Julie Felix

Although she attained lasting prominence across several decades in Britain, the folk singer Julie Felix failed to gain comparable acclaim back home in the United States. Relocating to England during the mid-1960s, the native Californian quickly profited from the surge of interest in American folk that followed Bob Dylan’s international breakthrough and thereby secured the distinction of becoming the first solo folk performer offered a contract by a major British label. At the height of her success in the closing years of that decade she amassed several chart entries, filled Royal Albert Hall to capacity, and fronted a widely viewed variety program on television. Her drawing power extended into the opening years of the 1970s; afterward she lived and recorded for a time in Norway, where additional hits came her way, before returning to California to concentrate on humanitarian work. Settling once more in England during the 1990s, she resumed issuing her own original recordings on an independent imprint and remained a favored presence on the British concert circuit for the ensuing twenty years. In 2018, shortly before her death in March 2020, she marked her eightieth birthday by releasing the album Rock Me Goddess.

Born in California to parents of Mexican and Native American descent, Felix displayed an instinctive gift for singing and gravitated toward folk material while still young, yet she could not launch a professional career in the United States despite the early-1960s revival. In 1964 she set off hitchhiking through Europe and, at the conclusion of her journey, elected to remain in England rather than sail home. Her arrival coincided with the rapid expansion of interest in American folk styles that Dylan’s emergence had triggered; although British enthusiasts had long welcomed performers from the United States, the audience had now grown dramatically. Felix quickly found receptive listeners for her engaging vocal style and stage presence, her distinctive Mexican guitar presented by her father, and her mixed ancestry, which set her apart from the predominantly white, male performers then arriving from across the Atlantic. Within months of settling in England she became the first solo folk artist signed to a major domestic label, English Decca.

Her debut album appeared under her own name, paired with a single of Ian Tyson’s “Someday Soon,” and she soon registered on television via The Eamonn Andrews Show. By 1965 she was headlining concerts and was described in The Times of London as Britain’s First Lady of Folk. Over the following two years she recorded two further albums for Decca, among them a collection devoted to songs by Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, while also championing the work of Leonard Cohen at a time when the Canadian songwriter still commanded only a modest following in Britain. Her dedication to charitable causes likewise drew notice; she raised funds for hunger relief and traveled to several troubled nations in the developing world. Before the close of 1965 she had performed to a capacity audience at Royal Albert Hall, reportedly the first folk singer resident in England to achieve that milestone. In 1966 she transferred to the Fontana label and made three albums there, the most acclaimed being Changes, which blended traditional and contemporary material with instrumental support from Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick. Onstage she came under the management of Brian Epstein, who paired her with Georgie Fame at the Saville Theatre, where an unknown Cat Stevens opened the bill.

By 1967 Felix was appearing regularly as a guest on David Frost’s weekly series, and the following year she was given her own variety program, welcoming guests that included Dusty Springfield, Leonard Cohen, Donovan, and Richard Harris. Among her late-1960s releases was Going to the Zoo, a Fontana collection of children’s songs, and in 1969 she performed at the Isle of Wight Festival. In 1970 she achieved her first pop success, reaching the British Top 20 with “El Condor Pasa” under the production of Mickie Most; the single also marked the first hit for Most’s newly established RAK label. She subsequently recorded the album Clotho’s Web for RAK in 1972. Her initial American television appearance occurred around the same period when Frost, a longtime friend, booked her on his Metromedia talk show. A second hit for Most followed with her version of “Heaven Is Here,” after which she moved to EMI in 1974.

The mid-1970s brought pronounced personal and professional shifts for Felix, an outspoken liberal shaped by 1960s ideals and deeply engaged with social questions. Disheartened by prevailing global trends and by what she viewed as society’s increasingly hedonistic turn, she found greater compatibility in Northern Europe and relocated to Norway, where she enjoyed further chart success in both that country and Sweden. Late in the decade she returned to California, using the interval to renew her commitment to activism; by the early 1980s she was deeply involved in human-rights advocacy across Latin America. Reestablishing herself in England in the early 1990s, she resumed recording, now writing more of her own material and directing her energies toward new-age philosophy alongside political concerns. During the mid-1990s she issued a sequence of original albums on her own Remarkable Records label, among them Windy Morning in 1995 and Fire – My Spirit in 1998.

Entering the new century she sustained an active touring schedule and released the 2002 collection Starry Eyed and Laughing… Songs by Bob Dylan, followed in 2008 by the original set Highway of Diamonds. Active throughout the 2010s, she delivered what proved to be her final album, Rock Me Goddess, in 2018 at the age of eighty and continued performing across England until her death in March 2020, leaving a career that had spanned six decades.