Beryl Marriott obituary

Pianist with an enduring influence on the British folk scene
Beryl Marriott.
Beryl Marriott, the 'Jerry Lee Lewis of folk'. h

On 30 July, just as the 56th Sidmouth folk festival in Devon was getting under way, Beryl Marriott, the festival's former music director, died aged 81. One member of Beryl's band at the seventh and eighth festivals, in the early 1960s, was Dave Swarbrick, whom Beryl had heard at a skiffle competition. Impressed by his natural talent, Beryl had steered him away from the guitar to the fiddle. With her continued mentoring, Swarbrick became the British folk scene's top fiddler and eventually joined the folk-rock band Fairport Convention. Beryl's music, style and repertoire had a continuing influence on the band for almost four decades.

Her main instrument was the piano. With few piano-playing role models, Beryl took her inspiration from traditional musicians such as the Irish piper Séamus Ennis and the Yorkshire melodeon player George Tremain, as well as the Scottish singer Jeannie Robertson. It was their emotional response to the music that influenced her. Some considered that her playing was influenced by the jazz musician Thelonious Monk, while Fairport Convention members referred to her as "the Jerry Lee Lewis of folk". She had a reputation for jazzing up the traditional folk tunes.

She was born Beryl Smith in Chester. Her music teacher told her off for improvising, but her tutors at a teacher-training college in Crewe, Cheshire were more enlightened. In Birmingham, Beryl became involved in the English folk dance scene during the 1950s square-dance boom, alongside the fiddle player Kay Graham. They also played Irish music in the Emerald Isle Ceilidh Band.

Moving to London in 1953, she was a sought-after dance musician for the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), playing at events at Cecil Sharp House in north London and at festivals, as well as recording and broadcasting on radio. Beryl returned to Birmingham in 1957 and became a leading figure in the Birmingham Players' Club and its course for musicians in 1959 in Alnwick, Northumberland, attended by local traditional folk musicians such as the Northumbrian piper Billy Pigg. She also introduced Charles Parker, the BBC producer of the Radio Ballads documentaries, to folk music.

Beryl spent four years in Canada. On her return to Britain in 1967, she discovered that the pianos once found in village and church halls were quickly disappearing, so she took up the accordion for folk dances. By 1969 Swarbrick and his former colleague in the Ian Campbell Group, Dave Pegg, had both joined Fairport Convention. Swarbrick's solo albums and his Swarbrick and Friends concerts usually featured Beryl on piano. By this time, she had become involved in innovative work in special education. She resisted Swarbrick's pleading to give up teaching and devote herself full-time to music.

The advent of the electric piano allowed Beryl to return to her first instrument. Following early retirement from teaching in 1986, she was able to make more concert appearances with Swarbrick. Beryl continued to exert an influence on Fairport Convention, even after Swarbrick left the band. For several years, she fronted the Fairport Convention Ceilidh Band, and often performed at their annual weekend festival at Cropredy, Oxfordshire. Fairport's Ric Sanders described Beryl's playing as "lyrical, swinging, and with an intuitive understanding of traditional material".

In 1992, Fairport members persuaded Beryl to record a solo album, Weave the Mirror, which included English, Irish, Scottish and Manx tunes. It was launched, to critical acclaim, to coincide with the band's silver jubilee tour, on which Beryl played support. She also recorded an album, The Gift (1994), with Chris Leslie. In 2000, she recorded an album, Hands Across the Pond, with the American fiddle player Richard Greene.

With her husband Roger, whom she married in 1957, she continued to play locally in her home county of Bedfordshire in the folk dance band Watling's Treat. Her playing career came to an end after a stroke in 2008. She was awarded the gold badge of the EFDSS last year.

She is survived by Roger and their children, Katie and Bill.

Beryl Patricia Marriott, folk pianist, born 27 November 1928, died 30 July 2010