Anne Briggs - Reluctant Star

Reluctant Star

The folk-rock impresario Jo Lustig signed up Pentangle in 1968 and a couple of years later took on Briggs. Through his influence Anne performed along with the folk-rock group COB at the Royal Festival Hall in 1971.

In the same year, she recorded an album, Anne Briggs, which was released by Topic. It consisted mostly of Briggs singing traditional unaccompanied songs, but Moynihan plays bouzouki on one track. Later that same year, a second album, The Time Has Come, was released on CBS which finds Briggs moving away from the mainly a cappella style of her previous recordings, instead opting to flesh out the songs (mostly written by Briggs) with acoustic guitar. 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 Anne Briggs made a brief appearance. Lal Waterson joined Briggs as a vocalist on the album. Sales of The Time has Come were, however, dismal, and it was dropped from CBS's catalogue, finally being re-issued in 1996. Briggs is said to have disliked the sound of her recorded voice, particularly on this album.

Early in 1973 she recorded a third solo album Sing a Song For You with instrumental support from "Ragged Robin", who were a folk-rock band assembled around Steve Ashley. She was pregnant at the time with her second child. Her confidence was at its lowest ebb and it was to be her final studio recording. By the time it was issued, Briggs was living in the Hebrides. The album sank without trace until Fledgling Records re-issued it in 1996, when it was acclaimed by folk music aficionados as a lost gem.

When Bert Lloyd died in 1990 she was persuaded to sing in a memorial concert. Despite coaxing from some of the brightest names in British folk music, she refused to return to the studio. There was a TV documentary about Bert Jansch in 1993. Anne took part in this and sang "Go Your Way My Love" as a duet with Bert for the show. The recording later reappeared in the soundtrack "Acoustic Routes" (1993) on Demon Records. On eBay the original 1960s pressings of Anne Briggs records often fetch over £80. There are several anecdotes and photographs of Anne Briggs in the book "Dazzling Stranger" by Colin Harper (2001).