Who: Richard Thompson
What: Richard Thompson Trio live
Where: The Town Hall, 123 West 43rd St.
When: Friday, June 26, $35-$75, 8:00
Why: On “Beatnik Walking” from his new album, Still (Fantasy, June 23), Richard Thompson sings, “Good things come in threes,” and so it will be this Friday, when the Richard Thompson Trio plays the Town Hall. The new record was produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who added sweet touches to another stellar collection of tunes from one of the world’s greatest guitarists and songwriters. The sixty-six-year-old Thompson has been at it since he was a teenager in Fairport Convention, hitting a peak with a series of albums with his then-wife, Linda, in the 1970s and early 1980s, then going it solo for the past three decades. Still finds Thompson in fine form, shifting smoothly between acoustic folk and electric blues, with gorgeous riffs and his trademark biting lyrics about the pain of love on such songs as “She Never Could Resist a Winding Road,” “Patty Don’t You Put Me Down,” “All Buttoned Up,” “Broken Doll,” and “Long John Silver.” Live, Thompson is a consummate performer, with a wickedly wry sense of humor and a playful rapport with the audience — but don’t call out songs you want to hear unless he asks. He makes fun of his own six-string virtuosity on the album’s final song, “Guitar Heroes,” in which he explains, “Oh, I can’t go out with my friends on a Saturday night / My guitar’s like a woman and you know I got to treat her right / I’ve got to practice all night and day / I’ve got to play the way my heroes play / I gotta learn how to do it” — and them namechecks, and plays like, such masters as Django Reinhardt, Les Paul, Chuck Berry, and James Burton. The Richard Thompson Trio, featuring Taras Prodaniuk on bass and Michael Jerome on drums, will be at the Town Hall with Doug Paisley opening; be sure to get there early, because at a recent gig, Paisley was ill, so Thompson went on in his place, performing an acoustic set before coming out with the trio.