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SHIRLEY COLLINS
Heart s Ease DOMINO
9/10
England’s greatest folk singer, braver than ever. By Tom Pinnock
THEN just 20 years old and working in a London coffee bar, Shirley Collins first appeared on record on the 1955 compilation Folk Song Today. She was a newcomer alongside such veterans as Bob Copper and Jeannie Robertson, accompanying herself on an autoharp for her take on “Dabbling In The Dew”. In a neat reminder of her dogged commitment to the traditional songs of England, especially of her home county Sussex, she revisits the song here, on her new album, 65 years later.
Heart’s Ease is only the second Collins record since 1978’s For As Many As Will, after which dysphonia and a painful divorce – interestingly, the same circumstances that led to the loss of Linda Thompson’s voice just a few years later – resulted in her 38-year retirement. While the new album’s existence is less miraculous than that of Lodestar’s surprise appearance in 2016, Heart’s Ease finds Collins’ voice rejuvenated, and her confidence restored.
Having performed live in support of the home-recorded , she was bold enough to enter a proper studio this time, Metway in Brighton, where she discovered that her delivery was far more dynamic and commanding than on the slightly tentative . Age has taken Collins’ range down by an octave since the ’60s and ’70s, but she’s still able to soar up to higher notes on the hymnal “The Christmas Song” and the bluesy “Wondrous Love”. The mellower tones of her voice today are perfect for storytelling too, as on the seafaring tale “The Merry Golden Tree”; indeed, the sharp voice of the more youthful Collins was
