Mike Waterson, Member of British Folk Troupe, Dies at 70

By Margalit Fox
New York Times
June 25, 2011

Mike Waterson, a founding member of the Watersons, the self-taught singing group that was long considered the royal family of British folk music, died in England on Wednesday. He was 70.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Harriet Simms, a publicist who represents members of the Waterson family.

A vital part of the British folk revival of the 1960s, the Watersons were known especially for their renditions of traditional British music, including ballads, work songs and ancient carols. Through their small discography and their concerts in Britain and occasionally the United States, they attracted an impassioned following.

The group initially comprised Mr. Waterson; his sisters, Norma and Lal (short for Elaine); and a cousin, John Harrison. In later years Mr. Harrison was replaced by Norma's husband, the prominent English folk singer Martin Carthy. They sang mostly a cappella, using relatively simple harmonies.

But those harmonies — rich, tight and intensely textured — gave the Watersons their distinctly premodern sound. To hear their early recordings in particular is to hear the timbres of the shawms, sackbuts and hurdy-gurdies of early instrumental music, rendered vocally.

Mr. Waterson, a bass, possessed a robust, unaffected, pleasantly sandpapery voice that seemed made for sea chanties, which the group also sang.

Their recordings include their debut album, "Frost and Fire" (1965); "The Watersons" (1966); "A Yorkshire Garland" (1966); and "For Pence and Spicy Ale" (1975).

Mr. Waterson recorded a self-titled solo album of traditional songs in 1977. With his sister Lal, he recorded "Bright Phoebus" (1972), an album featuring original songs by each of them.

His other songwriting credits include "A Stitch in Time," a delicious modern revenge ballad about a battered wife who sews her drunken husband into the bedclothes. Though he never recorded the song himself, it has been recorded by Mr. Carthy, Chumbawamba and others.

Michael Waterson was born in Hull, England, on Jan. 16, 1941. He and his sisters were orphaned as young children and were reared by their grandmother, a woman of Irish and Gypsy stock who sang traditional songs with them around the family table.

With Mr. Harrison, the siblings formed the Watersons in the early 1960s, singing in pubs and clubs. They soon caught the ear of the distinguished British folklorist and folk-song collector Bert Lloyd, who became an early champion.

Mr. Waterson, who lived in Robin Hood's Bay, a Yorkshire fishing village, sang with various permutations of the family group for decades. When not performing, he worked as a carpenter and boat builder. He made his final appearance with the family last year, at the Bromyard Folk Festival in England.

Lal Waterson died of cancer in 1998. Besides his sister Norma, Mr. Waterson is survived by his wife, Ann, a singer who has performed with the family; four children, Sarah, Eleanor, Rachel and Matthew; and four grandchildren.

The dynasty is now in its second generation. Eleanor and Rachel Waterson have sung with the family group. Norma's daughter, Eliza Carthy, is a well-known singer and fiddler who with her parents is part of the folk group Waterson:Carthy.

In an interview quoted on Wednesday in the British newspaper The Guardian, Mr. Waterson recalled a moment of deep professional uncertainty early in his career, when the group first met Mr. Lloyd.

"He asked us to sing a song once, which we did, and then he asked us to sing it again," Mr. Waterson said. "When he asked us to do it yet again, we said, 'Are we doing it wrong?' He said, 'No, it's pure indulgence because it's giving me so much enjoyment.' "