Linda Thompson

One of the clarion voices of the British folk-rock movement that began in the late '60s, Linda Thompson (born Linda Pettifer, later changed to Peters) won acclaim alongside guitarist husband Richard Thompson [see entry]. Together, the pair recorded a series of powerful, often darkly themed albums between 1974 - when Linda first got full billing with her mate on I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight - and 1982, when the couple’s rapidly dissolving union was played out as recorded drama on Shoot Out the Lights. The couple divorced in 1983, the same year Linda Thompson was named female singer of the year by ROLLING STONE. Two years later, Thompson released a solo album of countryish material, One Clear Moment, whose track “Telling Me Lies” was later adapted by Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and Dolly Parton on their 1987 Trio project. Thompson’s songs have also been recorded by Celine Dion, Patti Labelle, and Kenny Rogers, among others. In 1987 work began on a second album, which was never released. (One track, a remake of Richard Thompson’s “The Dimming of the Day,” surfaced on the 1996 retrospective Dreams Fly Away.) Thompson also joined the cast of The Mysteries, a trilogy of medieval plays staged by the Royal National Theatre in London. In 1988 Thompson went on hiatus from recording and performing when she was diagnosed with hysterical dysphonia, the medical term for the singer’s voice-robbing bouts with anxiety. By 1999, however, she had begun work on a new album built around acoustic folk themes.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)