Probably the worst thing about working with your kids, Linda Thompson figures, is that you can’t really tell them what to do.

“I’m supposed to be the boss, but in reality I’m not,” she said one recent afternoon, sitting at a booth in a Greek diner near 100th Street and Broadway. The British singer-songwriter, perhaps still best-known for a string of classic albums recorded with her ex-husband, the guitarist Richard Thompson, in the 1970s, had been spending more time than usual with her offspring.

They play a central role on her new album “Versatile Heart” (Rounder), much of which was written with her son Teddy, with contributions from her daughter Kamila and Rufus Wainwright, part of another folk dynasty-of-sorts but still very familial.

“Teddy’s input is so crucial to me,” Ms. Thompson, 59, said. “He’s very tasteful. When you get older, your schmaltz meter goes awry. You get a bit more sentimental. He pulls me back from that.”

Not that anyone would accuse Ms. Thompson of sentimentality. When she sings “Give Me a Sad Song,” she means it. “Versatile Heart” is full of flinty lovers’ retorts and sorrowful cautionary fables, often sung in league with her kids, or admiring guests such as Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) and Mr. Wainwright, whose baleful “Beauty” is one of the album’s gems. The work is consistent with those harrowing, fatalistic ballads she sang with Mr. Thompson, whom she jokingly terms”a little-known but extremely useful guitarist” in the CD’s liner notes. (He doesn’t appear, but kicked in an idea for a song).

How fatalistic? Try “End of the Rainbow,” a 1970s lullaby that boasts these lines of encouragement: “Life seems so rosy in the cradle / But I’ll be a friend, I’ll tell you what’s in store / There’s nothing at the end of the rainbow / There’s nothing to grow up for anymore.”

Ms. Thompson, a warm and irreverent sort who will cheerfully embrace a stranger or welcome a kiss on the cheek, was about as depressive as the British pound sterling’s current exchange rate against the American dollar. “I love ABBA,” she said, as if further evidence was needed. “They make me feel happy.” But she conceded the larger point. “The po-facedness — I know. I’m sad about that. There’s a lot of that. Murdering your baby and murdering your sister. It’s all very incestuous and blah blah blah. People think you’re a miserable son of a b—-.”

Part of that is the folk tradition, informed by centuries-old ballads that were “The Sopranos” of their day. Part of it is what suited Ms. Thompson.

“I always used to say that the secret of everything lies in its opposite,” she said, as ice cubes dissolved into a sweaty glass of tap water. “People who do a lot of serious work aren’t like that in real life. You couldn’t be. You’d jump off a very tall building. It’s like comics. You must know some comedians. They’re a miserable bunch. Not that I’m running around singing the whole time, but neither am I crying.”

The truth is, Ms. Thompson doesn’t run around singing much at all. Since 1973, by her reckoning, she has suffered from spasmodic dysphonia, a condition that makes it difficult for her to vocalize. It caused her to drop out of show business for much of the 1980s and ’90s, though her 2002 album, “Fashionably Late,” marked a kind of comeback. She has more control over the condition now, though she still avoids live performances.

“I did something to myself physically and it became psychological,” she explained. Touring with Mr. Thompson during her pregnancies prompted her to sing from her throat rather than her diaphragm, which caused lasting damage. Ironically, she was eager to note, singing alongside her former husband on their 1982 “Shoot Out the Lights” tour, as their marriage was falling apart, was a breeze.

“I was just too broken-hearted to even think about my throat problems,” she said. “That just goes to show you about the brain — mad, mad thing.”

Working in the studio, as she did on frequent stateside visits to engineer Andy Taub’s Brooklyn Recording complex in Carroll Gardens, wasn’t as much of a problem.

“I just have to crave people’s indulgence,” she said. “It’s easier for me in a controlled environment. It also helped that Ms. Thompson had a surplus of original songs, in addition to pieces by her children, Mr. Wainwright, and a version of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan’s anti-war lament, “The Day After Tomorrow.” One tune that missed the cut was penned for a musician with whom the singer hit it off at a chance backstage encounter: Pete Doherty.

Pete Doherty? Babyshambles Pete Doherty? The crack-smoking, Kate Moss-dating, chronic jailbird Pete Doherty?

“I feel for him and I know a lot of people don’t,” Ms. Thompson said. “I don’t know what’s happening with that boy. He’s young and pretty enough to be another casualty. He was very sweet, very polite. All those young guys really surprise me how much they know about music, how much they know about me or Richard or Sandy Denny. And they all love Nick Drake.”

Though Ms. Thompson cottons to quite a few younger artists — Bat for Lashes vocalist Natasha Khan is a current favorite — as well as to frequenting Manhattan showcase spots such as Joe’s Pub and the Living Room, she reserved her greatest praise for a singer most of her own fans likely despise. Once again, she’s tickled to upset expectations.

“I genuinely love Celine Dion,” Ms. Thompson, who was proud to confess that she used professional connections to get prime seats for the Québecois diva’s spectacle at Caesar’s Palace, said. “I’m not crazy about the material, but she’s the whole picture. I went to Vegas when she first opened. I packed my bags and people are asking me where I’m going. ‘To Vegas of course! To see Celine!’ This is a woman who has been on the road since she was seven years old, She’s just as strange as Michael Jackson, but luckily she hasn’t gone the chimpanzee and the boys-in-the-bed route. The Elephant Man and the hyperbaric chamber. She had no private life at all, and marries the first guy she ever went out with who’s 7,000 years older than her. Weird. But she has that transcendent instrument.”

Ms. Thompson did not betray envy. Well, okay, a trace,

“I wouldn’t mind the money,” she said, as she prepared to chase out the door to gather up her 12-year-old grandson, a budding guitarist. “But I couldn’t work that hard. Even if I was her age, I couldn’t work that hard.”