‘Quiet integrity’: folk icon Shirley Collins to break silence and discuss new memoir for Pages of Hackney

Shirley Collins – ‘a key figure in English and American folk music’ despite losing her voice to dysphonia for nearly 40 years. Photograph: Toby Amies

Folk music legend Shirley Collins is coming to Hackney next month to discuss her new memoir, All in the Downs: Reflections on Life, Landscape and Song.

The event, organised by Pages of Hackney bookshop, takes place at Sutton House in Homerton on May 10, and will feature readings by the singer and a conversation with music writer Frances Morgan.

Lewes-based Collins is a revered figure in the history of British folk music and has a career reaching back decades to her involvement with the UK folk revival movement of the fifties and sixties, as well as time spent travelling America’s southern states with Alan Lomax to collect and record folk songs.

Pages of Hackney manager Jo Heygate said: “Being huge Shirley Collins fans here at Pages, it was a dream come true to be able to bring her to Hackney.

“Shirley is a key figure in English and American folk music, yet her story has been somewhat forgotten in favour of the men who tend to dominate the folk revival narrative. And because of the decades in which she did not sing, her return to the spotlight is particularly poignant.

“Her quiet integrity and unerring belief in landscape and song resonates throughout her memoir and we can’t wait to hear her story in her own words.”

Now 82, Collins spent almost 40 years away from the music industry after losing her singing voice to a condition called dysphonia – something she attributes to severe heartbreak after being left by her cheating husband – but returned in 2016 with a new album, Lodestar, on Domino Records.

All in The Downs‘ mystical front cover. Photograph: S F Said

All in the Downs (published by Strange Attractor) tells the story of Collins’ “lifelong relationship with English folksong – a dedication to artistic integrity that has guided her through the triumphs and tragedies of her life”.

Leading the discussion on the night will be Frances Morgan, Contributing Editor of The Wire magazine currently carrying out PhD research on the histories of electronic music.

Speaking to the Citizen ahead of the event, she said: “I’m a huge fan of Shirley’s work not only as a musician but also as a writer and historian. There’s so much in her new book I want to discuss!

“She writes beautifully and intimately about her childhood and family, and her lifelong relationship with the landscape of Sussex, and she also gives a really valuable insight into the folk music revival of the 50s and 60s and where that fits into the politics of the time.

“And then there’s all the historical material, about songs and their origins, and how they’ve travelled around the UK and beyond. I’m hoping that we can touch on all these themes somewhere along the way.”

To see Shirley Collins in conversation, head over to the Pages of Hackney event page to reserve a place. Tickets cost £7 and the event is on May 10 from 7pm-9pm at Sutton House in Homerton