Spruce Peak Unplugged presents: Teddy Thompson
“Here’s the thing,” Teddy Thompson sings frankly on his new album, “you don’t love me anymore. I can tell you’ve got one foot out the door.” From its opening track Thompson’s new album Heartbreaker Please (out May 29th on Thirty Tigers) reckons with the breakdown of love with a wistful levity as satisfying as it is devastatingly honest. The album is drawn from the demise of a real-life relationship set against the backdrop of New York City, the place he has called home for the better part of two decades. A member of the British musical dynasty first helmed by his legendary parents, Linda and Richard Thompson, he left London for the States at 18, settling in New York five years later. “I took a summer vacation that never ended,” he says. “In retrospect, I was trying to reinvent myself. It was easier to leave it all behind, go somewhere new and declare myself an artist. And you can actually reinvent yourself in America; step off the plane, say ‘my name is Teddy Thompson, I’m a musician!’.” Twenty years later, Heartbreaker Please finds Teddy Thompson perfectly himself, a commanding artist at the top of his craft.