Norma Waterson

Norma Christine Waterson (15 August 1939 – 30 January 2022) was an English singer and songwriter, best known as one of the original members of The Watersons, a celebrated English traditional folk group. Other members of the group included her brother Mike Waterson and sister Lal Waterson, a cousin John Harrison and, in later incarnations of the group, her husband Martin Carthy.

Waterson was known as the "matriarch of the royal family of British folk music."

Early life

Waterson was born in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, and, after being orphaned at an early age, was brought up there, with her brother Mike and sister Lal, by their maternal grandmother, Eliza Ward, who ran a second-hand shop during the Second World War, and who was of Irish Gypsy descent. She said her grandmother was "a lovely singer and knew a lot of parlour ballads and musical songs she had learned from her childhood, and we all used to sing them." They had an uncle who played lead cornet as a young man in the pit bands in the early days of sound cinema; another uncle played the banjo and organ, and their father had played guitar and banjo.

The Watersons

The band originated in the early 1960s with members Norma, brother Mike, and sister Elaine known as Lal, 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 recordings were for the Topic Records sampler ''New Voices'' and their first album, ''Frost and Fire'', both from 1965. ''Frost and Fire'' was awarded the ''Melody Maker'' Album of the Year, a rarity for a debut album. The albums ''The Watersons'' and ''A Yorkshire Garland'' followed in 1966. The Watersons split up in 1968, when Norma went to work as a DJ on a radio station on Montserrat. She stayed there for three to four years and worked as a DJ for Radio Antilles.

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