Jimmy MacBeath (1894–1972) was a Scottish Traveller and Traditional singer of the Bothy Ballads from the north east of Scotland. He was both a mentor and source for fellow singers during the mid 20th century British folk revival. He had a huge repertoire of songs, which were recorded by Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson. Life Jimmy MacBeath (pronounced the same as Macbeth) was born to a family of Scottish Travellers in the fishing village of Portsoy, Banffshire, Scotland. He learned songs such as "Lord Randall" (Child Ballad 12) from his mother. At the age of 13 he started work as a live-in farm hand at Deskford. He was a bachelor all his life and learned many songs in the bothies, or farm huts where the male farm workers lived. He was to be a traveller for much of his life; in 1908 he took his first long walk, from Inverness to Perth. In the First World War he joined the Gordon Highlanders and fought in Flanders. Later he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Irish War of Independence. In the 1920s he was demobbed. Working as a kitchen porter, begging and at seasonal fruit picking, he set about tramping the roads of Scotland, England, the Channel Islands, and Nova Scotia. In the streets, pubs, hiring fairs, and markets he earned money by singing. It is even said that he sang in cinemas, which had no piano to play during silent films. He tended to wander during the summer, and spend the winter in Elgin. He died in Tor-na-Dee Hospital in Aberdeen and was buried in his native Portsoy. Singing career Jimmy MacBeath was a "traditional singer". He was part of the last generation to sing traditional songs in bothies, along with John Strachan, and Willie Scott, In the 1920s he travelled the roads with Davie Stewart, who was also a singer, and who played the bagpipes and accordion. Their styles were very different, so one sang while the other collected. He lived in "model lodging houses", government-run houses for homeless men, slightly better than "flophouses". In 1951 Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson were in Turriff, when they heard about Jimmy in Elgin. At the prospect of living at the expense of Columbia Records, he came to Turriff and stayed at one of the best hotel rooms. In 1952 he went to London to appear on the earliest