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20 Feb 2007: LINDA THOMPSON SESSION
Recently I had the massive pleasure of playing on a few tracks for the forthcoming CD by Linda Thompson, due for release in the summer by Rounder Records. We'd hardly seen each other for about 25 years!

I was already expecting to overdub accordion on two songs Linda had co-written with son Teddy - "Never the Bride" and "Blue & Gold" - but we were going well, so not only did I add concertina on another song, but we also laid down a whole new track - the traditional "The Sheffield Apprentice" - which might make it onto this album, but more likely will wait to see the light of day later on.

It was a lovely cosy session at Oliver Knight's studio in Robin Hood's Bay, with just us, Linda, and American producer Ed Haber. The songs were great, she was in good form, it was great to see her, and a privilege to be involved with her work.

Fantastic news - If it's only half as good as her last I will be a happy man..

YES!  Brilliant news!  I was led to believe that she didn't perform/record anymore.

I'm a bit ashamed to say that my recent attempt to 'get into' the work of Richard Thompson took me down a side track which was Linda and I've been there ever since.

Yes, she has had a bit of a renaissance. A friend of mine (sadly the one who died a couple of weeks back) bumped into her in the bar of a hotel in New York about 18 months ago. She was recording then.

Do you have the Fashionably Late album from about 3 or 4 years ago? Highly recommended, as is the Dreams Fly Away compilation. Her first solo album, One Clear Moment was re-released as a very limited edition by Rhino last year too. Slightly nasty 80s production but it has some good stuff on it, if you can find it.

She did tour after "Fashionably Late" was released with a Thompson heavy band - Teddy and assorted siblings whose names I will not attempt to spell!  Very good performance and she did a couple of R & L songs, plus "Angels Took My Racehorse Away"..

Here's a clip from Later... with Jools Holland of her doing Dear Mary. The first time I've ever heard her solo stuff. Really great. Somebody on YouTube commented that RT played on that album. Is he on the new one?? Do they still talk? Ponder whist watching this

Like most couples with kids that split up, I don't imagine they've got any choice but to talk (at least when the kids were younger)....Linda's often talked (particularly after the last album came out) about wandering on at Cropredy (she's often there I think).  I'd love it to happen this year.  She did a few gigs in '87 with Simon, one of which I've got on CD...years since I've listened to that.

Its exciting news indeed - Fashionably Late is a great album - 9 Stone Rig is awesome and one of my fav folk songs of all time.

Today's Press release in full.....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                         APRIL 30, 2007

BRITISH FOLK ROCK'S ORIGINAL SIREN LINDA THOMPSON RETURNS WITH VERSATILE HEART

“ONE OF ROCK AND ROLL'S FINEST VOICES” (Rolling Stone) COLLABORATES

WITH RUFUS AND MARTHA WAINWRIGHT, ANTONY, MARTIN AND ELIZA CARTHY AND HER CHILDREN KAMILA AND TEDDY THOMPSON, FOR FIRST ALBUM IN FIVE YEARS



(Burlington, MA) - On August 14, Rounder Records will release Versatile Heart by folk-rock legend, Linda Thompson. “[With] one of the loveliest, most dramatic voices in the English language” (No Depression), Thompson is basking in a sustained creative resurgence with an album to rival her best work from the 70s.  Recorded in New York City and Scotland over a three-year period with producer Ed Haber, the album features seven Thompson originals, four of which she co-wrote with son Teddy Thompson.  Of the other six tracks, one highlight is “Beauty,” a duet with acclaimed vocalist Antony written for Linda by Rufus Wainwright.  

Versatile Heart is deeply rooted in haunting arrangements and timeless balladry, displaying eclecticism beyond any of her previous recordings.  The rockabilly of “Do Your Best for Rock and Roll,” the standout title-track and “The Way I Love You” (featuring Martha Wainwright) are a sample of the songs Linda co-wrote with Teddy.  Kamila Thompson contributes one of the most sparse, experimental songs on the album, entitled “Nice Cars.”  Thompson also covers Tom Waits’ and Kathleen Brennan’s “Day After Tomorrow,” a plea from a soldier against the war. Linda’s facility with traditional folk song is well represented: most notably with a wonderful adaptation of “Katy Cruel” as well as her own song “Whisky, Bob Copper and Me.”

