\n<\/p>\n
Hewing to character, the Thompson matriarch kept things light during the interview, regardless of topic. \u201cI just can\u2019t take things too seriously, unless they truly, truly <\/em>are,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are riddled with angst about not very much, I find.\u201d<\/p>\n She maintains an equally philosophical attitude toward her dysphonia. \u201cWhen you have something like this, you tell yourself, \u2018Well, at least it\u2019s not cancer,\u2019 just as, I suppose people with cancer say, \u2018Well, at least I\u2019m not dead.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n For the interview, Thompson spoke for an hour by video call from her home in London (followed by some email exchanges). And though her voice frequently creaked, it did so in a way that suggested the warm floors of a long lived-in, and well-loved, home.<\/p>\n Over the years, her will to push through her circumstances has been tested enough times to end the creative life of many. She credits part of her fortitude to the \u201cjust get on with it\u201d attitude of her post-World War II generation in Britain. It may help that the music that first inspired her boasts a historic lineage. Growing up in Glasgow, she gravitated toward Scottish aires and laments, sometimes accompanied by a famously divisive local instrument.<\/p>\n \u201cI love the bag pipes!\u201d she declared. \u201cThat\u2019s how my parents knew there was something seriously wrong with me.\u201d<\/p>\n Her singing voice suited the austerity of the sound, marked by a tone so tawny, and a character so sturdy, it required little ornamentation. Moving to London, she sang in folk clubs where she met, and became best friends, with Sandy Denny, who died in 1978<\/a>. \u201cSandy had the most ridiculously beautiful voice I\u2019ve ever heard, even though she smoked around 100 cigarettes a day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n