Description
Label Review.
2020 album. Folk. Also available on CD.
Our Overview.
After being one of the most significant figures in the English Folk Revival of the 1960s then not releasing an album in 38 years, 2016’s ‘Lodestar’ was a musical miracle, and there’s no stopping Shirley Collins now. ‘Lodestar’ brought Shirley’s widely missed voice back to fans with subsequent heralded live shows at London’s Barbican, The Roundhouse and Cambridge Folk Festival.
Recorded at Metway in Brighton, ‘Heart’s Ease’ is as compelling and original as Shirley’s great albums from the 1960s and 70s, with traditional songs from England and the US, four non-traditional tracks with a burst of experimentation that hints at possible new directions to come. ‘Heart’s Ease’ in turn, named after a wild pansy, also follows the release of Collins’ second book ‘All In The Downs’ which won the Penderyn Prize and the documentary ‘The Ballad of Shirley Collins’.
Collins’ intriguing choice of songs on ‘Heart’s Ease’ includes two with lyrics by her first husband Austin John Marshall, a graphic artist and poet who produced several of her albums and had the inspired idea of getting Shirley to work with blues/jazz/world music guitarist Davy Graham on that extraordinary album ‘Folk Roots, New Routes’ in 1964. There are more family memories with “Locked In Ice”, written by Dolly’s son the late Buz Collins and the most startling new piece is the finale, “Crowlink”, named after a pathway on the South Downs overlooking the English Channel “where I love to be,” in which Shirley sings against a moody, atmospheric fusion of Ossian Brown’s hurdy-gurdy, and electronica and field recordings of waves and sea birds from Matthew Shaw.
‘Heart’s Ease’ is a glorious reminder that Shirley Collins is still in a class of her own, both as a folk singer with a distinctive no-nonsense style that is all her own, and as an innovator. And she certainly doesn’t intend this album to be her last. “I have such a huge memory of songs, so many of which I still want to sing. And I wasted all those years not singing, so now I’ve got to catch up a bit!”
Tracklisting: The Merry Golden Tree / Rolling In The Dew / The Christmas Song / Locked In Ice / Wondrous Love / Barbara Allen / Canadee-i-o / Sweet Greens And Blues / Tell Me True / Whitsun Dance / Orange In Bloom / Crowlink