Norma Waterson

Norma Christine Waterson (15 August 1939 – 30 January 2022) was an English singer and songwriter, best known as one of the original members of The Watersons, a celebrated English traditional folk group. Other members of the group included her brother Mike Waterson and sister Lal Waterson, a cousin John Harrison and, in later incarnations of the group, her husband Martin Carthy. Waterson was known as the "matriarch of the royal family of British folk music." Early life Waterson was born in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire Her parents died when she was young and she was raised, with her brother Mike and sister Lal, by their maternal grandmother, Eliza Ward, of Irish Gypsy descent. Waterson later recalled that her grandmother was "a lovely singer and knew a lot of parlour ballads and musical songs she had learned from her childhood, and we all used to sing them." Other members of the family, including her father and two uncles, were musical, playing the cornet, the banjo, the guitar and the organ. The Watersons The band began in the early 1960s with the members being Norma, brother Mike, and sister Elaine (known as Lal), with their cousin John Harrison. They started as a skiffle band but moved on to playing more traditional material. Their first recordings date from 1965; the Topic Records sampler New Voices and their first album, Frost and Fire. Frost and Fire was awarded the Melody Maker Album of the Year. The albums The Watersons and A Yorkshire Garland came out in 1966 but the group disbanded in 1968. Norma moved to the island of Montserrat, working as a DJ for Radio Antilles.