It runs in the family: roots and branches
The Waterson family--sisters Lal and Norma and their brother Mike--are from Yorkshire. They were raised by their redoubtable grandmother, an Irish gypsy. As the Watersons, they sang the old songs of those islands, unaccompanied. They sang of country matters: seedtime and harvest, love and lust, cold hail and winter carols, and the death of John Barleycorn.
Their sound is earthy, elemental, somewhat dissonant, like a wind on the moors. Stone rough.
What I love most of all are their ritual songs: runes for turning of the year.
Here's their Souling Song from Frost and Fire (1965).
Here’s the Apple Tree Wassail from For Pence and Spicy Ale.
In 1972, Lal and Mike made just one album of their own songs: the strange and marvelous Bright Phoebus.
Sadly, the rights and the masters are locked up in a troll’s cave. You can find CDs of it, but be warned--the artists get nothing. Thirty years later, in 2002, some of their friends--including musicians who’d worked on the original vinyl, like Richard Thompson and Maddy Prior--got together and made a cover album, Shining Bright.
One of those songs, The Scarecrow, by the late miraculous Lal Waterson, is at the roots of my mythscape.
Here it is, sung by the queen of air and darkness, June Tabor, on Abyssinians:
As I walked out one summer's morn
Saw a scarecrow tied to a pole in a field of corn
His coat was black and his head was bare
When the wind shook him the crows took up into the air
"Ah, but you’d lay me down and love me
Ah, but you’d lay me down and love me if you could"
Twenty years later, Lal made two more albums with her son, Oliver Knight: the spare, austerely beautiful Once in a Blue Moon;
Her White Gown
Midnight Feast;
and A Bed of Roses, which she left unfinished at her death.
It’s after midnight, darling I love you
Leave the light on.
Good night, sleep tight
Where’s today gone?
It breaks my heart.
Bath Time
One of those session men on Bright Phoebus was the protean Martin Carthy. Norma, who’d gone to work in the West Indies, came back to sing on her siblings’ album. The two of them met again, they meshed, they married.
I hope you know Martin Carthy? The English fellow with the quirky voice, and the oak-hafted, odd-tuned, intricate guitar. And a very great master of balladry. If England were Japan, he'd be a national treasure.
Paul Simon nicked Scarborough Fair from him; Bob Dylan came to stay with him in the cold winter of 1962 to 3, and they chopped up a piano with a samurai sword, and burned it as firewood. Now that's Bohemian.
Over the years, he's worked solo; with Dave Swarbrick, Steeleye Span (he named them), the Watersons, Brass Monkey, and many other folks. He and Norma and their daughter Eliza, an amazing blue-haired fiddler (when it isn't red--a mermaid or a flame), have gigged and recorded by ones and twos; the three of them (with squeezebox players Saul Rose and now Tim van Eyken) are Waterson : Carthy. By now, they're part of the tradition that they've worked to revive: green artistry from ancient roots. May they be evergreen.
So in honor of the old songs, here's Sovay and Prince Heathen by the man himself (swashbuckling with an edge and the darkest of ballads);
Sheep Crook & Black Dog and the Lowlands of Holland by Norma Waterson; and Ain't No Sweet Man, which she learned from her dad (mischief and melancholy);
and Raggle Taggle Gipsies, Fisher Boy, and Captain Kidd by their daughter Eliza.
"Sovay" is from Life and Limb by Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick; "Prince Heathen" is from their Prince Heathen
"Sheep Crook & Black Dog" is from Norma Waterson's Bright Shiny Morning, and "Ain't No Sweet Man" from her Norma Waterson.
"The Lowlands of Holland" is from Waterson : Carthy's Common Tongue; "Raggle Taggle Gipsies" is from their Broken Ground; and "Captain Kidd," from their Fishes and Fine Yellow Sand.
"Fisher Boy" is by Eliza Carthy and the Kings of Calicutt, and it's on The Folk Collection.
