Lizzie Higgins

Born as Elizabeth Ann Youlden on 20 September 1929 in Aberdeen, Scotland, Higgins died there of cancer on 20 February 1993. The only daughter of Scottish ballad singer Jeannie Robertson and piper Donald Higgins, she left school at fifteen and spent a period working as a fish filleter. Once song collector Hamish Henderson discovered her mother, Higgins began to travel occasionally with Robertson through Scotland and England, gathering and performing songs. As their reputation expanded, she turned to singing as a full-time occupation. Regular performances, however, did not begin until after her mother’s death in 1975. Her style featured what she called “the pipe singing,” in which she would ornament a melody much as a piper does. Listeners frequently recall her contribution to the double album The Muckle Sangs, a set of ballad recordings issued by the School of Scottish Studies, and she is widely regarded as one of the greatest Scottish traditional singers. Although she appeared on numerous recordings, Higgins released only two albums under her own name.