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‘They said I was worse than the Sex Pistols!’: folk legend Linda Thompson on trashing dressing rooms and losing her voice

Her struggles with spasmodic dysphonia has led her to write an album for a bevy of other stars to sing. She talks about trauma, ageing and stealing an audience member’s car

Indeed, if the image on the cover of Proxy Music is a little hard to square with the Linda Thompson of old, so is the 76-year-old currently plying me with tea, cakes, pastries and sandwiches – she really has laid on quite a spread – in her west London apartment. Neither I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight nor its follow-ups sold – Thompson says she made more money singing jingles for commercials – and her husband’s increasing interest in Islam eventually led him to move his family into a Sufi community. Photograph: Michael Putland/Getty ImagesThe Thompsons eventually left the commune, but you could tell their marriage was in trouble just from the track titles of 1982’s Shoot Out the Lights: Don’t Renege on Our Love, Walking on a Wire, Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?

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