Long-time fan JULIAN COLE fails to get an interview with Richard Thompson (blame the BBC for that). Instead he introduces the latest acoustic outing from the guitar great and singer-songwriter

RICHARD Thompson does things with the six strings of his guitar that shouldn't really be possible. When playing acoustically, the sounds he produces are so intricate that it is tempting to wonder if he has sprouted an extra hand. And on an electric guitar, he comes across like Jimi Hendrix's lost folk-rock cousin.

The Hendrix parallel has been made often. The Los Angeles Times felt moved to call Thompson "the finest rock songwriter after Dylan and the best electric guitarist since Hendrix".

It would have been nice to ask the great man about such comparisons and superlatives ahead of his concert at the Grand Opera House, York on August 28. Sadly, a planned interview disappeared after the BBC muscled in on all the available slots for the day.

In interviews, as on stage, the 65-year-old Thompson is an engaging mix of hesitant and sharp, as likely to drawn blood occasionally as the loose end of an unclipped steel guitar string.

He tours often and tends to move between acoustic shows and full-band performances. His last York show was part of the Dream Attic tour in January 2011, and featured Thompson alongside half a stage-full of other musicians. Before that another York highlight came in 2006, when Thompson appeared with his namesake, double-bass player Danny Thompson.

Now he is touring solo to promote Acoustic Classics, his new album featuring new recordings of his own songs, an acoustic selfie album, if you like. And definitely not "just a best-of album" as a certain member of this writer's family suggested in passing.

Thompson's own logic for the album was simple.

"I really wanted to have something that would reflect the acoustic shows," he has said. "But we didn't really have anything like that. Just some old, slightly scratchy recordings of solo sets that I wasn't really happy with."

Indeed, in an earlier interview with The Press, Thompson once pointed out that he wasn't all that pleased with a box set of curios and live recordings that had just been released, as he hadn't had any control over what was included or the quality of the recordings.

Not so on Acoustic Classics, in which he has lovingly captured every complicated note, recording the album at his own small studio at home in California, where he has lived for years in happy exile, while glancing back across the Atlantic when writing songs.

"When I'm working I can have Radio Four streaming on my laptop, " he told me in an earlier interview, adding that if he gets up early enough, he can watch British football on the TV in Los Angeles, too – "Chelsea versus Manchester United, that sort of thing".

There are 14 songs on the album, starting with his 1974 hit with his then wife Linda, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, now given a driving, chunky beat – creating a different feel from the original, not least thanks to Linda's absence.

Also given a reboot are Dimming Of The Day, Wall Of Death, I Misunderstood and the lovely Beeswing. Shoot Out The Lights is usually an extended amplifier affair, but here Thompson approaches the song in a layered, almost jazzy manner.

"As the author, I feel allowed to do a version of any song," he says.

Shoot Out The Lights "is an electric workout in original form, and something I can tinker with endlessly in the acoustic form because there's so much open space in it. I can take a number of approaches with that one".

Down Where The Drunkards Roll is a blast from a long way back in Thompson's past. "That's a quasi-adolescent song about a world I don't inhabit any more, a drinking club in London that I used to drift in and out of," he says.

Also among the songs featured is 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, always a concert favourite. In a sense this seems a strange choice, as the original 1991 recording is acoustic. Thompson's explanation is simple: he was never that happy with the original.

"This is a better version," he says. "I wanted to have another crack at it. And if I was doing a record of acoustic classics and didn't put it on, people might not have liked it."

Richard Thompson plays the Grand Opera House, York on August 28.