Tenterden Folk Festival is
delighted to report the appointment of Shirley Collins as Honorary Patron.
Shirley
has been involved in the English folk scene as a singer, song collector and
researcher since the early 1960. She was
born and lived in Hastings just before the 2nd World War and lived
through rationing and hardship like many people at that time. Suddenly, as a young teenager, she was
undertaking a trip to America and experiencing a dramatic change in culture and
much more at a time when very few people travelled abroad, especially young,
single girls. To make the change even
more dramatic she was taken from a small Sussex town and thrust into a huge country where black and
white people did not mix, the Ku Klux Klan was prominent and there were plenty
of other dangers and prejudices to contend with. She then travelled around America with folklorist Alan Lomax, meeting many of the best
blues singers and traditional musicians and recording and collecting their
songs and music. After returning to England she continued to sing with her sister Dolly and was a
member of at least one line up of The Albion Band. Shirley also researched and collected folk
songs and music in the South East of England and particularly her native Sussex.
When
I heard that Shirley was presenting a lecture about her recollections of folk
song collecting in Sussex it seemed an obvious thing to book for Tenterden Folk
Festival 2003. Before the Festival I was
lucky enough to meet her at Cecil Sharp House when she was acting as narrator
for Martyn Wyndham-Read’s “Song Links” project concert. I was very impressed by her quiet but
knowledgeable approach to the subject matter.
The Sussex lecture at the Festival was a full house and we were
asked by festival goers to bring her back again for 2004. Shirley told me that she could do a lecture
about her days collecting folk songs in America. That sounded
good to me so we rebooked her for Tenterden Folk Festival 2004. Shirley’s talk was entitled America over the water which is also the title of her new
book. (America
over the water, by Shirley Collins is published by SAF Publishing price £20.00
ISBN 0 946719 66 7)
Shirley’s
influence on the folk scene over the last 40 years should not be under valued
and the Tenterden Folk Festival committee felt that it was appropriate to ask
her to become Honorary Patron of the Festival and we were delighted when she
accepted. I am sure that you will see
much more of Shirley at future Tenterden Folk Festivals and other Trust events.
The latest details of the Festival and the full guest list will be
posted on our web site at www.folkspots.btinternet.co.uk
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updates send an email to folkspots@btinternet.com
with "add to festival news list" in the subject box.
Join the mailing list by sending a s.a.e. to Tenterden Folk Festival
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Alan Castle, Tenterden Folk Day
Trust, 15 Repton Manor Road, Ashford, Kent, TN23
3HA
Press release – 11th February 2005
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