Shirley Collins

Hastings, London and Lomax

Shirley Elizabeth Collins was born in Hastings on July 5, 1935. At 17 she enrolled at a teachers' training college in Tooting. In 1954 she met the American collector Alan Lomax at a party given by Ewan MacColl, and the two lived together in London while she helped on his European projects. Her first record appearance was on the compilation Folk Song Today in 1955, and in 1956 she sang backing vocals on Lomax and the Ramblers' "Dirty Old Town".

From July to November 1959 she went with Lomax on a field trip through the American South, recording Almeda Riddle, Hobart Smith, Bessie Jones and Mississippi Fred McDowell; Atlantic released the results as Sounds of the South. On that trip she heard "Pretty Polly Oliver" from Mrs. Ollie Gilbert in Timbo, Arkansas, a song she recorded herself 57 years later. Sweet England (Argo, recorded 1958) and False True Lovers (Folkways, 1960) were her first records.

With Dolly and the Albion Band

Folk Roots, New Routes (Decca, 1964) paired her with the guitarist Davy Graham. Her sister Dolly accompanied her on piano and portative organ, beginning with The Sweet Primeroses (Topic, 1967), and Anthems in Eden (Harvest, 1969) was the first album credited to both. Love, Death and the Lady followed in 1970. In 1971 she married Ashley Hutchings after he left Steeleye Span, and No Roses, with the Albion Country Band, drew on 27 musicians over its sessions. In 1976 came Amaranth with Dolly, produced by Hutchings and dense with baroque instruments such as harpsichord, organ and sackbut, and For As Many As Will (1978) was the last studio album by the sisters. Her last appearance of that era was on Lark Rise to Candleford with the Albion Band in 1980.

She stopped singing and took jobs including at the British Library and a job center. Fountain of Snow came out on David Tibet's Durtro label in 1992 or 1993, depending on the source, and she sang on Current 93's Black Ships Ate the Sky in 2006. She published a memoir, America Over the Water, in 2004, received an MBE in 2007 and became president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 2008.

The return

In 2014, coaxed by Tibet, she sang in public for the first time in many years at the Union Chapel in London. Lodestar (Domino, November 4, 2016), recorded in 2015 at her house in Lewes with the producer Ian Kearey and engineers Stephen Thrower and Ossian Brown, was her first album in 38 years. Pitchfork's Louis Pattison gave it 8 out of 10 and wrote that it exists at all feels like a minor miracle, and The Wire placed it second on its 2016 list. Heart's Ease followed on July 24, 2020 and Archangel Hill on May 26, 2023, recorded mostly at Metway Studios in Brighton; Metacritic scores Archangel Hill 84. The film The Ballad of Shirley Collins, by Rob Curry and Tim Plester, premiered in Rotterdam in 2018, and she was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs on August 6, 2023.