Teddy Thompson, together with parents Richard and Linda, brother Jack, younger sister Kami, her husband James Walbourne, and nephew Zak Hobbs collectively dubbed ‘Thompson’ will release a collaborative album of all new original songs entitled Family (Fantasy Records/Concord Music Group) on November 18th, 2014. The album’s 2-Disc (1CD-DVD) Deluxe Edition, also available November 18th, 2014 features the beautifully rendered 15-minute film “Thompson: The Making of Family” on DVD (created by Contented Bros.). Utilizing interviews, studio footage and vintage family photos, the film captures the warmth, intelligence and humor of this supremely talented family as they record together for the very first time.
Always intrigued by the idea of what a ‘Thompson family’ album would sound like, Teddy finally struck upon the idea of each member contributing two songs to the project which he would oversee and produce. “My therapist had a field day with it,” says Teddy. “He said, ‘wait a minute, you’re trying to get your family back together!’ And that’s exactly right. I’m six years old again, and I’m trying to put my family back together. It was very therapeutic, making the record.”
Finally, in 2012, Teddy sent emails to his parents and siblings, trusting that positive reactionand quality music would come back. Both did. The bulk of the album was completed in 2013, with Teddy coordinating with his relatives about their individual contributions. Everybody wrote AND recorded their songs where they live and sent them in. Once the songs were done, most family members met up for four days of studio time in London and New York City, where the tracks were recorded with Teddy at the helm. The recordings feature abundant musical cross-pollination from all the performers as well as shared backing vocals.
The album features a wide musical range—from Kami’s more poppy contributions like her bright melodic rocker, “Careful,” to the familiar folky elegance of Richard’s, “That’s Enough,” and from Linda’s heartfelt ballad, “Bonny Boys,” to Teddy’s classic country rocker, “Right.” The songs do share an aesthetic and emotional texture instantly familiar as having sprung from this particular family source. And the family members would agree. “I suppose there’s kind of a folk-rock sensibility to what the Thompsons do, generally speaking,” says Richard. “I think everyone’s a bit in in the singer- songwriter style.”
Teddy knew the songs would be good—this is the Thompson family, after all—and yet, he says he was surprised by just how good all of the songs were. Well, maybe he wasn’t that surprised. “I don’t mean to sound cocky or anything,” he adds, “but I just felt like everybody’s really good, and everybody was going to write good songs, and do good work, and they did.”
Introduction by Teddy:
What we have for you here is an album of new songs by Thompsons written specifically for this project. It started with the idea of each of us recording two tracks and then we added my nephew Zak and my brother Jack each doing one. That got us to ten, which sounded about right.
I named myself producer and Lord of all that surrounds me and went to work adding other instruments and deleting lots of things I didn’t like. There’s nothing so satisfying as erasing your parents. So to speak.
One of the rules was that every instrument must be played by a family member, so all that you hear is us. Luckily, Kami married into a very musical family, so we got some amazing contributions from them and lots of other extendeds.
We hope you love it and that you work for Pepsi as head of advertising.
Teddy