RON THOMPSON: Still Resisting

Ron Thompson

Still Resisting

© 2004 Ron Thompson (825346635828)

CD OUT OF STOCK for re-production. Expect long delays.

If you want us to email you the minute this CD arrives, enter your name and email address here. We will not give or sell your info to anyone, and will not use it for any other reason than to tell you when it arrives.

"Still Resisting" is considered by Mick Fleetwood to be one of the world's truly legitimate blues documents, along with Boom Boom (John Lee Hooker), Blues is King (B.B. King), and the Very Best of Buddy Guy.

notes

Not many living blues musicians can say they have performed with and recorded for legends like Big Mama Thornton, Sonny Rhodes, Luther Tucker, Jimmy McCracklin, Pee Wee Crayton, Carla Thomas, Booker T. Jones, Percy Mayfield, Etta James, B.B. King, and Jimmy Reed. Ron Thompson can, and that’s just the beginning!

Ron Thompson is a legendary rhythm and blues guitarist and master keyboardist whose career began in the rough and tumble world of East San Francisco Bay nightclubs and bars in the early ‘70s. During many years of touring coast to coast with John Lee Hooker, Hooker was quoted as saying, "Ron Thompson, he's my main man!"

After serving as John Lee Hooker’s bandleader for seven years, Thompson went on to form his own group, Ron Thompson and His Resisters, and toured extensively in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Central America. In the early 80’s, Ron met Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac) and the two became musical partners and close friends. Mick convinced Ron to move to Los Angeles where they formed the band, Mick Fleetwood’s Blue Whale.

Ron Thompson was recently honored by the City of San Francisco for his decades of musical contributions. A few days after Barry Bonds got "his day" in The City for breaking the all-time American baseball home run record, San Francisco celebrated its own musical home run king, Ron Thompson. By official proclamation of Mayor Gavin Newsom, September 5, 2007, was declared "Ron Thompson Day in San Francisco."

Tom Mazzolini, founder and producer of the San Francisco Blues Festival, the longest running blues festival in the United States, said, “I’ve always felt Ron is the most talented blues guitarist I’ve ever seen. He can do it all. He’s extraordinarily gifted. What many folks aren’t aware of is that Ron was a huge asset in the re-emergence of John Lee Hooker. He was the foundation for that boogie sound.”

Thompson performed extensively in 2007, including a summer tour with Chris Isaak; two shows with Bruce Willis; a week on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise in October with such musical VIPs as Taj Mahal and Elvin Bishop; as well as headlining a number of festivals throughout the United States.

Thompson headlined the 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love Concert in Golden Gate Park last September, sharing the bill with legends such as Jefferson Starship, Canned Heat, Jesse Colin Young, and many others. A two hour documentary of the concert, which began with Thompson's sizzling performance, was aired in the San Francisco Bay Area recently, and will soon be nationally syndicated.

In 2008, Thompson will be touring the Northwest, Colorado, the Midwest, and has a European tour in the works.

Andy Grigg, music critic for Real Blues magazine, wrote: “If you haven’t experienced Ron T. ‘live’ I can’t even begin to convey the absolute go-for-broke Blues rave-ups and sweat-soaked pandemonium Thompson and his Resistors dispense on a nightly basis. When it comes to slide guitar workouts, I would say he's the Best in the World, and yet the man sings his ass off too.”

Thompson was nominated for a Grammy for his album “Resistor Twister.” Thompson has received countless awards and accolades, including Real Blues magazine’s Best Live West Coast Blues Act, Best West Coast Blues Slide Guitarist, and Best West Coast Blues Guitarist/Modern for 2004.

Thompson’s extensive discography includes five of his own albums, much studio work, and several European anthologies. Not only has he shared the stage with numerous blues luminaries, Thompson has performed with or recorded for such musical greats as Fleetwood Mac, Chris Isaak, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Elvin Bishop, Bill Medley, Huey Lewis, Dr. John, songwriter Bobby Womak, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Cray Band, Z.Z. Top, and legions of others artists.

Shortly after recording with Chris Isaak on San Francisco Days and touring to promote the album, Thompson was called on stage. Isaak introduced him, telling the audience, "You might think these crowd barriers are here to keep you away from the stage. They're not. They're here to keep Ron Thompson away from you!”

