Biography

Waterson:Carthy's formation in the mid-'90s marked a new era for two well-established icons of British folk music. As the eldest sibling of the legendary family vocal group the Watersons, Norma Waterson made an indelible mark on traditional music in the 1960s and her subsequent marriage to influential guitarist and singer Martin Carthy forged one of folk music's great dynasties. Carthy joined the Watersons as well, and the two continued making music together into the early '90s when they launched a new venture including their daughter, singer and fiddler Eliza Carthy. Over a series of acclaimed folk records, Waterson:Carthy built on the foundation of earlier generations with a renewed spirit thanks in large part to Eliza's youthful influence. Their final album, Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man, appeared in 2006, though the members continued playing together in various formats until Norma's death in 2022. Waterson:Carthy made their debut in 1994 with a self-titled collection for Topic Records and remained with the venerable folk label for the duration of their career. While Norma and Martin brought decades of musical experience to the endeavor, Eliza, at age 19, had already accumulated an impressive résumé of her own including a 1993 collaboration with fellow fiddler Nancy Kerr. In the Waterson:Carthy configuration, vocals were shared evenly between the three primary members with Martin and Eliza handling the bulk of the instrumentation and Kerr joining in as guest on a few tracks. The group's follow-up, Common Tongue, appeared in 1996 and expressed a fuller instrumental sound that highlighted a new collaborator, melodeonist Saul Rose. With the renewed interest sparked by their first two albums, the late '90s proved to be something of a heyday for the family and each of them stepped out with solo outings of their own. In a peculiar twist of fate, both mother and daughter released their debut solo albums in 1996; Norma's eponymous record very nearly won the Mercury Prize that year, coming in just behind Pulp's Different Class. Following Martin's Signs of Life LP in 1998, Waterson:Carthy resumed group work with 1999's Broken Ground. Rose was replaced on melodeon by Tim Van Eyken in 2000 and Waterson:Carthy continued touring and recording, issuing two more albums, A Dark Light (2002) and Fishes and Fine Yellow Sand (2004). Norma, Martin, and Eliza were also active in Blue Murder, another Waterson-related supergroup that performed frequently and released the 2002 album No One Stands Alone. Amid various other projects, they had also revived an old Watersons tradition of doing a series of seasonal pre-Christmas shows as a nod to the group's 1965 album Frost and Fire. Teaming up with a cappella trio the Devil's Interval, Waterson:Carthy recorded 2006's Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man, which stood as a sort of sequel to Frost and Fire. By this point Rose had rejoined the group and while they never again recorded an album under the Waterson:Carthy banner, they continued to perform together both as a group and in various combinations over the ensuing years. Norma Waterson died on January 30, 2022. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi