Shirley Collins – Sweet England – Fledg'ling – FLED3080 - ****

Sweet England, the long unavailable 1958 debut by the grande dame of English folk Shirley Collins, conjures a simpler world, where children learned Cecil Sharp's Folk Songs For Schools in assembly.
Yes, there's a whiff of Kenneth Williams' folk singer character Sid Rumpo in the hey nonny vocaleese, and Shirley herself writes “as I matured, the lighter banal songs disappeared from my repertoire”, but she is unnecessarily critical of her “youthful and naïve singing”.
The austere and emotionally direct simplicity of her version of The Cherry Tree Carol cuts to the mystic essence of faith and myth, immolating all rational thought.

(2/1/2011)