The Watersons

Career

The band's original members were Norma, Mike, and Elaine known as Lal Waterson, with their cousin John Harrison from Kingston High School. They had a skiffle band in the early 1960s but moved on to playing more traditional material. They were briefly known as "The Folksons".

Their first album was Frost and Fire 1965 (awarded the Melody Maker Album of the Year, a rarity for a debut album) followed by The Watersons and A Yorkshire Garland in 1966. The Watersons split up in 1968, when Norma went to work as a disc jockey on a radio station on Montserrat.

The group reformed in 1972, with John Harrison briefly replaced by Bernie Vickers. In 1972 that the group performed and arranged the music for the Alan Plater TV Play for Today, "The Land of Green Ginger", set and filmed in Hull. The band appeared in a scene filmed in the Bluebell Folk Club.

Vickers was replaced the same year by Norma's husband, Martin Carthy. This line-up recorded For Pence and Spicy Ale (1975), Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy (1977), and Green Fields (1981).

Later line-ups featured Mike Waterson's daughter Rachel Waterson, who briefly replaced Lal during a leave of absence caused by ill health in the mid-1980s, then continued to sing with the group on Lal's return. This five-piece line up performed regularly during the late 1980s and recorded a session for the BBC Andy Kershaw show in August 1986. In 1987, the group collaborated with Swan Arcade to form Blue Murder, who have performed and recorded sporadically with various line-ups to the present day. Subsequent Watersons line-ups fluctuated, featuring Eliza Carthy, Anne Waterson and Maria Gilhooley at various times, but recording only occasionally.

Lal Waterson died in 1998 and, by the early 1990s, Carthy, Norma Waterson and their daughter Eliza Carthy had formed the group Waterson–Carthy. The Watersons gradually ceased to sing live on a regular basis, but the family occasionally reconvened for special events and festival appearances, where they are usually billed as "The Waterson Family". These have included 'A Mighty River of Song' at the Royal Albert Hall on 12 May 2007, the BBC Electric Proms concert, 'Once in a Blue Moon: A Tribute to Lal Waterson', at Cecil Sharp House in London on 25 October 2007 and 'A Tribute to Bert,' a concert celebrating the life and work of Albert Lancaster Lloyd, at Cecil Sharp House on 15 November 2008. During the summer of 2009, "The Waterson Family" performed at a number of festivals and large concerts throughout England and Ireland.

Mike Waterson died on 22 June 2011, aged 70, at Scarborough, North Yorkshire

Commendations

The accompanying book to the Topic Records 70 year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten lists two of their albums as classic albums. The first is Frost and Fire with Hal-an-Tow as the eleventh track on the second CD and the second is For Pence and Spicy Ale. The title track of the boxed set is taken from the various artists album New Voices and is the seventeenth track on the sixth CD.

Discography