Not Fade Away

NORMA WATERSON

English folk royalty (1939-2022)

Attempting to explain her passion for folk music, Norma Waterson stressed the value of retaining links to the past. “Whereas people in other countries are proud of their traditions, somehow here in England we get left behind,” she told Fatea magazine. “I think that England has as good a tradition as anywhere else, and that we should keep it alive.”

As matriarch of the first family of English folk, Waterson did as much as anybody to both preserve and reanimate cultural heritage through song. She was a founder member of The Watersons – alongside younger siblings Mike and Lal, plus cousin John Harrison – whose mostly unaccompanied songs drew power from their rich close harmonies. Debut Frost And Fire arrived in 1965, two years after the Watersons had established their own folk club in Hull, Folk Union One.

The Watersons split in 1968 when Norma left to become a DJ for Radio Antilles in Montserrat. She returned home in 1972, contributing to Lal and Mike Waterson’s , backed by Martin Carthy, who she married that year. With Carthy replacing Harrison, The Watersons began recording again. As various musical iterations of the family continued through the years (including the acclaimed Waterson: Carthy, featuring Norma, Martin and daughter Eliza), Waterson’s solo debut arrived in 1996, foregrounding her warm, distinctive and thoroughly lived-in voice. Her final offering, in tandem with Eliza, was 2018’s eclectic, ineffably human , released two years after Waterson had received