Randy Thompson

Randy Thompson isn't interested in the easy road. He'd rather follow the sound in his heart than try to take a path someone else mapped out for him. He's not interested in someone elses idea of what he should sound like.That's why the title of his third album, That's Not Me, is a tad ironic. Because the music Randy Thompson makes is completely, wholeheartedly his own. "I've always been into music that's real," says the Virginia native. "I like music that's raw rather than overly produced or processed, and I like songs that sound like their torn from some ones life rather than being overly sentimental or slick. For me, music is about emotion and what we feel in our daily lives. It's not just entertainment."That's why when Thompson names his influences- Hank Williams, Joe Ely, Steve Young among them - he cites artists who have lived the songs they sing. Like those artists, Thompson takes real-life situations and turns them into red-dirt poetry with a pulse."There's a deep honky-tonk stomp at the core of Thompson's modern country sound, and there's a smart swagger to his concise, colorful lyrics and arrangements. Call it outlaw music if you must, or call it Americana, alternative country or any other term tagged to those who make roots music that doesn't easily fit into categories. Strip away the marketing terms, and what exists is the sound of a talented, broad-shouldered man who knows what he wants- and whose songs acknowledge that even the best intentioned souls can't control the forces of life around them."The restless moon is going my way," Thompson sings in "Sound of the Rain," and the entire album deals with the tension between the tug of freedom and the road and the anchor of relationships and responsibility. Lyrically, the songs mix danger and regret with hard-earned truths.That's what Randy Thompson means when he says he wants his songs to be real. And it's that sense of reality, in all its trouble and glory, which runs throughout Thompson's songs.