PICK SIX.(The Talk of the Town)(Richard Thompson's performances)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 29-AUG-05

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COPYRIGHT 2005 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

In 1999, Playboy asked the grudging guitar hero, prolific songwriter, and self-described "folk dinosaur" Richard Thompson to name his ten favorite popular songs of "the millennium." Feeling mischievous, he submitted a list that began in 1050 and included such hits as the thirteenth-century round "Sumer Is Icumen In." Thompson never did hear back from Playboy, but a year later he came up with the notion of performing these and other super-oldies. He called the show "1,000 Years of Popular Music," and covered everything from Orazio Vecchi to Britney Spears, with a little Gilbert and Sullivan along the way. "I wouldn't say it's our forte, but it goes down surprisingly well," Thompson said recently. "I mean, the sheer nerve of tackling light opera."

Thompson was standing in an aisle of the Virgin Megastore in Union Square, having been badgered into performing another curatorial stunt, a browse-and-buy session. Pick six disks, any six. And talk,...

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