Bright Phoebus

Bright Phoebus, fully titled Bright Phoebus: Songs by Lal & Mike Waterson, is a folk rock album by Lal and Mike Waterson. It was recorded in May 1972 with musical assistance from various well-known members of the British folk rock scene. The album failed to make an impact on its original release, but it was subsequently championed by many musicians, including Billy Bragg, Arcade Fire, Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker. For years the album was difficult to obtain. In 2017, a re-release of Bright Phoebus was announced and shortly thereafter pulled from the market for legal reasons. Preface Between 1965 and 1968 The Watersons, a four-piece family vocal group from Yorkshire, had made a name for themselves as an influential force in the British folk revival, singing old traditional folk songs and releasing their debut album Frost and Fire: A Calendar of Ritual and Magical Songs in 1965 to good critical acclaim. The album was produced by Tony Engle and was named "Melody Maker Album of the Year". As several years of folk club touring took a toll on the musicians, the group members decided to take up regular jobs in 1968. Mike Waterson subsequently worked as a painter, Norma Waterson as a disc jockey on the Caribbean British Overseas Territory island of Montserrat, while Lal Waterson became a mother of two children and lived "with her extended family in a folk commune on the Yorkshire Moors". The realisation of Bright Phoebus was propelled by Martin Carthy's fondness of Lal Waterson's songs, which he happened to overhear in 1971 in the early stages of his relationship with Lal Waterson's sister Norma. (Notably, Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, who perform "Red Wine & Promises" together on the finished album, became engaged to one another during the recording sessions.) Consequently, Lal Waterson demoed a couple of her songs the very same year. Mike Waterson too contributed some of his songs to these preliminary sessions. Of this repertoire, versions of Lal's "Never the Same", "To Make You Stay" and "Red Wine and Promises", Mike's "Shady Lady" and their collaboration "The Scarecrow" survived as demo recordings. Most of them are performed solo by Lal Waterson on vocals and acoustic guitar, with occasional vocal harmonies or guitar parts by Mike Waterson.