Dorris Henderson was an American-born, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

-based folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 singer and autoharp

Autoharp

The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...

 player.

Early years

Born in Lakeland, Florida

Lakeland, Florida

Lakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, located approximately midway between Tampa and Orlando along Interstate 4. According to the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 94,406...

 but raised in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, she was the daughter of an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 clergyman and the granddaughter of a Blackfoot

Blackfoot

The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....

 Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

. She initially worked as a civil servant but became interested in music after seeing a performance by Odetta

Odetta

Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...

 at the famed LA folk venue the Ash Grove

Ash Grove (music club)

The Ash Grove was a folk music club located at 8162 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, founded in 1958 by Ed Pearl and named after the Welsh folk song, "The Ash Grove."...

. She soon became a regular at Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...

's jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 clubs and soon began to perform autoharp version of tunes from Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

's The Folk Songs of North America. Henderson got her break when she met Lord Buckley

Lord Buckley

Lord Richard Buckley was an American stage performer, recording artist, monologist, and hip poet/comic...

 and joined him for a series of stage shows in Hollywood, including an appearance playing 'Rock of Ages' on one of Buckley's live albums.

Full-time music career

Having gained some recognition from her association with Buckley Henderson decided to devote her attentions ot music full time and moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in order to do so at a time when the city's Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

 area was the centre of a boom in American folk music. Henderson quickly became a friend of leading scene figures such as Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....

, Fred Neil

Fred Neil

Fred Neil was an American folk singer-songwriter in the 1960s and early 1970s. He did not achieve commercial success as a performer, and is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material – particularly "Everybody's Talkin'", which became a hit for Harry Nilsson after being...

, Paul Simon

Paul Simon

Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

, becoming one of the first artists to cover Simon with her version of 'Leaves That are Green', and Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, making a brief appearance in the latter's film Dont Look Back

Dont Look Back

Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...

.

Move to the UK

Henderson's brother served in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 with the United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

 and, following encouragement from him, she travelled to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, staying at a hotel in the Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

 area. Henderson soon became a regular feature at The Troubadour, a centre of the folk revival, and from there won a residency on the BBC2 television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 programme Gadzooks! It's All Happening, appearing alongside such stars of the time as Tom Jones

Tom Jones (singer)

Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

 and Sandie Shaw

Sandie Shaw

Sandie Shaw is an English pop singer, who was one of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s. In 1967 she was the first UK act to win the Eurovision Song Contest...

. After meeting John Renbourn

John Renbourn

John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...

 at The Roundhouse

The Roundhouse

The Roundhouse is a Grade II* listed former railway engine shed in Chalk Farm, London, England, which has been converted into a performing arts and concert venue. It was originally built in 1847 as a roundhouse , a circular building containing a railway turntable, but was only used for railway...

 she offered the young guitarist the chance to accompany her and the duo recorded two albums together - There You Go (1965) and Watch the Stars (1967). After an encounter with the Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 folk singer Cobi Schreijer at the same venue she also undertook a Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an tour encompassing thirteen countries.

Later years

Following Renbourn's departure to link up with Bert Jansch

Bert Jansch

Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...

 Henderson became the singer with the band Eclection

Eclection

Eclection were a British-based folk rock band, originally formed in 1967 in London by Norwegian-born Georg Kajanus , Canadian Michael Rosen, Australians Trevor Lucas and Kerrilee Male, and Britisher Gerry Conway...

, performing with them at the Isle of Wight Festival 1969

Isle of Wight Festival 1969

The 1969 Isle of Wight Festival was held on August 30–31, 1969, at Wootton, and attracted an audience of approximately 150,000 to see the acts of Bob Dylan, The Who and Free. It was the second of three music festivals held on the Isle of Wight between 1968 and 1970...

, and, following their demise, launched Dorris Henderson's Eclection with her son Eric Jones as guitarist. After marrying Mac McGann, formerly of the Levee Breakers, Henderson settled in Twickenham

Twickenham

Twickenham is a large suburban town southwest of central London. It is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and one of the locally important district centres identified in the London Plan...

 and largely retired from music, bar some jingle

Jingle

A jingle is a short tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. The jingle contains one or more hooks and lyrics that explicitly promote the product being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television...

 work and a few appearance with Bob Kerr

Bob Kerr (musician)

Bob Kerr is a comic musician who plays trumpet and cornet. He was originally a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and was persuaded by Geoff Stephens to join The New Vaudeville Band before forming his own Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band...

.

Following a rerelease of There You Go in 1999 Henderson returned to music on a more regular basis, culminating in the 2003 album Here I Go Again, a work featuring Renbourn and a number of other former colleagues and described by Henderson as 'my musical autobiography'. Henderson died in 2005 after battling against cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

.