Shirley Collins

Biography

Shirley Collins and her older sister, Dolly, grew up in the Hastings area of East Sussex in a family which kept alive a great love of traditional song. Songs learnt from their grandfather and from their mother's sister, Grace Winborn, were to be important in the sisters' repertoire throughout their career.

On leaving school, at the age of 17, Collins enrolled at a teachers' training college in Tooting, south London. In London she also involved herself in the early folk revival, making her first appearance on vinyl on the 1955 compilation Folk Song Today. In 1954, at a party hosted by Ewan MacColl, she met Alan Lomax, the American folk collector, who had moved to Britain to avoid the McCarthy witch-hunt, which was then raging in America. Lomax and Collins lived together in London, with Collins assisting Lomax on various European projects and singing backing vocals on a version of MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" by Alan Lomax and the Ramblers, in 1956. In 1958 Collins recorded her first two albums, Sweet England and False True Lovers. The albums featured sparse arrangements with Collins accompanying herself on the banjo. Sweet England was released in 1959 and False True Lovers in 1960. Collins also recorded a series of EPs in 1958 and 1959: The Foggy Dew (released 1959); English Songs (released 1959); English Songs Volume 2 (released 1964); and Shirley Sings Irish (released 1964).

From July to November 1959, Collins and Lomax made a folk song collecting trip in the Southern states. It resulted in many hours of recordings, featuring performers such as Almeda Riddle, Hobart Smith, and Bessie Jones, and is noted for the discovery of Mississippi Fred McDowell. Recordings from this trip were issued by Atlantic Records under the title "Sounds of the South", and some were re-enacted in the Coen brothers’ film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. The experience of her life with Lomax, and the making of the recordings in religious communities, social gatherings, prisons and chain gangs was described in Collins' book America Over the Water (published 2005).

Back in Britain, Collins met Austin John Marshall, whom she later married. She also proceeded with her singing career, appearing releasing on three compilations albums (A Jug of Punch, A Pinch of Salt and Rocket Along) in 1960 and an EP, Heroes in Love, in 1963 (now included with False True Lovers on the CD release). It was after that, in a series of influential albums, that she helped to introduce many innovations into the English folk revival. In 1964, she recorded the landmark jazz-folk fusion of Folk Roots, New Routes, with guitarist Davy Graham. 1967 saw the essentially southern English song collection, The Sweet Primeroses, on which she was accompanied for the first time by Dolly Collins's portative organ. 1968's The Power of the True Love Knot also featured Dolly's accompaniment. In 1969, there was another collaboration, this time with The Young Tradition (featuring Peter Bellamy, Heather Wood and Royston Wood) and Dolly Collins, The Holly Bears the Crown. However, the album was not released until 1995.

Collins's seminal recording is considered by many to be Anthems in Eden, released in 1969 (and the first to be credited to Shirley and Dolly Collins). It featured a suite of songs centred on the changes in rural England brought about by the First World War. Dolly Collins created arrangements featuring David Munrow and various other players from his Early Music Consort. The highly unusual combination of ancient instruments included rebecs, sackbuts, viols and crumhorns. Several critics have suggested that it is impossible to imagine that electric accompaniment for traditional song, as successfully purveyed by Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, could have developed quite as it did without the pioneering Anthems in Eden. All these recordings strove to marry a deep love and understanding of the English folk music heritage with a more contemporary attitude to musical settings. Anthems in Eden was followed by Love, Death and the Lady, also co-credited with Dolly, in 1970.

Collins married her second husband Ashley Hutchings in 1971. He left Steeleye Span that year and he and Collins assembled the first incarnation of the Albion Country Band to accompany her on the 1971 album No Roses, with a total of 27 musicians participating over numerous sessions. Shirley also provided guest vocals on the Hutchings project Morris On in 1972. Following the breakup of a later version of the Albion Country band in 1973 (shortly after recording the album Battle of the Field) the couple created the all acoustic Etchingham Steam Band with Terry Potter, Ian Holder and Vic Gammon, in 1974. The couple were living in Etchingham at the time and the decision to eschew electricity was inspired by the Three-Day Week. The Etchingham's repertoire was drawn from the traditional music of Sussex. The only recording by the band available at the time appeared on the 1974 compilation album A Favourite Garland, although Terry Potter and Ian Holder (as well as Simon Nicol and Roger Swallow, formerly of the Albion Country Band) appear on some tracks on Adieu to Old England, a Collins album also released in 1974 (and produced by Ashley Hutchings). Live recordings of the Etchingham Steam Band from 1974 and 1975 were released on a self-titled CD in 1995.

