Artist · chart history · #40 in indie & aaa artist polls
Richard Thompson
Solo artist Notting Hill United Kingdom UK folk rock singer/songwriter/guitarist
Richard Thompson is an artist from Notting Hill. Richard Thompson has 86 chart appearances on 53 radio countdowns from 12 stations on RockLists, spanning 1989–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”, which appears on 38 lists with a best position of #2. The station that charted Richard Thompson most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 23 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2013.
Richard Thompson, the London-born guitarist with a songwriter's eye for trouble, first made his name as a founder of Fairport Convention in 1967, playing lead guitar and writing songs for a band that plugged folk into rock. He left in 1971, made his solo debut with Henry the Human Fly the following year, and then teamed up with his wife Linda: 6 albums as Richard and Linda Thompson, among them the acclaimed I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight and Shoot Out the Lights.
When the duo came apart he went it alone again with Hand of Kindness in 1983, and by Rumor and Sigh in 1991 he had the formula honed to a razor's edge: virtuoso guitar that can sting on electric and dance on acoustic, and songs with a sharp eye and a dark heart. That album earned a Grammy nomination, and "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" became the one people keep coming back to; Time magazine later put it on its All-TIME 100 Songs list. Mirror Blue followed in 1994 with "Beeswing" and "MGB-GT".
He plays mandolin and Appalachian dulcimer too, collected an OBE in 2011 and the Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting a year later, and told the story of his early years in the 2021 memoir Beeswing.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Richard Thompson on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1952 Vincent Black Lightning | 38 | #2 | – | – | |
| 2 | Beeswing | 8 | #124 | – | – | |
| 3 | Persuasion | 6 | #85 | – | – | |
| 4 | Wall of Death | 7 | #286 | – | – | |
| 5 | I Feel So Good | 2 | #381 | – | – | |
| 6 | Tear Stained Letter | 3 | #391 | – | – | |
| 7 | Good Things Happen To Bad People | 1 | #32 | – | 2013 | |
| 8 | Hide It Away | 1 | #599 | – | – | |
| 9 | Haul Me Up | 1 | #30 | – | 2010 | |
| 10 | Maybe | 1 | #40 | – | 2024 | |
| 11 | Shoot Out The Lights | 2 | #468 | – | – | |
| 12 | All Buttoned Up | 1 | #431 | – | – | |
| 13 | She Said It Was Destiny | 1 | #446 | – | – | |
| 14 | Saving The Good Stuff For You | 1 | #604 | – | – | |
| 15 | Dad's Gonna Kill Me | 1 | #529 | – | – | |
| 16 | I Can't Wake Up | 1 | #1179 | – | – | |
| 17 | Oops! I Did It Again | 1 | #508 | – | – | |
| 18 | Cooksferry Queen | 1 | #595 | – | – | |
| 19 | MGB-GT | 1 | #627 | – | – | |
| 20 | Read About Love | 1 | #701 | – | – | |
| 21 | Crawl Back (Under My Stone) | 1 | #700 | – | – | |
| 22 | Gethsemane | 1 | #738 | – | – | |
| 23 | I Misunderstood | 1 | #783 | – | – | |
| 24 | Beatnik Walking | 1 | #83 | – | 2015 | |
| 25 | Let It Blow | 1 | #839 | – | – | |
| 26 | I'Ll Tag Along | 1 | #842 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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