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Actually discovered by Bob Copper and following his family today, Shirley Collins delivered her extraordinary show 'America over the Water,' an account of her journey with Alan Lomax through America in 1959, the readings from her book interlaced with images and extracts from the original recordings, aided by actor Pip Barnes, who ventriloquised the various American voices superbly. Clocking in at nearly two hours, including an interval, it meant that if I stayed I would miss a large chunk of Eliza Carthy's set. No contest. Eliza I could no doubt see again – Shirley Collins is a unique presence, my favourite singer in the English tradition and a sharp-witted commentator on the same. Which meant there was no way I would move before the end as I witnessed a superb evocation of rural America at the end of the fifties: closed and often isolated communities of poor but culturally and politically dominant whites and segregated blacks, suspicious of each other (de jure segregation may have been ended in 1954 with the Supreme Court ruling on Brown v Board of Education but...); the strong role of religion in both, ironically not acting as a bridge between them; the fervour of both spiritual and secular forces expressed through their musics; the songs that could be traced back to the British Isles and to Africa. The sheer weirdness... Heady stuff. A history lesson from one of the stalwarts of the English revival whose good-humoured forward-looking presence back then acted as a strong counterbalance to the bossy purist commissars of the day. Some
marvelous musical examples spiced the show, further illustrated by a haunting succession of black and white photographs – over all of which, arguably, towered the majestic presence of Fred McDowell, a star in the making. My friend Nigel scored a coup – by getting the Shirley Collins autograph on his old vinyl copy of Fred McDowell
recordings. Heady stuff, vastly enjoyable and much future food for thought, delivered with charm, grace and a sparkling humour.
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