A largely new group of musicians (with some participation from Etchingham Steam Band members) was assembled for two 1976 releases: the Morris On follow up Son of Morris On (with Shirley again providing vocals); and the newly recorded tracks for the Shirley and Dolly Collins album Amaranth (half of which was a reissue of the side-long suite of songs from Anthems in Eden). The involvement of Philip Pickett and John Sothcott in these recordings saw a return to the use of early music instruments. The bulk of the musicians became The Albion Dance Band, performing traditional material on a mixture of modern (electric) and early music instruments, with Collins on vocals. They recorded the album The Prospect Before Us and a BBC session in 1976, with a single ("Hopping Down in Kent") released that year and the album following in 1977. Live recordings from this period were released on the CD Dancing Days are Here Again in 2007.

Collins does not appear on the next Albion Band album (Rise Up Like the Sun, recorded in 1977 and released in 1978, with the "Dance" dropped from the band name) and decided to focus on home life and her children from her first marriage whilst Hutchings and the Albion Band collaborated on several National Theatre productions. It was during this period that Hutchings left Collins. However, she does make one last appearance with the Albion Band, on the 1980 album Lark Rise to Candleford (the soundtrack of the plays).

1978's For As Many As Will was the last studio album recorded by Shirley and Dolly Collins, although live recordings from 1979 have been issued since and in 1979 she released a single, "The Mariner's Farewell", with Bert Jansch. Collins has largely retired from public performance, but she continues to lecture and to appear on radio as an authority on traditional music.

In 1993 David Tibet of the apocalyptic folk band Current 93 released a collection of her recordings, entitled Fountain of Snow on his Durtro label. Since then, she has appeared on a number of Current 93 recordings and sings on the final version of "Idumæa" on their 2006 album Black Ships Ate the Sky.

In 2009 Topic Records included in their 70-year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten two tracks from The Sweet Primeroses: "All Things Are Quite Silent" and "The Rigs Of The Time".

With actor Pip Barnes, she tours with her three illustrated talks "America over the Water" (about her field trip in the Southern States of America with Alan Lomax), "A Most Sunshiny Day" (about the traditional music of England and Sussex in particular), and "I'm a Romany Rai" (about the Gypsy singers and songs of Southern England). She has also edited a CD entitled "I'm a Romany Rai" for issue (2012) in the series The Voice of the People.

In 2013, Collins appeared on Justin Hopper's text composition, "Fourth River: Ley Line", to be released on the Contraphonic Sound Series.

On February 8, 2014 at Union Chapel in Islington, London, UK, Shirley sang for the first time for many years, performing 2 songs; "All the Pretty Little Horses" and "Death and the Lady." She was accompanied by Ian Kearey, from the band Oysterband. She returned to recording and in November 2016, Collins released Lodestar, her first new album in 38 years.

Honours

In 2004, she was awarded a Gold Badge by the English Folk Dance and Song Society. She was awarded the MBE for services to music in the 2007 New Year's Honours List. She holds and Honorary Degree from the Open University (for a "notable contribution to education and culture") and an Honorary Doctorate. In 2008 she was given the "Good Tradition" award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. She is currently patron of the South East Folk Arts Network and Folk South West. Also in 2008, she was elected as president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Shirley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Sussex University, at a ceremony at The Dome in Brighton in July 2016. She was proposed by Richard Elliott, Professor of Popular Music, and was presented with her degree by the Chancellor of the University, Sanjeev Bhaskar. http://www.shirleycollins.co.uk/images/SEC%20and%20SB.jpg

Influence

The American folk-rock band 10,000 Maniacs did a cover of "Just as the Tide was Flowing", closely modelled on the version on the No Roses album.

Billy Bragg said of her: "Shirley Collins is without doubt one of England's greatest cultural treasures."

Few singers of the English folk revival have attempted as much on record as Collins – an extraordinary combination of fragility and power. "I like music to be fairly straightforward, simply embellished – the performance without histrionics allowing you to think about the song rather than telling you what to think."

Colin Meloy of The Decemberists recorded a whole EP of Shirley Collins tunes. It was sold on Meloy's 2006 spring United States tour in limited quantities.

Discography

Shirley and Dolly Collins

Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band

Shirley Collins with Ashley Hutchings/The Albion Band

The Young Tradition and Shirley and Dolly Collins

Shirley Collins and Davy Graham

Etchingham Steam Band (includes Shirley Collins)

Compilations