For the very first time

O dear gods, not Mike Waterson!  The sweetest man, with that jauntiness arising from a tough old life:  early orphanhood, hard work, astounding music, and an earthfast family solidarity.  Love and loss and instruments of joy.  I remember his saying that their gypsy grandmother used to send the Waterson children out to gather mussels for dinner.  (In Hull!  It's a wonder they survived.)  Mike wrote some of his best songs while plastering other folks' ceilings.  Relentless work.

And that amazing voice, which Peter Bellamy called "dark yellow."  So it is.  At first hearing (if you don't do folk), it can be like a gulp of cod-liver oil.  And when you've stopped spluttering and gasping, it's beautiful:  that dark-prisoned sunlight, that depth of cold sea.

I'll push you in.  Here's his electrifying Tam Lyn, the antidote to all twee fairydom.  He tells the story as if for the very first time.

Here's his Three Day Millionaire.  "Why, I left school Friday, started work on Saturday..."

And here the Waterson family sings Bright Phoebus at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on Friday 2 October 2009.  For the very last time...

Nine