Jimmy MacBeath (1894 - 1972) was an itinerant worker and singer of Bothy Ballads from the north east of Scotland. He was a source of traditional songs for singers of the mid 20th century Folk Revival in Great Britain. 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 was in the Medical Corps in Ireland. 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 even Nova Scotia. In the streets, pubs, hiring fairs and markets he earned money by singing. It is even said that he sang in cinemas where there was no piano for 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 Portsoy. Jimmy MacBeath was a "traditional singer". He was part of the last generation to sing traditional songs in bothies, along with John Strachan, a