drake fame. (Buddy Rufus Wainwright also arranges strings on one song.) Among backing vocalists on the album are Tift Merritt, Jenni Muldaur and the sublime Iris DeMent, providing the tearful harmony on “My Heart Echoes.” It’s not an insult to any of these worthy contributors to point out that nobody usurps the spotlight. Thompson’s production is smooth and soothing, though never countrypolitan-bland, which adds a dash of honey to make the dire sentiments easier to digest.

There’s one original song on the album, and it’s brutal enough to make you glad he concentrated on other people’s material this time. Proceeding at a tortured pace, the nearly six-minute “Down Low” finds Thompson apologizing to a mistreated lover, “You’d be better off dead / With a bullet in your head / Than to come back to me.” Here’s hoping he learns a little about subtlety from the great songs he’s covered before trying another album of his own material.

While Thompson is an outstanding guitarist, makes the case for regarding him as a gifted vocal stylist first. Next time, perhaps he’d try tackling a set of Jimmy Webb or Joni Mitchell or Hank Williams songs. Thompson is so smart and charismatic that he’s sure to bring interesting perspectives to whatever he sings. But if he resumes plumbing his own warped psyche, brace yourself for the release of some pretty scary demons.