Article Contributed by New West Records
Published on 2026-07-28
Richard Thompson Photograph by David Kaptein
Richard Thompson will release his 20th studio album, Hippies, Thugs and Heroes, on October 16 via New West Records. The 12-track set was produced by Thompson and James Frazee and recorded in Weehawken, New Jersey. Today, Thompson has shared the album’s first single, “Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking.”
Hippies, Thugs and Heroes follows Thompson’s acclaimed 2024 album, Ship to Shore, which the Associated Press called “a gem,” NPR Music described as “expertly constructed, absolutely bleak yet totally engaging trad-rock from the 75-year-old master,” and Uncut named one of the Best Albums of 2024.
The influential singer-songwriter and virtuosic guitarist has followed a singular musical path for more than half a century, from his days as a pioneer of British folk rock with Fairport Convention in the 1960s to his seminal 1970s duo work with his former wife Linda Thompson and the exploratory, deeply emotional solo career that has remained his primary concern ever since.
The gritty and immediate Hippies, Thugs and Heroes never settles into one style, mood, or setting. Instead, it reveals many different sides of Thompson as a songwriter, singer, guitarist, and bandleader.
The album showcases a motley cast of characters: old friends and false gurus, beloved musicians and former selves, hippies, thugs, and heroes. Some are drawn from life, while others were dreamed up entirely. Each climbed out of some deep recess of Thompson’s mind and insisted that he tell their story.
As he finished recording, Thompson found that the disparate songs and desperate characters formed an album that was both coherent and daring, familiar yet new.
“You look over the body of songs you’ve written and ask yourself, ‘Which ones are kindred spirits?’” Thompson says. “You look for commonality among the songs, and it’s also a joy when you realize that certain songs seem to be brothers and sisters.”
The first single, “Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking,” is a hardscrabble tale of people hustling in London, including a “carousel queen” overwhelmed by the big city, a soldier quoting Shakespeare, a “King’s Road hippie,” and a “Sauchiehall thug.”
The track features some of Thompson’s most subtly inventive guitar playing, built around a series of strutting, raw-nerve riffs that culminate in a splintered, psychedelic solo.
Thompson wrote and demoed the songs for his backing band, which includes Taras Prodaniuk on bass, Michael Jerome on drums, David Mansfield on guitar and fiddle, and Thompson’s wife, Zara Phillips, on backing vocals.
His home recordings were more elaborate and specific than usual for the new album.
“It’s so much fun to mess around at home and disappear down in the basement for hours at a time,” Thompson says. “I even bought myself a drum kit. So I was able to present more complete demos to the band. You could say there’s much more of my identity being transferred to the final product.”
As always, he left room for the band members to add their own ideas, though he admits Hippies, Thugs and Heroes is “less them and more me.”
“But I’m never strict about what I want to hear on a record,” he continues. “I’m always interested to see what they come up with, and I always want to see where a song takes me.”
Thompson and the band convened at Hobosound Studio in Weehawken, New Jersey, located a short distance from his home.
“I think this is why this album came together so quickly,” he says. “We could just steam through at high speed and not labor over everything.”
The small crew recorded live with a minimum number of takes, sometimes as few as two and rarely more than four. That approach lends the album its sense of urgency.
Richard Thompson’s musical influence cannot be overstated. After co-founding Fairport Convention as a teenager in the 1960s, he and his bandmates helped invent a distinctive strain of British folk rock.
Thompson left the group by the age of 21 and began a decade-long musical partnership with Linda Thompson, followed by more than 30 years as a highly successful solo artist. In 2011, he received an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
Among his many accolades, the Los Angeles Times called him “the finest rock songwriter after Dylan and the best electric guitarist since Hendrix,” while Rolling Stone named him one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
He has received lifetime achievement awards for songwriting from the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, the Americana Music Association, and the Ivor Novello Awards. His song “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Greatest Songs Since 1923.
A wide range of musicians have recorded Thompson’s songs, including Robert Plant, Elvis Costello, R.E.M., Sleater-Kinney, Del McCoury, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Jones, David Byrne, Don Henley, and Los Lobos.
His body of work also includes numerous Grammy-nominated albums and several film scores, including Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man and the 2019 documentary The Cold Blue.
Thompson’s genre-defying command of acoustic and electric guitar, combined with his engaging energy and onstage wit, continues to earn him new fans and strengthen his reputation as one of folk rock’s most distinctive virtuosos and songwriters.
Hippies, Thugs and Heroes will be available digitally, on CD, and on standard black vinyl.
A limited clear-with-black-splatter vinyl edition with an autographed insert, as well as a limited CD edition signed by Thompson, will be available at independent retailers.
Rough Trade will offer a limited pink-marbled vinyl edition featuring an autographed insert and a bonus flexi-disc containing a demo recording of “Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking.”
A limited yellow-with-black-splatter vinyl edition with an autographed insert, along with a limited signed CD edition, is available for pre-order through New West Records.
Hippies, Thugs and Heroes Tracklist
1. Sorcerer’s Apprentice
2. Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking
3. Pauper’s Grave
4. Unsung Hero
5. Make Believe You Don’t Know Me
6. She Burns It All
7. Everybody’s Stealing
8. The Soul in Me
9. Pipe Dreams
10. The Big Smoke
11. Stringer
12. Siren
Richard Thompson on Tour
August 2 – Cambridge, United Kingdom – Cambridge Folk Festival
August 14 – Banbury, United Kingdom – Fairport’s Cropredy Convention
August 21 – Beckenham, United Kingdom – St George’s Church Hall
August 22 – Beccles, United Kingdom – FolkEast
August 23 – Ottery St Mary, United Kingdom – Beautiful Days
September 4 – Buxton, United Kingdom – Buxton Opera House
September 10 – Poole, United Kingdom – Lighthouse Poole
September 11 – Stroud, United Kingdom – Subscription Rooms
September 12 – Bromyard, United Kingdom – Bromyard Folk Festival
September 13 – Bradford-on-Avon, United Kingdom – Wiltshire Music Centre
November 20 – Elkton, MD – Elkton Music Hall
November 21 – Montclair, NJ – Outpost in the Burbs’ Concert for Toni’s Kitchen
