Briggs was born in Toton, Beeston, Nottinghamshire, England.[1] Her mother died of tuberculosis when she was young. Her father, Albert, was severely injured in World War II and she was raised in Toton by her aunt Hilda and uncle Bill, who also brought up Hilda's youngest sister Beryl, and their own daughter Betty. In 1959, she hitch-hiked with a friend to Edinburgh.[2] They stayed overnight with Archie Fisher, who was at that time prominent in the revival of folk music in Scotland, and through him she met Bert Jansch, who had just begun to compose his own songs. Jansch and Briggs had an instant rapport and were an influence on each other for several years.[3]
In 1962, the Trades Union Congress passed Resolution 42, concerned with developing cultural activities outside London. To implement this resolution, playwright Arnold Wesker was appointed as the leader, with Ewan MacColl and A. L. "Bert" Lloyd heavily involved, and Charles Parker on production. Calling themselves Centre 42, they organised a tour around Britain, hoping to involve local talent at each stop.[2]
At Nottingham, MacColl heard Briggs singing "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" and "She Moves Through the Fair" and promptly invited her to perform on stage that night. She became a full member of the tour and recorded the same two songs on an album recorded live in Edinburgh later that year. Briggs decided to leave home, just four weeks short of her eighteenth birthday.[1] Centre 42 gave her an administrative job in their offices, liaising with theatres and galleries. She soon acquired the contacts she needed to pursue her own musical career.[4]
Beginnings of folk music career
Briggs attended a folk song club in Nottingham between 1960 and 1962 run by Joy and Eric Foxley in their flat near the Nottingham Goose Fair site. Briggs visited the main British folk clubs which were then becoming well known such as The Troubadour (London) and The Scots Hoose, as well as various Irish music venues. At this time, the emphasis at such venues was on instrumental folk music, and singing was regarded as merely a pause between tunes. A young Christy Moore heard her and was inspired to give more emphasis, in his own music, to singing rather than playing jigs.
Briggs and Jansch lived together in a squat in Earl's Court before moving together to a house in Somali Road, London, where John Renbourn lived, and The Young Tradition also lived for a time. Jansch and Briggs had some resemblance to each other and were often mistaken for brother and sister. It was Briggs who taught Jansch the traditional song "Blackwaterside" which he recorded on his Jack Orion album in 1966.[2]
First recordings
Briggs began her recording career by contributing two songs to a thematic album, The Iron Muse, released by Topic Records in 1963. MacColl and Bert Lloyd sang on the tracks, and Ray Fisher made a brief appearance singing along with Briggs. An EPThe Hazards of Love was recorded in 1963. It was an early inspiration for both June Tabor and Maddy Prior.[2]
At about this time, Briggs entered a relationship with a Scotsman known as "Gary the archer," who proved to be violently abusive.[3] She was rescued from this relationship by Hamish Henderson, who accidentally met her and invited her to join Louis Killen, Dave Swarbrick and Frankie Armstrong for a recording project. This resulted in the album called The Bird in The Bush.[5]
Johnny Moynihan
While touring England, The Dubliners met Briggs and thought she would be the perfect musical partner for Johnny Moynihan, a folk singer they knew in Dublin. In 1965 she went with them to Ireland and for the next four years she spent her summers there, travelling by horse-drawn cart and singing in pub sessions. During the winter months she earned money by touring English folk clubs. Her time in Ireland introduced her to the solo sean-nós singing heard in the songs of Irish folk artists, and this was an influence on her later singing style, when blended with the elements of traditional English music which she had already taken up.[2]
Briggs was notoriously wild at this time. There are many stories from this period about her, such as pushing Moynihan and Andy Irvine out of a hay loft and, on another occasion, jumping into the sea at Malin Head, Donegal to chase seals.[2] In an episode of Folk Britannia (a documentary history of UK folk music aired in 2006) Richard Thompson recalled that he only ever encountered Briggs twice and on both occasions she was drunk and unconscious.
