Linda Thompson
An English folk singer from Hackney and Glasgow who made six albums with Richard Thompson, including Shoot Out the Lights (1982), then returned in 2002 with Fashionably Late, which opens with "Dear Mary".
Folk clubs and Richard and Linda
Linda Pettifer, who also recorded as Linda Peters, was born in Hackney on August 23, 1947 and moved to Glasgow, her mother's home city, at six. She began singing in folk clubs around 1966 and sang advertising jingles, one with Manfred Mann. As Paul and Linda she made a 1968 single of Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere". She sang on The Bunch's Rock On in 1972, with a duet with Sandy Denny, and on Fairport Convention's Rosie (1973) as Linda Peters. This note is about the English singer, not the American lyricist of the same name.
With Richard Thompson she made I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (1974), Hokey Pokey and Pour Down Like Silver (1975), First Light (1978), Sunnyvista (1979) and Shoot Out the Lights, released on March 15, 1982 on Hannibal, produced by Joe Boyd at Olympic Studios in London and recorded in November 1981. Rolling Stone ranked it number 24 among the best albums of the last 20 years in 1987 and number 9 among the 80s in 1989, and it came second in the 1982 Pazz and Jop poll. Their 1982 US tour was recorded and issued in a 2010 box set.
One Clear Moment and the return
She returned in 1984 with the Home Service for the National Theatre's The Mysteries, and One Clear Moment (Warner Bros., 1985, produced by Hugh Murphy) followed, with six of its eleven songs written with Betsy Cook; her "Telling Me Lies" with Cook was recorded by Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt on Trio (1987). Then came about 17 years without a record. Fashionably Late appeared on July 30, 2002 and she toured the US that year for the first time since 1982; she also sang "Paddy's Lamentation" on the Gangs of New York soundtrack.
Later records are Versatile Heart (2007), Won't Be Long Now (2013, her first to chart in the UK, at number 76) and Proxy Music (June 21, 2024), on which her songs are sung by others, including Kami and Teddy Thompson, Martha and Rufus Wainwright, the Proclaimers and John Grant. She took part in Hal Willner's Leonard Cohen tribute concerts between 2003 and 2006.
Albums
- Fashionably Late 2002 · Rounder
Her first record in 17 years, co-written in part with her son Teddy, with a long list of English folk guests.
Songs
- Dear Mary Fashionably Late · 2002
The opening track of Fashionably Late, a loping waltz about a woman whose past is catching up with her.
Sources
- Linda Thompson (singer), Wikipedia
- Shoot Out the Lights, Wikipedia
- An interview with Linda Thompson, The Believer (2008)
- Linda Thompson, Mainly Norfolk