The Watersons were a four-piece vocal group from Kingston-upon-Hull. Based around three orphaned siblings — Norma Mike and Elaine (Lal) — and one close family friend (John Harrison) thequartet had begun as teenage skiffle devotees in the mid. 19 sos butfollowing the example of MacColl’s Ballads and Blues, from 1958 ran their own club . . . Dispensing with guitars and banjos, they hollered unadorned close harmonies into a stark, chapel-like hush. The consensus was that they ‘sounded traditional’ , but ina way no other folk singers did at the time. It was the result of Pure intuition: there was no calculation in their art. When Bert Lloyd once commented joyfully on their mixolydian harmonies, they had to resort to a dictionary. (Rob Young, Electric England: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music, pp. 190-91)
Iconic. File under: English Folk Traditionalists
In the music library: Frost and Fire: A Calendar of Ceremonial Folk Songs
Links: Wikipedia Topic Records web site AllMusic Discogs Mainly Norfolk BBC Music