Linda Thompson first came to prominence in the 1970’s with a string of albums with her then-husband Richard that remain undisputed classics of the singer-songwriter genre.  After 1985 she retired from recording due to the rare vocal disorder spasmodic dysphonia, until her triumphant return with 2002’s Fashionably Late (Rounder).  One of the best reviewed albums of the year, The New Yorker called it “a marvel of modern folk” and The Wall Street Journal hailed it as “a bona fide comeback.”

In 2005 Linda produced a highly regarded all-star tribute to the English Music Hall era at London’s Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, as well as participating in Hal Willner’s traveling Leonard Cohen tribute shows in New York, England and Australia.

 

# # #



Brad San Martin
Product Manager
Rounder Records
1 Rounder Way
Burlington, MA 01803
bsanmartin@rounder.com

What wonderful news to start the day with...  :)

Ten or so years ago we were sitting next to two ladies in the field and Simon strolled up and talked to them. After he had left, one asked me to take their photos to which I happily obliged - my pal then told me it was Linda.

My Mum and Dad have never spoken!Thats over 25 years now! :-X

Back on topic ... Is her hysterical dysphonia cured now?

If the last album is anything to go by then yes, however wasn't there some talk of her struggling with her voice when she toured Fashionably Late?  I didn't see any of that tour so don't really know.

No one knows. But you don't suffer from it in the recording studio. Only in front of an audience.



I saw two dates (the only two) she did in LOndon on that tour. Then she pulled the others. But that was a few years ago. If she doesn't tour the new one, it would obviously be a sign....

Linda's played live at various events with David Thomas (Pere Ubu) and cohorts inc only a year or two ago in London.  According to this

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1142019&lastnode_id=0

"Linda credits her "atonal" singing with David Thomas (himself often famously out-of-key) as having helped her overcome dysphonia. "

Hmmm. She definitely blamed it for the gig cancellations.

And those David Thomas gigs were excellent. Got some photos somewhere.

Presumably they talk to other people - just not to each other?

Ohhhhhhhh...........I can be a professional pedant ;)  ;D

spasmodic and hysterical (now called functional dysphonia) dysphonia are different ::) ::) :)

(sorry working from home, looking for something to distract me at lunchtime)

yes! just not too eachother in fact they have never even seen eachother from that day to this!


Re Lindas Voice i've just read that she had Botox injections to overcome the problem :o somehow i don't believe it!

It is quite hard to believe, but unless she was joking when she said it (http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20030516linda0516fnp4.asp): Now that's not to say it really was the botox that cured her: it could have been a placebo effect. I really don't know and I haven't the time right now to do the research needed to verify that one way or the other. Perhaps one of the medical professionals on this board could comment ...

I saw Linda perform at the National in 2000, and I'm sure she sang then, although now that I look her name wasn't on the cast list - but I was sitting right beside her in a promenade performance -I KNOW she sang...
and I am ordering the new CD as soon as I'm off here...

It's unusual for it to be used but botulinum toxin - aka botox - can be used in cases of spasticity of muscles.

( http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab004327.html
for a brief summary of some research if interested)

Maybe some of you saw/heard about the young child with cerebral palsy who has botulinum injections in his legs to enable him to walk??

hope it works for her

I'm interested to read that one of the songs on Linda's new album will be called "Blue and Gold" - I assume it is a civil war song in which the narrator merely gets a nasty bruise rather than slicing his hand open ...

Jackdaw

I should think it's probably about Worcester Warriors RFC.

No, it's a reference to the old Leeds United colours before Don Revie wanted them to look like Real Madrid.

Linda's always had a bee in her bonnet about Don Revie.

Or was it Richard Thompson?

I know she dropped out of Cambridge (Grrrrr) and they had to parachute Fairport in at the last minute.

"Whisky, Bob Copper and me"

3 life enhancements in one song  - "me" meaning Linda of course. Can't wait to hear the CD.

Apart from on the telly, haven't seen her since taking this shot, in a certain field in Oxfordshire - or was it Broughton Castle? Anyway the Rainmeister did his stuff!

It's a Cibachrome print off a Kodachrome 64 slide. That's my excuse for the lack of focus, very difficult to handhold K64 and a telephoto. Also I seem to have done something weird with Photoshop - sorry about large size.   

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