Anne Briggs

Nottingham to the London folk clubs

Anne Patricia Briggs was born on September 29, 1944 in Toton, Beeston, Nottinghamshire, and was raised by an aunt and uncle. At Easter in 1959, at 15, she travelled from Nottingham to Edinburgh, where she met Archie Fisher and Bert Jansch, who remained lifelong friends. After Ewan MacColl heard her she joined the Centre 42 tour organized by Arnold Wesker; Wikipedia dates this to 1960, while Record Collector has MacColl inviting her by 1962. She moved to London and lived with Jansch in an Earl's Court squat, in a scene that included John Renbourn, Clive Palmer and the Incredible String Band.

In 1962 and 1963 she worked with Scottish Traveller singers, among them the Stewarts, Jeannie Robertson, Sheila Stewart and Lizzie Higgins. Two songs appeared on the Topic compilation The Iron Muse in 1963, and the EP The Hazards of Love, produced by A. L. Lloyd, followed that year. In 1965 she went to Ireland with the Dubliners and spent summers there for four years in pub sessions, learning the sean-nos approach to singing; in 1966 she toured with Sweeney's Men and learned the bouzouki. The Bird in the Bush (Topic, 1966) was made with Lloyd, and that year she recorded The Recruited Collier, My Bonny Boy and Polly Vaughan for the BBC Folk-Song Cellar.

Two albums and a retreat

Signed by the manager Jo Lustig, who had signed Pentangle in 1968, she made two albums in 1971: Anne Briggs, produced by Lloyd for Topic in April, and The Time Has Come for CBS, produced by Colin Caldwell, which she has said was recorded essentially in one take. It sold poorly and was deleted. She played the Royal Festival Hall in 1971 with COB.

In early 1973 she recorded Sing a Song for You with Ragged Robin but blocked its release, and it stayed unreleased until 1996. She moved to Sutherland, then lived in Lincolnshire, ran a bunkhouse and tea garden on Cara in the 1990s and later lived near Oban. In 1982 she sang at the memorial concert for Bert Lloyd, and in the early 1990s Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick persuaded her to play a few shows. Topic reissued Anne Briggs on vinyl for Record Store Day in 2015 and again in 2019 and 2021, and Fledg'ling issued the EP Four Songs in 2016. Asked in 2007 for a message, she said: say I'm OK.

Influence

Wikipedia lists Jansch, the Watersons, June Tabor, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson and Maddy Prior among those influenced by her, and Eliza Carthy and Kate Rusby as admirers. Thompson's "Beeswing" is partly about her. The Decemberists took the title of their 2009 album The Hazards of Love from her EP, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss covered "Go Your Way" on Raise the Roof in 2021. She has said she was not aware of her influence until fairly recently and it was something of a shock.