Shirley & Dolly Collins
| Shirley Collins | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Shirley Elizabeth Collins |
| Born |
5 July 1935 Hastings, Sussex |
| Genres | Folk |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1955-1979, 2014-present |
| Associated acts | Dolly Collins, Albion Country Band, The Young Tradition, Davy Graham, Etchingham Steam Band, Current 93 |
| Website | www |
| Notable instruments | |
| banjo | |
Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE (born 5 July 1935) is an English folk singer who was a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s. She often performed and recorded with her sister Dolly, whose accompaniment on piano and portative organ created unique settings for her sister's plain, austere singing style.
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).
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