Isla Cameron

Isla Cameron (5 March 1927 – 3 April 1980) 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. Early life and experience Isla Cameron was born in Blairgowrie, Scotland, but spent her childhood and teens in Newcastle upon Tyne. Growing up on Tyneside, she learned some traditional children's songs and rhymes but always considered herself a revivalist rather than a traditional singer, selecting a range of songs to sing from wherever she found them to her liking. In around 1945 Joan Littlewood, who had co-founded the Theatre Workshop with husband Ewan MacColl, was performing with the Workshop in Newcastle and, impressed by the "absolutely pure voice" of Cameron, then in her late teens, invited her to join as lead singer-narrator for a production of a MacColl-authored ballad opera entitled "Johnny Noble", since the person previously in this role was leaving to get married. Cameron joined, and went on to perform with the Workshop for four years, including tours with different productions in England, Germany, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia. Singing career MacColl encouraged Cameron to pursue a singing career, one result of which was the issuing of a 78 rpm recording on HMV Records in c. 1951, featuring Cameron singing an unaccompanied rendition of "The Fair Flower of Northumberland", noted in her obituary as "a daring innovation in those days". Additional unaccompanied performances released at that time comprise "The Turtle Dove" backed with "Lay The Bent to the Bonnie Broom", and "Died for Love" plus "The Queen's Maries" backed with "Queen Jane".