Album titles can be telling–Shoot Out The Lights was Richard and Linda Thompson’s ‘break-up’ album; Fashionably Late was Linda Thompson’s 2002 follow-up to her 1985 debut, and now Proxy Music – a tribute album to the folk-rock icon’s exemplary songwriting skills with the songs sung, by proxy, by musicians she chose for the occasion.
The play on Roxy Music was clearly too hard to resist. The Proxy Music album cover, photographed by Sean James, features Linda mimicking that legendary 1940/50s glamour shoot cover of Roxy Music’s 1972 self-titled album – right down to her outfit, hair, and makeup. The original Roxy cover was shot by Karl Stoecker and featured model Kari-Ann Moller, who was also a Bond girl – she appeared in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
The album is due June 21st (via StorySound Records) and features 11 tracks (tracklisting below), performed by The Proclaimers, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, John Grant, Dori Freeman, The Unthanks, Ren Havieu, and Eliza Carthy. They’re joined by many talented members of the Thompson family: Teddy Thompson (who also co-produced the album) and his sister Kami, Kami’s husband James Walbourne, Linda’s grandson Zac Hobbs, and Richard also.
The first single, ‘The Solitary Traveller‘ feat. her daughter, Kami Thompson co-written with James Walbourne, is available today.
She shared:
“Solitary Traveller, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been one. But, if you have a lot of people in your life, you sometimes yearn for solitude. Conversely, solitary people often crave company. It is a bit of a dichotomy. My daughter doing the honours.”
Stream Solitary Traveller: https://storysoundllc.lnk.to/TST
In our album review of Linda Thompson’s last album, Won’t Be Long Now (2013), she was introduced as one of the pre-eminent and acclaimed female voices of the folk rock scene through the 1970s and into the early 1980s. After recording her final album with Richard Thompson in 1982 (Shoot Out The Lights), she went on to make her solo debut in 1985 with One Clear Moment; another album wouldn’t surface until after the millennium.
It was in the early 80s that the symptoms of a rare vocal condition known as spasmodic dysphonia first surfaced and would eventually lead to a complete withdrawal from making music for many years. She returned in 2002 with the aptly titled Fashionably Late before following with Versatile Heart (2007) and the above-mentioned Won’t Be Long Now (2013).
In the interim, we were treated to UMC’s 2020 eight-disc box set Richard & Linda Thompson: Hard Luck Stories 1972 – 1982, which included out-takes, demos and a wealth of live recordings that were not available before, including 1978’s ‘First Light’ and 1979’s ‘Sunnyvista’, both of which had been hard to come by (read Danny Neill’s in-depth review here).
Proxy Music album tracklisting
1. The Solitary Traveller feat. Kami Thompson
2. Or Nothing at All feat. Martha Wainwright
3. Bonnie Lass feat. The Proclaimers
4. Darling This Will Never Do feat. Rufus Wainwright
5. I Used To Be So Pretty feat. Ren Harvieu
6. John Grant feat. John Grant
7. Mudlark feat. The Rails
8. Shores of America feat. Dori Freeman
9. That’s the Way the Polka Goes feat. Eliza Carthy
10. Three Shaky Ships feat. The Unthanks
11. Those Damn Roches feat. Teddy Thompson
Buy or Stream: US & Canada https://ffm.to/proxymusic UK & EU: https://storysoundllc.lnk.to/ProxyMusic