Her attendance at bookings was so erratic that it was said she turned up only five times between mid-1963 and early 1965.[6]
In 1966, Moynihan and Irvine formed Sweeney's Men. Briggs joined them on tours and learned to play the bouzouki, at that time a rare instrument in Britain and Ireland. She wrote "Living by the Water", which was to appear on her 1971 album, accompanying herself on the instrument.[citation needed]
Reluctant star
The folk-rock impresario Jo Lustig signed up Pentangle in 1968 and a couple of years later took on Briggs. Briggs performed along with the folk-rock group COB (Clive's Original Band) at the Royal Festival Hall in 1971.[7]
In the same year, she recorded an album, Anne Briggs, which was released by Topic.[1] It consisted mostly of Briggs singing traditional unaccompanied songs, but Moynihan plays bouzouki on one track.[2] Later that same year, a second album, The Time Has Come, was released on CBS where she performed her own songs, accompanied by acoustic guitar.[2] The album includes Moynihan's song, "Standing on the Shore," previously recorded by Sweeney's Men. The BBC broadcast a film of the Watersons in 1966, "Travelling for a Living," in which Briggs made a brief appearance. Lal Waterson joined Briggs as a vocalist on the album. Sales of The Time has Come were poor and it was dropped from CBS's catalogue. The album was re-issued in 1996.
Early in 1973 she recorded a third solo album Sing a Song for You with instrumental support from Ragged Robin, a folk-rock band led by Steve Ashley. She was pregnant at the time with her second child. She would eventually move to northern Scotland with her family.[2] It was to be her final studio recording and remained unavailable until 1996, when it was released by Fledg'ling Records.[8] By this time Briggs was living in the Hebrides.
After Bert Lloyd died in 1982, Briggs was persuaded to sing in a memorial concert.[citation needed] Despite coaxing from some of the brightest names in British folk music, she refused to return to the studio.[citation needed] In 1993, Briggs took part in a TV documentary about Bert Jansch, singing "Go Your Way My Love" as a duet with Jansch for the show. The recording later reappeared in the soundtrack Acoustic Routes (1993) on Demon Records.
In recent years her material has been re-released on vinyl for Record Store Day.[9]
Influence
Jansch described her as "one of the most underrated singers." He recorded Briggs' songs (including "Go Your Way, My Love" and "Wishing Well") on four of his albums. She was also his source for several of the traditional songs which he recorded, including "Blackwaterside." Jansch's instrumental accompaniment to this song was later copied and adapted by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page,[citation needed] who recorded it as "Black Mountain Side" and credited himself as the writer.
Jansch and John Renbourn played "The Time Has Come" on their duo record before eventually recording it with the rest of Pentangle on the Sweet Child release. One song, "Mosaic Patterns," which Briggs herself has never recorded, was recorded by blues singer Dorris Henderson. Sandy Denny wrote a song in tribute to Briggs, called "The Pond and the Stream", on Fotheringay (1970).[10]
Herbert Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s as an acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter. He recorded more than 28 albums and toured extensively from the 1960s to the 21st century.
Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE is an English folk singer who was a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s. She often performed and recorded with her sister Dolly, whose accompaniment on piano and portative organ created unique settings for Shirley's plain, austere singing style.
June Tabor is an English folk singer known for her solo work and her earlier collaborations with Maddy Prior and with Oysterband.
Albert Lancaster Lloyd, usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the British folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. While Lloyd is most widely known for his work with British folk music, he had a keen interest in the music of Spain, Latin America, Southeastern Europe and Australia. He recorded at least six discs of Australian Bush ballads and folk music.
The Watersons were an English folk group from Hull, Yorkshire. They performed mainly traditional songs with little or no accompaniment. Their distinctive sound came from their closely woven harmonies. They have been called the "most famous family in English folk music".
Norma Christine Waterson 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.
Archie Macdonald Fisher is a Scottish folk singer and songwriter. He has released several solo albums since his first, eponymous album, in 1968. Fisher composed the song "The Final Trawl", recorded on the album Windward Away, that several other groups and singers, including The Clancy Brothers, have also recorded. Starting in the mid-1970s, he produced four folk albums with Makem and Clancy. He also performed with them and other groups as a backup singer and guitarist. He hosted his own radio show on BBC Radio Scotland for almost three decades.
