Tributes are paid to the acclaimed singer, a member of British folk music’s “most famous family”.
Renowned singer Norma Waterson – matriarch of the “royal family of British folk music” – has died.
Norma, brother Mike, sister Lal formed The Watersons in the 1960s, achieving critical acclaim for their work.
The 82-year-old, from Hull, had been unable to perform for years due to illness and had been in hospital with pneumonia.
Her daughter, the musician Eliza Carthy, announced her mother’s death with “monumental sadness” on Sunday.
Alongside cousin John Harrison the three siblings started to perform at venues around Hull in the 1960s and went on to become a celebrated folk group.
With their traditional songs and close harmonies they were “long considered the royal family of British folk music”, according to the New York Times.
The combined Waterson/Carthy family has long been a fixture of the UK folk music scene, with Martin Carthy, Norma’s Husband, twice winning BBC Radio 2’s Folk Singer of the Year Award.
Singer Billy Bragg was among fellow musicians to pay tribute, and said his thoughts were “with Martin and Eliza and the rest of the family”.
A plaque to the late Lal Waterson, Norma’s sister, was unveiled in September on a house in Hull where she once lived. Many family members were present and sang at the event.
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGESEliza Carthy and her two children moved back to her North Yorkshire home to help care for her mother more than a decade ago.
Norma, the eldest Watersons sibling, survived both Lal Waterson, who died in 1998, and Mike Waterson, who died in 2011.