Sibling Revelry
Seasons are serenaded in a family’s folk classic that’s stood the test of time.
WITH ITS CHILLY black and white sleeve bearing an enigmatic image and linernotes by folklorist supreme, A.L. Lloyd, wrapped around a suite of antique songs delivered without adornment bar the fleeting thump of a drum on one track (“We have found that slightly worn styli [styluses] tend to be thrown out of the groove at this point,” warns the original sleeve), the 1965 debut album by The Watersons – previously known briefly as The Mariners and The Folksons – was an unexpected shot of purity into the folk canon. Frost And Fire: A Calendar Of Ritual And Magical Songs ★★★★★
(Topic) had a measurable impact upon a moribund folk scene, in those days just before electricity was about to strike it. Said Anne Briggs in 2018, “First hearing The Watersons live was a shock, a revelation. Their voices and their musicality were unique. Raw, passionate and brilliant… They redefined the possibilities of the British folk scene, they opened a door wide and it’s still open.”
A family quartet from Hull – siblings Norma, Mike and Elaine (Lal) Waterson and their second cousin, John Harrison – they looked like some groovy French beat group but sounded like ancient farmhands, thrumming with the particular magic of familial harmony, immediately evident on Jolly Old
Hawk and The Holly Bears A Berry on this album. Nor did they shy from the strange, dark harmonics sometimes encountered in traditional music, such as Souling Song with its dissonant, clustered melody.
They came down to London for a short season of shows at the Troubadour café in Earl’s Court booked by Martin Carthy (who would later replace Harrison). During an inter val, a man came up and offered them a recording deal. That was Topic Records’ Bill Leader, who duly captured this landmark album in his flat in an Edwardian house in Camden.
“The back room was lined with books and tapes – that’s a great acoustic treatment,” Leader recalled in the book Singing From The Floor. “They were singing in the bedroom. We’d be monitoring and recording in the front room.” Attending the session was the aforementioned A.L. Lloyd, who suggested some of the material for this survey in song of a year’s ceremony and ritual. “Seasons of anxiety, seasons of joy,” he wrote in his notes.
“The common people had their rites of propitiation and
triumph, older than the rituals of the Church and closer bound to their daily lives.” After one song, recalled Mike Waterson, Lloyd said, “‘Sing it again… sing it again… sing it again.’ We sat there in this back room, singing it again and again, and Norma said, ‘What’s the matter with it?’ He said, ‘Nothing, my dear, just self-indulgence.’”
Stripped down to nothing but the blended human voice, sometimes even less than that – Mike, Norma and Lal all take solo turns – the result is like a Christmas album you can enjoy all year round. It’s also an effective portal into the past. You could be anywhere in time hearing voices as pungent as woodsmoke curl around these land shanties beseeching the listener to drink, welcome the har vest, bring out a pie or give money for an Easter parade. It’s easy to appreciate how this thrilled jaded listeners of the day, suddenly hearing everything they’d been sold about the power of folk music right in front of their ears. The Melody Maker named it the Album of the Year.
Just half an hour long, this new vinyl edition has been, somewhat pointlessly, cut at 45 rpm, which may not discernibly improve upon Leader’s original recording, so simple, fine and direct, you’d swear The Watersons were in the room with you. Expect goosebumps.
“This thrilled jaded listeners of the day.”