I am moved to de-lurk today to note the sad news of Norma Waterson's passing. I know there is a small but devoted number here at DKos who are devotees of folk music, and may not have heard. I follow her daughter Eliza Carthy on FB, which is how I learned. She posted the portrait above in the post telling the news.
The Watersons were a crucial part of the british folk revival. Norma, with her two younger siblings Mike and Lal (and cousin John Harrison) recorded three influential albums in the 60’s of mostly unaccompanied traditional songs, many learned from their grandmother who raised them in the Yorkshire town of Hull. They resumed performing and recording in the 70’s, Harrison being replaced by Norma’s new husband, folk icon Martin Carthy. In the decades that followed, their repertoire expanded far beyond traditional songs, to included protest songs, and covers of artists such as Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson, Tom Waits, and the Grateful Dead.
I was fortunate to see Waterson:Carthy (Norma, Martin, Eliza, and concertina player Saul Rose) at the Old Canal Street Tavern in Dayton, in the early aught’s, thanks to lucky timing of a work trip. It’s a cherished memory.
I’ll post a couple youtubes below.
Jolly Old Hawk is a yuletide song, from the first Waterson’s album “Frost and Fire: A Calendar of Ritual and Magical Songs.”
Moving On Song is by Ewan MacColl, lamenting the cruel treatment of those in gypsy caravans (Martin, Norma, and Eliza). “I was expecting one of my children, y’know, one of my babies, and my son ran for the midwife. In the time he was going after the midwife, the policeman came along. ‘Come on!’ he said, ‘Get a move on! Shift on! Don’t want you here on my beat.’ So my husband says, ‘Look, sir, let me stay. My wife is going to have a baby.’ ‘No, it doesn’t matter about that,’ he says, ‘you get off.’ They made my husband move and my baby was born going along while my husband stayed on the road ... born on the crossroads in my caravan. The horse was in harness and the policeman was following along, y’know, drumming us along. Born on the crossroads.” (Minty Smith, Gypsy woman. Recorded in a field in Cobham, Kent, 1964)
An old standard, There Ain’t No Sweet Man Worth the Salt of My Tears (Norma, Eliza, Martin, with Richard Thompson, Danny Thompson).
The spiritual Stars in My Crown (Waterson:Carthy).
Coal Not Dole has been widely covered. From the site Mainly Norfolk: “Written by Kay Sutcliffe, is one of the most moving testaments of the Miners' Strike of 1984-5. Under attack from a government determined to end the power of the unions, the mining communities fought with a spirit in keeping with a proud tradition—a tradition of strikes, pickets and marches, for better pay and improved working conditions. In 1984 the miners were fighting for their jobs, and the strike became a landmark in English political history.”
