Customer Reviews

One Clear Moment

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Linda Thompson's solo debut has a number of strong songs on them but it does suffer slightly from the dated 80's production of Hugh Murphy (who co-produced "Baker Street" for Gerry Rafferty). The most pop sounding of Thompson's albums, One Clear Moment has a number of strong tracks. "Can't Stop the Girl" comes across as Celtic-folk merged with 80's pop music with its tiny sythedrum sound. Thompson's clear pure voice shines through the cluttered production which casts Thompson as a folky Til Tuesday. "Telling Me Lies" was closest to Thompson's roots with a lilting melody and spare arrangement.

Although a flawed album, there's a number of honest, powerful songs that highlight this fine album. The best part of the album are the handful of bonus tracks. We get the excellent B-side "Talking Like a Man" (which is also available on the "Dreams Fly Away" anthology) and four rare live tracks with Linda accompanied only by an acoustic guitar. The liner notes give the background of the album. Thompson wrote much of the material with Betsy Cook in the aftermath of her break up with former performing partner and husband Richard Thompson. While there's an undeniable streak of bitterness at the heart of many of these songs, there's also a tremendous amount of heartache and insight as well.

Despite it's imperfections, "One Clear Moment" manages to shine due to Thompson's crystal clear pitch perfect voice and the emotions buried behind her singing. The inclusion of rare bonus tracks makes this a must have for fans of both Richard and Linda Thompson. It's nice to finally have "One Clear Moment" in print again as it makes a fine companion piece to "Fashionably Late" and the Thompson anthology "Dreams Fly Away"

Linda Thompson is a British folk singer who was married to Richard Thompson (with whom she recorded 6 albums), and recorded with Mike Heron (of the Incredible String Band) and her friend Sandy Denny, among others.

When I first obtained this album (in vinyl) I was a bit disappointed in it- it wasn't what I expected from Linda Thompson. It was sort of (horror of horrors!) like pop music. Listening to it now, after all these years, it sounds a lot (!!) better. Realize that some of the songs (Can't Stop the Girl & Telling Me Lies) have been subsequently been hits for others, making Linda legitimately a songwriter in the eyes of her fellow singers, In fact, most of the songs here were co-written with her friend Betsy Cook.

The recording has held up well with the passage of time (26 years), which can't be said about everybody's first solo recording. After the release of 'One Clear Moment', Linda gave up singing when she was hit with 'spasmodic disphonia', a rare vocal disorder which kept her in retirement until the early 2000s (a period over 15 years).

Listening to the album now, I can say I really enjoy this other side of Linda's music. The addition of 5 bonus tracks to the original recording only makes it better.

When this first came out on LP it had fewer songs. I played it straight through every day for at least a year. When I was forced to switch to CDs it was out of print. I'm happy to see it is now available with some bonus tracks. Haven't heard the bonus tracks but I've never heard a track by Linda Thompson, solo or with Richard or Teddy, that I felt was weak. Awesome singer who doesn't produce enough and seldom tours.