Linda Thompson

[An interview feature I wrote in 2013 to coincide with the release of Linda Thompson's solo album Won't Be Long Now. First published in RnR, November/December 2013.]

A new album from Linda Thompson is always an event. As one half of a duo with her then husband, Richard, she made some of the most enduring folk-rock albums of the 1970s. In the 80s, newly divorced, she struck out on her own. Since then, often with long intervals, she’s turned in a number of highly acclaimed recordings which confirm her pre-eminence as a folk-narrative voice. TV talent contests are stuffed with wannabees who can emote, or at least act out emotion; Won’t Be Long Now reintroduces us to a true storyteller in song. 

Hers is a versatile voice. After cutting her teeth in folk clubs, she first earned a living in the London of the 1960s by singing pop jingles for TV commercials. Over the years Linda has sung rock, country, even cabaret numbers. But the new album feels like a determined return to her ‘roots’ in folk music. I began our interview by asking her whether this was a deliberate choice. “When I started this project I wanted it to be quite trad and simple instrumentally,“ she explained. “Apart from [my grandson] Zak’s blistering solo on ‘As Fast As My Feet Can Carry Me’ it's a pretty acoustic sound.” In the 80s, arguably, she grew a little too enamoured of then modish electronica. One Clear Moment, her first solo album, made in 1985, was awash with synthesisers – no danger of that here. 

The opening track of the new release, written by Linda herself, finds her duetting with her old partner, and sounds almost as if it could have come off one of the Richard and Linda albums of the 70s. Was it easy to get back into old ways of working? “Well, trying to recreate our monster hits was never going to be easy! Richard came into the studio in New York, did the session, then we all went to see him do a gig at City Winery. I still think of him as a family member. Is that normal?”

Actually, yes – working with family is very much the norm in Linda’s world. The Thompson clan are close friends with those other great dynasties, the Waterson-Carthys and the Wainwright-McGarrigles. Apart from Richard and Zak, the new album features her daughters Muna and Kami as well as bassist Jack Thompson (Richard’s son by his second marriage). Her closest collaborator, though, is Teddy Thompson, who shares many writing credits. How does the writing process go, I wondered. Is it a lyrics/music split, or more complex? “It’s a little more complex. We’re mother and son, so we don’t work in the same room – and half the year at least we live on different sides of the globe. He usually does the tune, or I’ll have a bit of a tune, and he does the rest. I email him lyrics and sometimes that works well. Working with your family is quite a folksy thing. I’ve always thought how good harmony sounds when it’s sung by blood relatives.” 

As a young woman she used to feel intimidated by the songwriters in her circle. In fact, when asked at parties “what she did”, she’d tell people she was an “interior designer”. Does she have more confidence now in her own writing? “That depends really. I still revere great writers, so I wouldn't say I'm at all cocky in their company.” One younger talent she reaches out to is Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith; they collaborate on a charming co-write, ‘If I Were A Blackbird’. She has also returned to Tony Callen’s setting of a Charles Causley poem, which she first learned over forty years ago from then boyfriend Paul McNeill. “That poem encapsulates life for me. Great tune, too.” She’s pleased to hear that, coincidentally, Jim Causley has just put out an album of settings of his relative’s work (“Ooh, that’s interesting,” she enthuses, “I’ll buy that!”)

‘Paddy’s Lamentation’, one of two traditional songs on the album, was used in the soundtrack of Gangs of New York. Although Linda wasn’t involved in the film-making, there was a connection to Martin Scorsese’s people through producer Hal Willner. “I was able to sing very freely on that session,” she recalls, “so I loved it. I have huge admiration for Hal.”

Another song, ‘Mr Tams’, unites her with Eliza and Martin Carthy, Susan McKeown and legendary fiddler Dave Swarbrick. It evokes a difficult point in her life. Her relationship with Richard had collapsed by the time of their 1982 US tour, the infamous “Tour from Hell” where she was not above kicking her soon-to-be-ex on the shins during performances. She’s always said that, on her return to England, John Tams “saved her life” by engaging her to sing with the Home Service in a production of the medieval Mystery plays. “Tam gave me a job at The National Theatre. Eight shows a week, two young kids and a newborn baby kept me busy, and got me through that time – as did my sainted mother.” The song is her way so saying thank you.

It’s often forgotten that acting is in Linda’s blood. When she first moved south from Glasgow in the late 60s, she enrolled briefly at LAMDA, one of London’s top drama schools. “I was there until a teacher told me I’d be good at comedy – then I left,” she laughs. Screen cameos continue to figure in her diverse career, though. In 1985 she sang ‘Isolation’ and ‘Watching The Wheels’ in a BBC drama about John Lennon starring Bernard Hill. How did she get that gig? “I wish I could remember who asked me to do it, but I can’t. I do remember working with Paul Jones. I sang something that I didn’t like and said, ‘Jesus Christ!’ He said, ‘You’re talking about the man I love’. I think he was serious, too. Bless him!”

The 1970s were an era of high drama in her life. When Richard converted to Sufism, she joined him in a succession of communes and squats. But the ascetic life, and the subservience required of women in such communities, were not for her, especially with two young children. A low point was when the couple toured with a group of Muslim musicians. The tour consisted of religious-inspired music that she and Richard rarely performed again. When I ask how she regards those songs 35 years down the line, the answer makes me regret asking: “Frankly, I have blocked that time and that stuff out of my mind, thanks very much.”

As well as the new album, this year sees the CD reissue of Rock On, a curious one-off project from 1972 which brought together past and present members of Fairport Convention (plus selected friends) in a run-through of their rock’n’roll favourites. I’ve always loved Linda’s work on that album – especially the duet with Sandy Denny on the Everly Brothers’ ‘When Will I Be Loved’, and her solo take on ‘La Bamba’ which is included as a bonus track. It sounds like they were all having a ball, I suggest. She agrees: “We did have a ball, living and working at Virgin Manor, somewhere in the countryside. Lots of Bacchanalian behaviour! Trevor Lucas was at the helm, and I loved him.”

In 2005 she gingerly stepped out in public for Strange How Potent, a fascinating programme of music-hall and vaudeville songs at the Lyric, Hammersmith. Dressed in a battered coat and hat, she proved as effective an ambassador for these sentimental old ditties as they are ever likely to find. Hopes are high that the recording made of that show will be released in the new year. 

And yet, for all the high points, her career has its share of might-have-beens. After the split from Richard and the untimely death in 1978 of her best friend Sandy Denny, in whose shadow she’d always felt somewhat insecure, she might have taken the dominant place in British music she deserves but which has somehow eluded her. She made a country rock album for CBS in 1987, which remains unreleased. One reason – it was at this point she was struck down, not for the first time, with dysphonia, the debilitating condition that has prevented her from performing in public for much of the last thirty years. I venture to ask about the current state of her voice. “At the moment, horrible, and my speaking voice is badly affected. I had Botox in my vocal cords some years ago. It helped, but it’s hit and miss, and a scary procedure. I don’t want to do it again.” The happy circumstance for us, her fans, is that she’s able to overcome this in the studio, well enough to lay down the eleven choice cuts that make up Won’t Be Long Now. 

What’s coming up next? Can we expect her autobiography? “Perhaps one day, but if I carry on not talking, it may be my only option!” In the meantime, if Kami or Teddy are playing in London, you’ll generally find Mum in the audience, ever the loyal supporter.