As The Watersons’ 1965 classic Frost And Fire receives a new reissue, Jude Rogers examines the band’s unabashed and unpretentious approach to folk music
By Jude Rogers Nov 2022
When I think of seasonal songs, I don’t think about The Watersons’ Frost And Fire straightaway. I think of ‘The Scarecrow’, a song from the extraordinary album they released seven years later, Bright Phoebus. It was originally written by youngest sister Lal, and sung on the LP by her older brother Mike, who made small alterations to the lyrics and added the last verse. Richard Thompson and Martin Carthy accompany him on delicate, dextrous guitars.
I think of ‘The Scarecrow’ straight away because it is my favourite song by any of the Watersons (among tough competition). I also mention it because this Autumn marks the fiftieth anniversary of Bright Phoebus’ release and because this wildly imaginative, macabre, playful and affecting collection of songs needs to be constantly revisited and replayed. Getting a copy through conventional channels is trickier.
Four years ago, Yorkshire label Celtic Music successfully sued Domino Records for copyright infringement, removing from sale a 2017 remastered reissue of the album. On a press release after that hearing, Celtic explained that they had purchased the rights to the album, and many other albums on the folk label, Leader, in 1990 (which had gone bust several years earlier, and bought by other companies in the interim). Celtic added their 2000 CD release had “been available ever since”.
I own one of these, a CD-R release with a photocopied cover and low sound quality, bought many years ago. On the date of submitting this feature, there is one copy of it available on Amazon via a site called Buy British for £73, and another on Discogs for £45. Celtic Music also has a one-page website, with an e-mail address and phone number. Approaches to both by friends to try and buy the CD in recent weeks have not yet received a reply.
Two tracks from Bright Phoebus were also licensed to Honest Jons Records’ Mark Ainley and John Williams in 2006 for only ten years. One of them gave its name to Never The Same: Leave-Taking From The British Folk Revival 1970-77, an anthology put together by Ainley and Williams. This collection is where I – and I assume many other fans who came to folk music in the 2000s – first heard them. People newly interested today can only hear ‘Red Wine Promises’ on Spotify, another track licensed for the 2006 anthology Anthems In Eden, or trawl YouTube.
In their post-court hearing press release, Celtic Music also promised a “programme of re-releases to cast new light on valuable folk music performances from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s” in 2018. It remains eagerly awaited.
I also mention ‘The Scarecrow’ to show how well The Watersons understood the primal pull of the mystery of the turning of the seasons. The song begins one summer’s morn with a person roving out, seeing a scarecrow tied to a pole in a field of corn. It is an unsettling vision, his coat black, his head bare. Instantly, it sparks the darker realms of the imagination. Then comes the melancholy. “You’re only a bag of rags,” Waterson sings, with startling tenderness, “in an overall”.