Steve Cropper, one of the founding members of both Booker T. and the MG's and The Mar-Keys, (and who has also written songs with Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, and dozens of others) once said of Ron, “What this guy knows, you can’t get out of a book.”

Thompson’s latest all-solo CD, Resonator, was released in January 2007. Ron recorded on guitar, mandolin, piano, and vocals—and then mixed it all together for an unbelievable, quadruple threat, all-Ron Thompson recording. Most of the material is comprised of original Ron Thompson compositions.

reviews

Please log in to review this album.

  • Ron Thompson
    author: Bob Barnard

    I first heard Ron in San Rafael, Cal.on the fourth of july in the early 80's. Having been the drummer for a group called the cinndermen in the 60's, Iknew this guy was simply the best--and he was and still is! I love this guy.I still have a 45 of his Bob Barnard

  • I LOVE THIS GUY!
    author: Nancy Larson

    I'm not a musician or a music critic. I only know that if a CD doesn't make me sit up and listen within the first 30 seconds I don't buy it. This CD not only made me sit up and listen, it grabbed my attention and would not let go. I can't decide which song is my favorite, but there's not a bad one in the bunch.

  • Yet to hear an album that captures what Thompson is like live
    author: Mike McCarthy

    This is my second RT album (I also have Resistor Twister) and again I'm disappointed. After listening to "Still Resisting" I dug out a bootleg recording I made of a mid-80's performance at Niles Station and the difference was night and day. That live performance is as intense as anything I've ever heard. In my mind I can see RT struttin', guitar held high and close to his chest, sweat flying....some of the best musical performances I've ever witnessed. I remember a time he played a ballad, and to fade out as the song ended, he backed away from the microphone, the sound falling with each step, but the gain still high, the sound system still crackling with energy. I swear the woman I was with was going to melt in her chair. She gasped like she was born again. It was hot. This album, though, like Resistor Twister, is just too damn clean...enen polite. No sweat flying, no sound system throbbing. It's good, but it's not HOT. (Damn, after listening to this album I'm thinking "I want to see a live show again. I want to sit in a stuffy bar with the music really loud and with every eye in the room on RT, watching every move he makes.")

  • Great CD! Looking forward to seeing Ron Thompson in Duluth this summer.
    author: Bob Schrank

    I ordered Still Resisting because I saw Ron Thompson & His Resistors listed on the performance schedule for the Bayfront Blues Festival (my religious holidays) in Duluth, MN this August. This CD is on my most often played list, and I'm looking forward to hearing them live this summer.

  • exellent
    author: john bell

    very good cd with every song a killer, not a filler.

  • One of the best slide guitarists on the planet
    author: Blues Revue

    BLUES REVUE The World’s Blues Magazine Issue 99, April/May 2006. "Still Resisting" is a reissue (with two added tracks) of this West Coast slide sensation’s Grammy-nominated Resistor Twister from 1986. Ron Thompson came to prominence in the 1970s as leader of John Lee Hooker’s Coast to Coast Blues Band, and he’s performed and recorded with B.B. King, Etta James, Fleetwood Mac, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, and Santana, among others. Nonetheless, he’s been his own man for most of his career. This is one of those albums that makes you wonder why an artist isn’t more famous. The 12 tracks offer variety, with four originals, three instrumentals, and well-chosen covers from the familiar (Slim Harpo’s “Hip Shake” and Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I Do,” both previously unreleased) and the obscure (Eddie Taylor’s “Looking for Trouble” and Oakland blues legend Bob Geddings’ “The Gamble.”) Especially enjoyable are the frantic, slide-infused versions of Bill Haley’s “13 Women,” Eddie Cochran’s “Nervous Breakdown” and Little Willie John’s (via the Blasters) “I’m Shakin’.” Thompson’s affinity for rockabilly is refreshing; he knows how to have fun. His nimble, lyrical slide soars and swoons with a feral intensity reminiscent of Dave Hole or the Sacred Steel guitarists; indeed, his explosive instrumental take on “Swing Down Sweet Chariot” will endear him to Sacred Steel aficionados. Two more jaw-dropping instrumentals, the supersonic “Monkey Fiddle” and the slithering “Resistor Twister,” should further bolster Thompson’s reputation as one of the best slide guitarists on the planet. His other originals are quite disparate: the rollicking, Elmore James-inspired “Freight Train Let Me Ride,” and “Way Too Early,” a country ballad. Thompson is a restrained vocalist who keeps his fiery playing in the forefront; he’s also an accomplished harpist in the style of Jimmy Reed. If you missed this one last time around, don’t resist Thompson this time. -- THOMAS J. CULLEN III

  • A man who IS a genuine phenomenon
    author: julie saldana

    My husband and I only become acquainted with Ron and his music last October and get to see him, live, every Thursday night. We are now fans and definately in awe of this man's skills. If you are a true lover of the blues this CD must become part of your collection.

