Lodestar

In 1959 Shirley Collins collected songs with Alan Lomax in the US. But she loved the songs of the English rural working class and she became one of their finest exponents. Her voice was clear and, untrammelled by vibrato, her singing always served the song rather than the other way round. Then, in the 70s, having made some of the finest albums of the folk revival – No Roses,Anthems in Eden and Love, Death and the Lady – in the trauma of a marriage break-up, she lost her voice. She scarcely sang a note for almost 40 years.

But Shirley Collins was not forgotten: many musicians revered her and David Tibet, of the band Current 93, coaxed her gradually back, until in 2014, at the centenary concert for her friend Bob Copper, she sang in public once again. More recently, at home in her cottage with musician friends under the direction of Ian Kearey of the Oysterband, and birds singing in the garden, she recorded Lodestar. The songs have a special meaning to her. ‘The Rich Irish Lady’ she heard from Horton Barker in Virginia. She recorded Ollie Gilbert singing ‘Pretty Polly’ in Arkansas. Apart from these, and one Cajun song, Collins remains deep in the dark, mysterious and often bloody world of English traditional song that has fascinated her all her life. Kearey's instrumental arrangements are fitting, yet bold and various: slide guitar, hurdy-gurdy, pipes, concertina, cello, harmonium and percussion – there's even a Morris dancer jingling his bells. All these surround the newly rediscovered, 81-year-old voice of Shirley Collins. It is as if she has become one of her own field recordings; Lodestar has that strength, fragility and conviction, and it is beautiful, moving and profound.