Proxy Music | Linda Thompson

On the cover of her new record, elder stateswoman of folk Linda Thompson is dressed up in a parody of Roxy Music’s debut album cover, grinning at the camera. Anyone else and you’d wonder about their sanity, but this is someone who’s long shown an ability to surprise, both with music and lifestyle.
Thompson, of course, was half of the husband-and-wife duo with former Fairport Convention singer and guitarist Richard as they set new folk-rock rules in the early 70s.

But now Linda can’t sing, silenced by spasmodic dysphonia, a life-long neurological condition that sends voice muscles into spasm – her most recent album was 2013’s predictive Won’t Be Long Now. It would, however, take more than that to keep Thompson quiet and so having come up with a bunch of new songs, family and friends – and what a collection that is – are given the joy of singing them. As such it’s almost like one of those all-star tribute albums, except that this isn’t a trawl through past glories and she was very much involved in its creation with folk-rocking son Teddy Thompson, who produced.

There’s an ethereal feel, something that transcends the boundaries of folk, a gentleness yet something more, helped by the guitar of Richard. That mix is evident from the start with the sadness of The Solitary Traveller, sung by daughter Kami Thompson yet offset by a near fairground soundscape.

Martha Wainwright with Or Nothing At All is backed by nothing more than a classical grand piano while for brother Rufus crooning on Darling This Will Never Do the piano goes all smoky jazz club, with clarinet accompaniment. Curiously, the most trad folk song, Bonnie Lass, is sung by the Proclaimers.

Shores Of America has an historic transatlantic touch, the vocals of US Americana star Dori Freeman backed by mesmerising banjo and fiddle while another highlight is That’s The Way The Polka Goes, a violin-led romp showcasing Eliza Carthy. The beautiful pure folk of Mudlark takes the family fortunes even farther, exquisite harmonies from The Rails – no less than Kami and her husband James Walbourne, also guitarist in the Pretenders.

Thompson keeps her hand on the reins with a considerable autobiographical feel… I Used To Be So Pretty (sung by Ren Harvieu) is a wide-eyed look at her 74 years, Three Shaky Ships, performed by another sibling duo, The Unthanks, would seem to be about her affection for her children with the chant, “Stay close, give thanks/Open hearts, close ranks”.

The eeriest is perhaps John Grant singing John Grant, a song in which Thompson relates what sounds very much like a romantic encounter – a soft, slow piece, pedal steel mingling with bubbling synthesiser.

Closure comes with son Teddy and Those Damn Roches, an outwardly impish song about a fellow folk family yet in truth a touching testament to the Thompsons’ moving relationship with McGarrigles, Wainwrights, Watersons and more. “Bound together in blood and song, who can break us?” asks Thompson, and surely no one can question her words…

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