You can find all of these albums at Topic Records, probably the oldest independent record label in the world. If you like these songs, please buy their albums. And tell your friends--word of mouth is the folk tradition.
Nine
Their sound is earthy, elemental, somewhat dissonant, like a wind on the moors. Stone rough.
What I love most of all are their ritual songs: runes for turning of the year.
Here's their Souling Song from Frost and Fire (1965).
Here’s the Apple Tree Wassail from For Pence and Spicy Ale.
In 1972, Lal and Mike made just one album of their own songs: the strange and marvelous Bright Phoebus.
Sadly, the rights and the masters are locked up in a troll’s cave. You can find CDs of it, but be warned--the artists get nothing. Thirty years later, in 2002, some of their friends--including musicians who’d worked on the original vinyl, like Richard Thompson and Maddy Prior--got together and made a cover album, Shining Bright.
One of those songs, The Scarecrow, by the late miraculous Lal Waterson, is at the roots of my mythscape.
Here it is, sung by the queen of air and darkness, June Tabor, on Abyssinians:
As I walked out one summer's morn
Saw a scarecrow tied to a pole in a field of corn
His coat was black and his head was bare
When the wind shook him the crows took up into the air
"Ah, but you’d lay me down and love me
Ah, but you’d lay me down and love me if you could"
Twenty years later, Lal made two more albums with her son, Oliver Knight: the spare, austerely beautiful Once in a Blue Moon;
Her White Gown
Midnight Feast;
and A Bed of Roses, which she left unfinished at her death.
It’s after midnight, darling I love you
Leave the light on.
Good night, sleep tight
Where’s today gone?
It breaks my heart.
Bath Time
One of those session men on Bright Phoebus was the protean Martin Carthy. Norma, who’d gone to work in the West Indies, came back to sing on her siblings’ album. The two of them met again, they meshed, they married.
I hope you know Martin Carthy? The English fellow with the quirky voice, and the oak-hafted, odd-tuned, intricate guitar. And a very great master of balladry. If England were Japan, he'd be a national treasure.
Paul Simon nicked Scarborough Fair from him; Bob Dylan came to stay with him in the cold winter of 1962 to 3, and they chopped up a piano with a samurai sword, and burned it as firewood. Now that's Bohemian.
Over the years, he's worked solo; with Dave Swarbrick, Steeleye Span (he named them), the Watersons, Brass Monkey, and many other folks. He and Norma and their daughter Eliza, an amazing blue-haired fiddler (when it isn't red--a mermaid or a flame), have gigged and recorded by ones and twos; the three of them (with squeezebox players Saul Rose and now Tim van Eyken) are Waterson : Carthy. By now, they're part of the tradition that they've worked to revive: green artistry from ancient roots. May they be evergreen.
So in honor of the old songs, here's Sovay and Prince Heathen by the man himself (swashbuckling with an edge and the darkest of ballads);
Sheep Crook & Black Dog and the Lowlands of Holland by Norma Waterson; and Ain't No Sweet Man, which she learned from her dad (mischief and melancholy);
and Raggle Taggle Gipsies, Fisher Boy, and Captain Kidd by their daughter Eliza.
"Sovay" is from Life and Limb by Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick; "Prince Heathen" is from their Prince Heathen
"Sheep Crook & Black Dog" is from Norma Waterson's Bright Shiny Morning, and "Ain't No Sweet Man" from her Norma Waterson.
"The Lowlands of Holland" is from Waterson : Carthy's Common Tongue; "Raggle Taggle Gipsies" is from their Broken Ground; and "Captain Kidd," from their Fishes and Fine Yellow Sand.
"Fisher Boy" is by Eliza Carthy and the Kings of Calicutt, and it's on The Folk Collection.
You can find all of these albums at Topic Records, probably the oldest independent record label in the world. If you like these songs, please buy their albums. And tell your friends--word of mouth is the folk tradition.
Nine