49 f
musicians who kept the music alive when no-one else was interested and which has subsequently been such an invaluable boon to any young artist who has come along in their wake. Norma Waterson, for one, regards this stuff as pivotal to everything.
“Written music is fine, but it’s only shorthand. There is nothing like listening to a traditional singer. These days people listen to a record and sing the song and they think that’s it or they read a line of music and they think that’s it, but it’s not. I like to know what a person does with the music. When you read music you don’t get the little nuances or the correct timing. I’m glad we had all those collectors to write the stuff down, but I’d much rather hear the traditional singers doing it and learn how they got it.”
And here’s the thing. I’d contest – and after a couple of sherberts I have indeed done this at some length – that Norma Waterson is a unique treasure who should be talked of in the same breath as the greats of music in any genre – Garland, Piaf, Holiday and that sort of ilk – but this is folk music so the great unwashed know little of her brilliance. My first stint on the Mercury Music Prize awards panel in the mid-‘90s coincided with the release of her first solo album, Norma Waterson (one of her few recordings not on Topic, but released on Joe Boyd’s Hannibal label). It featured songs by Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, Richard Thompson and Ben Harper, and seemed quite a radical departure from her entire previous relationship with the tradition.
My first attempts to convince my fel- low panellists of its rich wonder met with stony reactions (“Why does she sing in that weird voice?” said one judge, who took some convincing that it was actually her own voice and it was the fake Americans and faux rockers who were the ones out of kilter). Probably to shut me up they even- tually conceded the final spot on the Mer- cury shortlist of twelve. By the time we got to the final itself, when the judges had had more time to assimilate and absorb the finer attributes of the nominated albums, the tide had turned dramatically and the judge who’d questioned her weird voice was suddenly her biggest fan.
The word ‘folk’ wasn’t even men- tioned in the intense, ensuing debate. In the end, she missed out on winning by a single vote (to Pulp) but its ultimate approval from a bunch of music industry professionals with no knowledge of or
That almost-Mercury CD…
Waterdaughters, 1990 – Eliza, Norma, Lal & Marry
interest in the background to this genre was a salutary lesson in both the strength and individuality of Norma Waterson’s performance and food for thought about the way the attitudes of media, radio and the public at large stifle the potential of the music.
W
e nearly lost Norma seven years or so ago when she checked in at a local A&E after playing a gig with Eliza and the Gift Band in
Warrington. They whipped her in, she lapsed into a coma suffering from sep- ticemia and an assortment of bugs and remained in perilous health for many months. “They thought I was a goner, but you don’t get rid of me that easily.”
She’s gone through some rough times since and her live appearances have been few and far between but they do say that eighty is the new forty. Well, not that I’ve ever heard anyone say such a thing but the onset of their eightieth birthdays certainly ignited an excitingly fresh burst of activity from both Shirley Collins and Peggy Seeger a couple of years ago, both friends of Norma.
For Norma, the approaching mile- stone also marked her return to recording, using a makeshift studio in an old church with daughter Eliza to record the out- standing, if long-delayed, follow-up to their 2010 Gift album. That album, Anchor, proved her voice – as well as her sense of adventure – remained untarnished by the years, with material by Tom Waits, Kurt Weill, Nick Lowe, KT Tunstall and Eric Idle. Most of her recordings – with the Water- sons, Waterson: Carthy and other combi- nations – have been with Topic, reaping a plethora of awards and an MBE to boot – with the ongoing Normafest held in Whit- by in her honour.
“I don’t mind that I’m getting to the end of my life, I don’t mind at all. I’ve had a wonderful life with a wonderful family – I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”
Topic, too, has had its wobbles but has managed to survive recession, indifference and commercial pressures and until any- one conclusively proves differently, we’re going to call it the world’s oldest indepen- dent label with an unbroken history. Now allied to Proper Records, its eightieth birthday this year also marks a flurry of fresh activity.
The Oldham Tinkers, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Diver and Eliza Carthy performed at an eightieth birthday party at Cecil Sharp House, with Anne Briggs also in attendance. Many of its classic albums – Martin Simpson’s Prodigal Son, Shirley Collins’ Sweet Primeroses, Dick Gaugh- an’s Handful Of Earth, Eliza Carthy’s Anglicana and John Tams’ The Reckoning among them – are being reissued in deluxe versions under the tag Topic Trea- sures, with a series of events planned at Cecil Sharp House.
Also on the way is a two-CD and dou-
ble vinyl LP Vision & Revision: The First 80 Years of Topic Records, featuring the likes of Richard Thompson, Lankum, John Smith, Eliza Carthy, Lisa Knapp, Oldham Tinkers, Kitty Macfarlane, Olivia Chaney, Emily Port- man, Josienne Clarke, Sam Kelly, Sam Lee, Chris Wood et al recording fresh versions of highlights from the first eighty years of the Topic catalogue.
The Topic plan, apparently, is “to con- tinue to sign new artists, to continue the tradition of bringing good music to the people of the world while also trying to introduce the importance of the historical material gathered and released by the label over the last eighty years.”
And we all hope a certain Norma
Waterson will continue to be a major part of that legacy.
Warm greetings and many thanks to both of you…
musicportfestival.com/normafest19
topicrecords.co.uk
F
Photo: Dave Peabody
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