Folk star Linda Thompson recalls the horrific sexism she endured: ‘We were tough, but we crumbled’

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Folk music legend Linda Thompson has opened up about the sexist treatment she and her female contemporaries received from their fellow musicians at the height of their fame.

Thompson rose to fame in the Seventies with her then-husband, Richard Thompson from the band Fairport Convention, releasing a number of critically adored albums including 1974’s I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight.

However, despite her success, Thompson said she struggled with the attitudes of the time: “Some of the most talented and savvy people I’ve known were riddled with insecurities,” she told The Guardian.

“Sandy [Denny] never felt pretty enough or whatever. Everybody wanted to be six stone and look like Twiggy and it’s not doable: I know; I tried. And these were very sexist times. She was in a man’s world so she drank and presented a front.”

Thompson continued: “In those days, if Sandy and I were in the studio and there was a tea break, there was no question it would be us making the tea. Some idiot playing a nose harp would just sit there: ‘Two sugars, love.’ We were tough, but we crumbled.”

She had similar experiences after Richard moved Thompson and their children into a Sufi community in Norfolk, an experience she describes as “f***ing torture”.

“It was in Norfolk, a big house that looked like the Bates motel in Psycho,” she told The Guardian. “It was f***ing torture. not for the men. We were kept in the kitchen, it was just kind of keeping women down. We weren’t allowed to go shopping because you weren’t allowed to look a man in the eye.”

She and Richard divorced in 1982, soon after which they embarked on what was known as the “Tour from Hell” in support of the album they made about their breakup, Shoot Out the Lights.

“I’m a show-off,” Thompson responded in a 2007 interview with The Independent, when asked about why she decided to tour with her new ex-husband. “And maybe, as well as being cathartic, it was pathetic as well: we had kids and maybe I thought that if we did the tour, Richard –who’d just left me – would change his mind. Yes, it was very pathetic.”

Thompson’s new album, Proxy Music, enlists artists including Rufus Wainwright, John Grant, The Proclaimers and The Unthanks for new songs written by Thompson, due in part to the effects Spasmodic Dysphonia has had on her voice. It is scheduled for release on 21 June.

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