Artist : Linda Thompson
Album : Versatile Heart
Label : Rounder Records
Genre : Folk/Rock
Bitrate : 169 kbps avg
Source : CD (LP)
Playtime : 00:44:10 (55 MB)
Rls date : 2007-07-21
Store date : 2007-08-14
[Track List]
1. Stay Bright 1:31
2. Versatile Heart 3:25
3. The Way I Love You 3:57
4. Beauty 4:13
5. Katy Cruel 2:22
6. Nice Cars 2:45
7. Do Your Best For Rock 'N Roll 4:47
8. Day After Tomorrow 5:03
9. Blue & Gold 3:02
10.Give Me A Sad Song 3:57
11.Go Home 4:32
12.Whiskey, Bob Copper And Me 2:50
13.Stay Bright 1:46
On August 14, Rounder Records will release 'Versatile
Heart' by folk-rock legend, Linda Thompson. "[With]
one of the loveliest, most dramatic voices in the English
language" (No Depression), Thompson is basking in a
sustained creative resurgence with an album to rival her
best work from the 70s.
Recorded in New York City and Scotland over a three-year
period with producer Ed Haber, the album features seven
Thompson originals, four of which she co-wrote with son
Teddy Thompson. Of the other six tracks, one highlight is
"Beauty", a duet with acclaimed vocalist Antony written
for Linda by Rufus Wainwright.
'Versatile Heart' is deeply rooted in haunting arrangements
and timeless balladry, displaying eclecticism beyond any of
her previous recordings. The rockabilly of "Do Your Best for
Rock and Roll", the standout title-track and "The Way I
Love You" (featuring Martha Wainwright) are a sample of
the songs Linda co-wrote with Teddy. Kamila Thompson
contributes one of the most sparse, experimental songs on the
album, entitled "Nice Cars." Thompson also covers Tom
Waits' and Kathleen Brennan's "Day After Tomorrow", a plea
from a soldier against the war. Linda's facility with traditional
folk song is well represented: most notably with a wonderful
adaptation of "Katy Cruel" as well as her own song "Whisky,
Bob Copper and Me."
Linda Thompson first came to prominence in the 1970's with
a string of albums with her then-husband Richard that remain
undisputed classics of the singer-songwriter genre. After 1985
she retired from recording due to the rare vocal disorder
spasmodic dysphonia, until her triumphant return with 2002's
'Fashionably Late' (Rounder). One of the best reviewed albums
of the year, the New Yorker called it "a marvel of modern folk"
and The Wall Street Journal hailed it as "a bona fide comeback."
In 2005 Linda produced a highly regarded all-star tribute to the
English Music Hall era at London's Lyric Hammersmith Theatre,
as well as participating in Hal Willner's traveling Leonard Cohen
tribute shows in New York, England and Australia.