Waterson:Carthy

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 <a href="spotify:artist:59w4wGMXlt4HULBSTVxRAY">the Watersons</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4HFBKIBwNoiuovUGQGAu4k">Norma Waterson</a> made an indelible mark on traditional music in the 1960s and her subsequent marriage to influential guitarist and singer <a href="spotify:artist:4jfwVcXoNnfnU8xQBlSWn0">Martin Carthy</a> forged one of folk music's great dynasties. <a href="spotify:artist:4jfwVcXoNnfnU8xQBlSWn0">Carthy</a> joined <a href="spotify:artist:59w4wGMXlt4HULBSTVxRAY">the Watersons</a> 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 <a href="spotify:artist:3ZSRiAJKs42ymp2KYA80Qh">Eliza Carthy</a>. 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 <a href="spotify:artist:3ZSRiAJKs42ymp2KYA80Qh">Eliza</a>'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 <a href="spotify:artist:4HFBKIBwNoiuovUGQGAu4k">Norma</a>'s death in 2022.

Waterson:Carthy made their debut in 1994 with a self-titled collection for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Topic+Records%22">Topic Records</a> and remained with the venerable folk label for the duration of their career. While <a href="spotify:artist:4HFBKIBwNoiuovUGQGAu4k">Norma</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:4jfwVcXoNnfnU8xQBlSWn0">Martin</a> brought decades of musical experience to the endeavor, <a href="spotify:artist:3ZSRiAJKs42ymp2KYA80Qh">Eliza</a>, at age 19, had already accumulated an impressive résumé of her own including a 1993 collaboration with fellow fiddler <a href="spotify:artist:3Wa7g8dHTrbPgTlyIII6tH">Nancy Kerr</a>. In the Waterson:Carthy configuration, vocals were shared evenly between the three primary members with <a href="spotify:artist:4jfwVcXoNnfnU8xQBlSWn0">Martin</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:3ZSRiAJKs42ymp2KYA80Qh">Eliza</a> handling the bulk of the instrumentation and <a href="spotify:artist:3Wa7g8dHTrbPgTlyIII6tH">Kerr</a> 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; <a href="spotify:artist:4HFBKIBwNoiuovUGQGAu4k">Norma</a>'s eponymous record very nearly won the Mercury Prize that year, coming in just behind <a href="spotify:artist:36E7oYfz3LLRto6l2WmDcD">Pulp</a>'s Different Class. Following <a href="spotify:artist:4jfwVcXoNnfnU8xQBlSWn0">Martin</a>'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). <a href="spotify:artist:4HFBKIBwNoiuovUGQGAu4k">Norma</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4jfwVcXoNnfnU8xQBlSWn0">Martin</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:3ZSRiAJKs42ymp2KYA80Qh">Eliza</a> were also active in <a href="spotify:artist:27RGfELBdPgcPL9kg2z0DB">Blue Murder</a>, another <a href="spotify:artist:59w4wGMXlt4HULBSTVxRAY">Waterson</a>-related supergroup that performed frequently and released the 2002 album No One Stands Alone. Amid various other projects, they had also revived an old <a href="spotify:artist:59w4wGMXlt4HULBSTVxRAY">Watersons</a> 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. <a href="spotify:artist:4HFBKIBwNoiuovUGQGAu4k">Norma Waterson</a> died on January 30, 2022. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi