Richard Thompson & Muireann Bradley

"To be moving is better than to be standing still," Richard Thompson says, and Richard Thompson should know. The influential singer-songwriter and virtuosic guitarist has been on a singular musical journey for over half a century, from his days in the '60s as a pioneer of British folk rock with Fairport Convention, to his seminal '70s duo work with Linda Thompson, to the exploratory, deeply emotional music of the solo career that has been his primary concern ever since. Along the way he has been touted as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time by Rolling Stone, covered by everyone from Robert Plant, R.E.M. and David Byrne to Sleater-Kinney, Bonnie Raitt, Del McCoury Band and Emmylou Harris, bestowed with the Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, and even appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by the late Queen Elizabeth II. This is his second SMF appearance, following a 2017 festival performance. Opening the show is the young Muireann Bradley from County Donegal in Ireland, a prolific and nuanced fingerstyle guitarist and singer who grew up steeped in American acoustic blues music and just released her first heralded album, I Kept These Old Blues.