We had the Sex Pistols play here and you’re worse!

April 12, 2024 5:09 AM

“I was 25,” she says. “I’d go for my mouth and nothing would come out. It started when I was pregnant with my eldest daughter, and I just put it down to the pregnancy, but it wasn’t a happy time in my life. I think my then-husband wasn’t that keen on having a baby, blah blah blah, it was a difficult time, which we got through, but I think it impacted on me a bit.”

Folk legend Linda Thompson has been suffering from dysphonia since the early seventies, making it harder and harder for her to record new albums. For her latest, she got other people to sing her songs, called it Proxy Music and recreated the album cover from Roxy Music's eponymous debut. Alexis Petridis interviews her for The Guardian on the album and her personal history in folk.
posted by MartinWisse (11 comments total)

That album cover is fantastic! I love it. And the song featured in that link is just as fantastic as the album cover. I've never heard Kami Thompson's music before and she has a great voice, which should be no surprise considering who her parents are.
posted by NoMich at 5:24 AM on April 12 [6 favorites]

Linda was one of The Voices in my early childhood (along with Sandy Denny and Nico). It’s been heartbreaking to hear about her struggles. ❤️
posted by pxe2000 at 5:43 AM on April 12 [6 favorites]

I've just added this YouTube link to the Guardian piece's comments section. It's a self-penned song Linda performs on her 2002 album Fashionably Late. It's been a big favourite of mine ever since.

No Telling What A Love Song Will Do.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:48 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]

Awesome album cover and a great talent.
posted by whatevernot at 5:56 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]

Linda Thompson’s 2018 music hall record, “My Mother Doesn’t Know I’m on the Stage” includes various singers including Justin Bond.
posted by larrybob at 6:35 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]

I love me some Linda Thompson.
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:31 AM on April 12

Linda and I share several friends IRL, but I've always been too intimidated to cross streams. Like pxe2000, she was up at the top of my late-adolescent canon along with Sandy and Nico. I've always enjoyed her resurfacings over the decades. (And yes, that title/cover is A++.)
posted by mykescipark at 8:10 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]

Focal laryngeal dystonia is really hard on singers, not least because it may manifest only in the singing voice without being particularly present in the speaking voice. When that's the case it's difficult to get medical professionals to take it seriously, since most of them don't know much about professional-level singing.
posted by slkinsey at 8:30 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]

Wonder if it's related to the condition that stopped Shirley Collins singing for years?
posted by Paul Slade at 8:48 AM on April 12

Don't think it could be. Focal laryngeal dystonia, spasmodic dysphonia, whatever it's called, is an irreversible neurological condition. You don't lose your singing voice to something like that and then get it back down the road. I'm not all that familiar with Shirley Collins, but from what I have been able to gather it sounds like she likely had some serious tissue damage that resolved over the course of 30 years, which may have been created and/or exacerbated by the effects of her life stresses and overall psychological condition on the function of her voice instrument.
posted by slkinsey at 10:05 AM on April 12

As Collins tells it, her unfaithful husband was the root cause.

I completely lost my voice at one point. I was working at the National Theatre [in the late 70s] with my then husband and he fell in love with first one, then another, actress, then he left me. One of them would stand right in front of me wearing his jumper while I was singing, which undermined my confidence so much that, eventually, nothing would come out of my mouth. I couldn’t sing for 38 years. Then one day it just came back, so seven years ago we made the Lodestar album. It’s amazing really that I got it back.

posted by pracowity at 10:06 AM on April 12