  • The Thompson Tornado!
    author: Andy Grigg, Real Blues Magazine

    I believe that the ‘unofficial’ duty of ‘True’Musicians is to keep the rest of us pathetic humans reminded of what life should be about, i.e. JOY!…absolute joy…and on a consistent basis. Yet, we lose touch with all the things that brought us hope, happiness and meaning as we became slaves to jobs and the ‘ritualized-pursuit-of-wealth’ a.k.a. self-abuse. Great music serves as a reminder that we were once free and that we had plans that had nothing to do with mortgage payments or hair-loss. Some artists have always personified Absolute Uninhibited Joy: Hank Ballard, James Harman (he’s just a little grouchy now!), Magic Sam, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Wayne Cochran, Robert Gordon and Ron Thompson, The Human Dynamo. Joy involvement should be a daily exercise for North Americans and I would suggest an hour of Huey Smith, Lee Dorsey and Howlin’ Wolf, leading up to our contemporary Joy-Meister Ron Thompson. If you haven’t experienced Ron T. ‘live’ I can’t even begin to convey the absolute go-for-broke Blues rave-ups and sweat-soaked pandemonium Thompson and his Resistors dispense on a nightly basis, but this album does a pretty good job at giving you a big ‘taste’ of The Thompson Tornado. My first Ron Thompson experience was in 1978 at The Rising Sun Jazz & Blues Club in Montreal, a small, funky ‘perfect’ Blues venue. Ron was John Lee Hooker’s bandleader/guitarist at the time (most of the 1970s) and as Hooker and other Blues Legends were in town to play the first Montreal Blues Festival put on by Dou-Dou Boicel, all the various bands congregated (minus leaders) at The Sun. For the 2-3 dozen hard-core Blues Fans assembled it was a dream come true and with much of the audience Blues veterans, we got to hear a different kind of Blues Party as they played for each other. With Eddie C. Campbell, Billy Branch, Freddie Dixon, Jimmy Tillman and Big Moose Walker checking him out from 15-feet away, Ron Thompson led his trio (The Coast-to-Coast Blues Band) through a super-charged repertoire that climaxed with the very best version of “Hideaway” I’ve ever heard (and I’ve heard hundreds!). Very interested in how the Chicago crew was responding I kept one eye and one ear on their big table and I laughed when Freddie Dixon and Branch looked at each other in disbelief and Moose started yellin’ “Yeah!” By the end of “Hideaway” they were all animated Ron Thompson fans which kinda says it all folks. If you can impress Eddie C., Magic Sam’s and Luther Allison’s old running partner. I got to see Ron 2 or 3 more times in Kitchener, Ontario when it was the most ‘happening’ Blues spot in Canada (outside of Calgary) and Ron had The Hoodoo Lounge packed house absolutely drenched in sweat and in a state of ‘religious conversion’, the state that is seldom achieved by so many lesser performers. Howlin’ Wolf had it…Lefty Dizz had it…King Biscuit Boy had it (when he wanted it) and Ron Thompson is a master inducer of it. He did a 2-hour set, walked through the standing-room-only stomping crowd and proceeded to keep playing in the washroom by himself until the break was over…people were running around yelling, “He’s playin’ in the washroom!” and we grinned…ain’t that a man! Oh yeah, the CD…it’s all magical mojo music with Ron on fire from start to finish. The man becomes possessed by the music and it’s Blues guitar Heaven throughout. “Swing Down Chariot” and “Monkey Fiddle” are humbling when it comes to slide guitar workouts (I would say he's the Best in the World) and yet the man sings his ass off too and blows a mean harp also. “Looking for Trouble” is a great Chicago Blues tribute to Eddie Taylor followed by “Honest I Do”, but “Freight Train Let Me Ride” and “Resistor Twister” will hit you with a hatchet. The greatest mystery on earth is why Ron Thompson and artists like him aren’t headliners at EVERY music festival on this troubled planet. He could certainly heal millions with his prescription of Joy. 6 Bottles for a mandatory ‘must have’ in 2005. …Andy Grigg, June 2005, #29

