Get Loud and Rich tonight

He’s played before the queen of England, scored soundtracks, redefined genres — and Jimi Hendrix even sat in with his band at bar gigs. But while entertainers like Jessica Simpson play to sold-out arena audiences, Richard Thompson is playing small clubs and theaters.

Thompson is a British-born singer-songwriter and guitar player whose lyricism matches luminaries like John Prine, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and whose guitar playing has been compared to that of Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton. He’s appearing tonight at the Paramount with singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III as part of the musicians’ “Loud and Rich” tour.

While neither has had the commercial success of a Justin Timberlake — Wainwright’s best-known number is the tragic tale of road kill in “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)” — both have loyal audiences and strong fan bases.

“We have played together before, but not in the United States. Our styles are different, but we’re both singer-songwriters, so there is an overlap. It’s a pretty good mix of styles and music,” Thompson said in a telephone interview.

“We’ve known each other since the 1970s. We’re friends, so it’s good to be on the road together and to share a stage with someone you respect and like.”

Thompson’s guitar has backed such movies as “Grizzly Man.” In concert he covers songs from “Shenandoah” to “Oops, I Did it Again.” His songwriting features wry and literate lyrics over catchy melodies bolstered by a guitar style that evokes a kilt-clad Chet Atkins six-stringing through the Scottish highlands. His

vocals can be playful, woeful or threatening, sometimes within the same song.

Although he’s long been a favorite with critics, critical acclaim doesn’t equate to riches and fame.

“I have no envy at all,” Thompson said of those better known.

“Because I don’t get on the radio that much, it’s hard for people to find me. When they do, whether it’s on the radio or the Internet, if they like my music, they tend to be very loyal. One of the benefits to that is that your audience appreciates your music for what it is. I feel no pressure to produce anything that’s commercially successful, that’s going to be the next big thing. I get to please myself and, if I do that, I know there’s a sizable audience that is likely to appreciate it, as well.”

Thompson is driven to write.

He’s composed more than 400 songs ranging from hook-driven love songs to musical novellas.

He’s been known to deeply research a topic to get it right, including forays into the British motorcycle scene in “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” a song as much about love as bikes.

“I get twitchy when I don’t write. When writing’s going bad, and it sometimes does, when I don’t get something written successfully, I’m hard to get along with,” he said. “I write for pleasure and I write for fun.”

Part of the pleasure is the putting his product before the people.

“I get involved in the writing, and sometimes I do check myself and say, ‘This is too obscure.’ It’s important that your songs communicate,” he said.

“You can write something you’re very pleased with, but if the people are scratching their heads and not applauding when you’re done, you haven’t communicated. You have to speak to an audience in a way that people understand.”

That’s more important when the song is intensely personal.

“You have to figure out a way to [perform the song] so that it doesn’t rip you to shreds every night,” he said.

“You want to communicate the emotion you felt when writing, but if you put all of your emotion and feelings into every song and you do it every night, you’d spontaneously combust.”

Thompson’s musicianship attracts his fan base, but his influences make his sound hard to define.

“I’d be very happy not to have a genre. It’s tough with records stores and record companies if they can’t find a neat little bin to put your record in,” he said.

“When I went to see Jerry Lee Lewis in the U.K., he would love to [upset] his audience by coming out and playing four or five country songs when he knew the audience wanted to hear rock and roll. Then he’d break out rocking and everything would be forgiven, but he made his point.”

So what is Thompson’s genre?

“I’m more rock than folk, but I’m more folk than rock,” he laughed. “It’s just nice to have a job that you can do what you really want to do and have a career where you get paid for having fun and doing what you love.”