Indescribable, but . . . : Richard Thompson, Man of Many Parts, Coming to Coach House

Few things may be as frustrating for us rock critic types as trying to describe the music of Richard Thompson.

Sure, we’ll go on about his eclecticism--spanning ancient Celtic hornpipe tunes and electric avant-garde explorations--and how he is a peerless, literate writer of songs both ludic and fell, and a nothing-less-than-splendid guitarist, and the creator of two of Rolling Stone’s “100 best albums of the Last 20 years,” and beloved by all the woodland creatures from John Mellencamp to Crowded House to Elvis Costello to Pere Ubu’s David Thomas.

But all the while there is a nagging certainty that we’re no more describing Thompson than the proverbial blind men had a complete image of the elephant.

Thompson’s is the sort of work that drives home Martin Mull’s adage that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Perhaps wisely then, the British songwriter is not terribly prone to describing his music, giving the impression that he enjoys discussing his songs about as much as your cat enjoys having his teeth cleaned. Although always gentlemanly in interviews, he also can be cheerfully evasive, guarding the one-to-one relationship of his songs to their listeners.

Those songs have been finding more listeners of late. His “Amnesia” album of last year made few inroads on commercial radio (though a cover of his older “Tear-Stained Letter” proved a Top 10 country hit for Jo-el Sonnier), but it sold well enough for Capitol Records to pick up the option on his contract. Thompson also has spent nearly seven of the last nine months on the road, most recently performing solo on Crowded House and Bonnie Raitt tours.

Although some stops, such as Monday and Tuesday night’s Coach House shows with Raitt, are venues that Thompson previously has filled on his own, the opening slots most often have taken him into new halls and before new audiences.

He has a fair amount of experience at playing for audiences unfamiliar with his music. “I once did a whole solo tour of Scandinavia, which was almost pointless. I don’t think anyone noticed, ever, on any night of this tour that I was even on stage. It was a tour of discos, where they’d turn off the disco for an hour and throw me on in the middle, which was the last thing I think that anybody wanted to hear.”

Thompson has fared considerably better on the recent tours. “I have to admit that with Crowded House I was nervous every night before going on, though it turned out to be great fun. It went surprisingly well considering they have a young audience; there were actually screamers and stuff.”

Thompson said that performing solo, without support from a band or a battery of equipment, can leave one “totally vulnerable, and that can either be stimulating--really bracing--or terrifying. It’s also cheaper.” Offsetting the risks of performing alone, he said, is that “you can get more intimate on stage. You can get more stillness, and you can put lyrics across more. And you can be slightly more flexible, looser in what you do. You can actually pull out a song you haven’t played in 20 years and try it, which is harder to do with a band.”

When he does tour with a band again--which he anticipates doing next spring--he expects it will be considerably different from his previous lineups. One change is that singer/musicians Clive Gregson and Christine are now “overqualified” for the job, having had an encouraging amount of success with their own music (very worth checking out on their Rhino Records “Mischief” album).

But his new band also will be a departure, he said, because he thinks his new music will require it. He plans to enter the studio this fall, and he said the result should be “a step sideways, as opposed to my usual kind of record.” He wasn’t anxious to discuss which direction that step may be, claiming, “Talking about unfinished things can be a great dissipater of energy.”

Thompson’s previous records are wildly varied enough to leave one wondering what possible direction he hasn’t already assayed. As a founder of Fairport Convention, he was one of the architects of British folk-rock, updating ancient reels and ballads. Under his own name he has recorded scarifyingly antic rockers, folk-based tunes, jazz, Cajun, country and more. The list of artists he has guested or collaborated with include the Golden Palominos, Maria McKee, Crowded House, David Thomas and guitar banshees Henry Kaiser and Fred Frith.

Thompson’s non-musical hobbies lately include “knocking walls down and stuff like that,” making it handy that he owns two homes, one in London and one in Santa Monica. Although the brooding themes of many of his songs seem better suited to the fog than the surf, he said it makes little difference where he writes.

“I think inspiration is anywhere that the phone rings less. I think it may be easier, though, to write about Europe from America and about America from Europe. It gives you a bit of perspective.”

That geographical distance might come in handy for “Amnesia’s” incisive societal observations “Yankee Go Home” and “Jerusalem on the Jukebox.” More often, though, Thompson’s songs deal with the distances found in the heart. Thompson is a Sufi Muslim, and some of his songs seem to draw from the classical Sufi poets’ way of layering meanings into a supposedly simple form.

“I’m a student of that stuff, and it’s all based on the love song, and Western music is based on the love song as well. Love songs, love poetry, is a great vehicle. Shakespeare used it, (13th-Century Sufi poet Jalaludin) Rumi used it and the Everly Brothers used it. It’s an interesting field.

So what is it about love?

“Some would say it’s the basis of the universe, without which molecules would not vibrate, planes wouldn’t fly and life wouldn’t be worth living.”

If many of his songs dwell on love’s disappointments, Thompson believes there is a pressingly contemporary reason for it.

“A lot of my songs are stories or little snippets of stories, and in writing about life in the 20th Century there’s a lot of disappointment in people’s lives, much more so than in other centuries. People are very dissatisfied with their lot. They’re dissatisfied with their sex, dissatisfied with their jobs, dissatisfied with their income, with their spouse, children, parents, everything. And it seems to get worse and worse. I think there’s a lot of that in the songs I write.

“I think people now are told that they can have it all and there’s no limit, and why shouldn’t they be the ones to have the wealth and the consumer goods and the gorgeous wife. It’s really thrown at people through cinema and advertisements, which wasn’t the case 100 years ago. A hundred years ago, if you were a farmer, then you were a farmer, and you rather accepted it, and you weren’t going to be anything else and you took satisfaction in what you did. I think people now all want to be something else.

“This dissatisfaction may be a good thing in the end, it may lead people to some spiritual value, but at the moment it just makes people slaves to consumerism and victims to disappointment,” he said. The little spirituality he does note in our culture, he said, is “of the weekend kind: ‘It’s Friday--time to put on the beads.’ ”

Thompson’s often weighty music has earned him a considerable cult following, though some take the “cult” part more seriously than others. Does he have problems with fans seeking him out expecting the answers to life?

“Yes. But I set them straight,” he said with a laugh, “Once a day, once a week, it happens sometimes. In one sense it’s flattering because people do take music very seriously, and I’m glad people take it that seriously, but there are limits.”

Richard Thompson and Bonnie Raitt sing Monday at 8 p.m. and Tuesday at 8 and 10:30 p.m. at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $25 to $29.50.