Shirley Collins - Lodestar '2016

Tracks list

Shirley Collins - legendary folk singer and one of Englands most respected song
collectors - has announced her return to recording after 38 years. With new
album Lodestar, Shirley has created the unlikeliest release of the century so
far. Lodestar is a collection of English, American and Cajun songs dating from
the 16th Century to the 1950s, recorded at Shirleys home in Lewes by Stephen
Thrower and Ossian Brown of Cyclobe and produced and musically directed by Ian
Kearey. The first track to be shared from Lodestar is Cruel Lincoln. Shirley
explains the history of the song: This is an ancient ballad, found only rarely
in England. The theory is that Cruel Lincoln was a mason who was not paid for
the work he did for the Lord of the Manor and so extracted a terrible revenge.
It also features bird song recorded at the back of Shirleys cottage. Born in
Hastings in 1935, Shirley was fascinated by folk songs as she was growing up,
songs she heard on the radio or sung by her grandparents in Anderson shelters.
She left home for London to immerse herself in the burgeoning folk scene; at a
party held by Ewan MacColl she met Alan Lomax, and in 1959 she joined him in the
USA on the renowned field trip Southern Journey, recording American folk songs
and blues, a formative journey for her personally and professionally. On her
return to England, Shirley cemented her role at the forefront of the Folk
Revival, recording over a dozen albums including the influential Folk Roots, New
Routes with avant-garde guitarist Davy Graham, and No Roses, from which The
Albion Country Band was formed. However, in the 1980s, Shirley lost her singing
voice - later diagnosed as a form of dysphonia - and withdrew from performing
live. It was only in 2014, after coaxing from David Tibet (Current 93), that
Shirley sang in public for the first time since 1982. Though Shirley Collins
(MBE) has been absent from the music scene for many years, her impact has not
diminished, the likes of Graham Coxon, Jonny Greenwood, Stewart Lee and Angel
Olsen laud her and a documentary The Ballad of Shirley Collins is currently in
progress. Additionally, she was given the Good Tradition award at the BBC Radio
2 Folk Awards in 2008, elected President of the English Folk Dance & Song
Society in the same year and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from
Sussex University this year. Shirley released her first memoir, America Over the
Water, in 2004 and is currently working on her second book. Now Shirley Collins
has sung once more (with a mischievous delight in defeating expectation), the
accepted canon of her great recordings will have to be comprehensively
recalibrated, yet again. Shirley is a time traveller, a conduit for essential
human aches, one of the greatest artists who ever lived, and yet utterly humble
Stewart Lee

Tracks:
01. Shirley Collins - Awake Awake / The Split Ash Tree / May Carol / Southover
(11:10)
02. Shirley Collins - The Banks Of Green Willow (3:19)
03. Shirley Collins - Cruel Lincoln (3:31)
04. Shirley Collins - Washed Ashore (2:57)
05. Shirley Collins - Death & The Lady (4:46)
06. Shirley Collins - Pretty Polly (4:17)
07. Shirley Collins - Old Johnny Buckle (1:43)
08. Shirley Collins - Sur Le Borde De LEau (3:54)
09. Shirley Collins - The Rich Irish Lady / Jeff Sturgeon (5:59)
10. Shirley Collins - The Silver Swan (1:26)

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