John Moynihan is an Irish folk singer, based in Dublin. He is often credited with introducing the bouzouki into Irish music in the mid-1960s.
James Yorkston is a Scottish folk musician, singer-songwriter and author from the village of Kingsbarns, Fife. He has been releasing music since 2001. As well as recording as a solo artist, he has released music with his backing band the Athletes, as part of the Fence Collective, and as a member of the trio Yorkston/Thorne/Khan. He has also written fiction and non-fiction books.
"Black Mountain Side" is an instrumental by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, adapted, without credit, from Bert Jansch's original arrangement of the traditional Irish folk song "Down by Blackwaterside". It was recorded in October 1968 at Olympic Studios in London, and is included on the group's 1969 debut album Led Zeppelin.
Bill Leader is an English recording engineer and record producer. He is particularly associated with the British folk music revival of the 1960s and 1970s, producing records by Paddy Tunney, Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Frank Harte and many others.
Isla Cameron was a Scottish-born, English-raised actress and singer. AllMusic noted that "Cameron was one of a quartet of key figures in England's postwar folk song revival – and to give a measure of her importance, the other three were Ewan MacColl, A. L. Lloyd, and Alan Lomax". She was a respected and popular folk music performer through the 1950s and early 60s as well as appearing in several films; she focused almost exclusively on her acting career from 1966 onwards. Cameron provided the singing voice for actress Julie Christie's part in the hit 1967 film version of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, but changed career direction and became a film researcher in the early 1970s before her early death in a domestic accident in 1980. One of the traditional songs in her repertoire, "Blackwaterside", recorded by Cameron in 1962, was subsequently popularised by notable "next generation" U.K. folk music performers Anne Briggs, Bert Jansch and Sandy Denny.
Alex Campbell was a Scottish folk singer whose nickname was 'Big Daddy'. He was influential in the British folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first folk singers in modern times to tour the UK and Europe. He was described by Colin Harper as a "melancholic, hard-travelling Glaswegian" and was known for his story-telling and singing
Maria Gilhooley, who records under the name Marry Waterson, is a singer, songwriter and visual artist. A member of the Waterson-Knight-Carthy family musical dynasty, Waterson is described as having "thrived on communal music making while developing highly original and distinctly English performance styles of [her] own."
"Broom of the Cowdenknowes", also known as "Bonny May", is a traditional Scottish love ballad,. It has been traced to the seventeenth century, but its exact origin is unknown.
The Time Has Come is a folk album released in 1971 by Anne Briggs. It is her second album, released by CBS, and, unlike her previous recordings, which featured a capella renditions of traditional songs, the album saw Briggs playing guitar on some of her own songs. The album also includes some instrumental songs on which Briggs plays bouzouki, allowing for a more playful contrast to some of the heavier compositions, such as "The Time Has Come" and "Wishing Well" that "drip with pensive sadness".
"Down by Blackwaterside" is a traditional folk song, provenance and author unknown, although it is likely to have originated near the River Blackwater, Northern Ireland. Peter Kennedy suggests that the lyrics originated in England, later picking up the best known tune in Ireland. Versions with a different tune have been collected in the English West Country. There is a Blackwater River in South East England.
Anne Briggs is a folk album released in 1971 by Anne Briggs. The songs are Traditional apart from two Briggs originals, "Go Your Way" and "Living By The Water". The front cover photograph was taken by Pat Delap on Little Bealings Heath, Suffolk either in 1969 or 1970.
Bright Phoebus, fully titled Bright Phoebus: Songs by Lal & Mike Waterson, is a folk rock album by Lal and Mike Waterson. It was recorded in May 1972 with musical assistance from various well-known members of the British folk rock scene. The album failed to make an impact on its original release, but it was subsequently championed by many musicians, including Billy Bragg, Arcade Fire, Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker. For years the album was difficult to obtain. In 2017, a re-release of Bright Phoebus was announced and shortly thereafter pulled from the market for legal reasons.
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