  • Drink a lot of coffee...
    author: Neil Frascatore

    I had the opportunity to perform with Ron Thompson on 1 May 05. This man is easy to work with and when the gig starts there's no breaks... it's begining to the end. A great workout for a drummer!!! I look forward on working with Ron again. Best reguards musically... Neil

  • Ron is an exceptional person. I went to High School with this dude and he is as
    author: Kevin Bodenhammer

    Ron Thompson is Blues personified. Who else would sit on Alcatraz to help his people? This guy IS the blues. I know, I knew him when he played tuba in the marching band(sorry Ron). I have never met a person that appreciated where his humble roots come from like Ron. He grew up on the shitty side of the tracks compared to me, and he wanted to learn a Chuck Berry rif that I learned. He was totally absorbed. We used to make jokes about Son House or Blind Lemmon Jefferson. But good jokes. They were our heroes,and Ron Thompson has done them proud. You did yourself proud. Kevin in Berlin, Germany

  • author: Judy McCarty

    This is a great CD. Loved every song on it and the instrumental was awesome. Ron Thompson is one of the best. I first saw him play at Larry Blakes in Berkeley about 20 years ago and have been a fan ever since

  • I could not shut it off!!
    author: Bob Pruitt

    I heard Frieght Train on xm radio. I live in South Dakota so it took me about a week to find it on CD Baby. I got it in time for a trip to San Rafael CA. EVERY SONG ON THIS CD IS KILLER AWESOME!! I played for 2hours every day on my wall. Thank you Ron this is the best.

  • Guitar virtuosity burns on every number
    author: Lee Hildebrand, SF Bay Guardian

    Oakland-born, Newark-bred singer-guitarist Ron Thompson was about the busiest bluesman in the Bay Area two decades back and has two Bammies that attest to his popularity at the time. The onetime John Lee Hooker sideman recently relocated to San Leandro after a lengthy stay in the Central Valley and has released a CD's worth of his strongest material from the '80s, much of it from the 1987 Blind Pig LP Resister Twister. The bassist and drummer who round out his trio vary from track to track (as they still do from one Thompson gig to the next). Bassists include Byron Sutton, Mike Lewis, Steve Evans, and Evan Palmerston, and the drummers are (a brief disclaimer: I've also played drums occasionally for Thompson) Larry Vann, Gary Silva, and Harold Banks. They're consistently solid, however, and the sound is never bare-boned, thanks to the leader's near simultaneous rhythm and lead parts, few if any of which are overdubbed. His guitar virtuosity burns on every number, whether he's playing slashing Mississippi Delta slide or picking brittle California-style single-string lines, and he blows squealing Jimmy Reed-style rack harmonica on a couple songs. Thompson's tenor voice is clear, unaffected, and highly emotive, particularly on such tunes as Eddie Taylor's "Looking for Trouble" ("She's got something between her legs that'll make a dead man cum," Thompson wails), Ray Agee's "The Gamble," and a treatment of Little Willie John's "I'm Shakin' " the Blasters covered quite successfully in 1981 after hearing Thompson's version (originally issued as a 45 on the Fingerpoppin' label). His raw, sweaty, juke joint-hewn take on the blues is rock 'n' roll at its most primal, and the connection is made even clearer by his manic reading of Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown." Thompson's style has changed little since these dozen sides were cut, except that he's added piano pumping to his high-energy assault.

  • another killer cd from ron thompson
    author: robert brutcher

    another killer cd from one of the greatest blues guitarist ever. if you are a fan of great slide guitar, then this cd is a must. not one weak song in the bunch. take a listen to FREIGHT TRAIN and you will know what i mean.

  • author: Don Hamilton

    Wow! Resistor Twistor + 2 It Doesn't Get Any Better Period. So Much Talent In One Man Should Be Illegal. If You Don't Listen To This And Like It Then Your Not Happen Man!

email

Please log in to email this artist.