“Your gold shall count as dust when that you are fled/Your absence proves me lost and strikes me dead”
ALBUM OF THE MONTH 8/10
THAT England’s greatest living folk singer, Shirley Collins, would still be making records in her ninth decade was by no means preordained. There are many reasons why an artist might give up the ghost – dwindling inspiration, the rigours of age, a music industry that can be careless towards the legacy of its elders. Besides, Collins’ departure from the live stage had seemed complete – a three-decade absence that began early in the 1980s, after a divorce from her husband and collaborator Ashley Hutchings, leader of the Albion Country Band.
Following the divorce, Collins was diagnosed with vocal dysphonia – even if, then 2020’s – through which you could hear her confidence grow, her powers return.
