Shirley Collins has shared her new music video for Pretty Polly from her new album Lodestar. This is a version she recorded when collecting songs with Alan Lomax in the Amercian south in 1959. For the video, which was Directed by Layla Atkinson, Shirley asked for it to incorporate a JigDoll – a wooden dancing doll that had been popular for at least two centuries throughout the UK and Ireland, they could be found in pubs, on board ships, and anywhere that people gathered to make their own entertainment. They were originally hand carved, each being unique in character to that given by the hand of the maker (find out more here in our interview feature with Hannah James for her JigDoll Show)
She recalled this about the song and her visit to Ollie Gilbert:
A song found throughout England and the US. This version is the one I recorded from Mrs Ollie Gilbert in Timbo, Arkansas, in 1959. Alan Lomax, with whom I was working, had settled down to talk and drink with Oscar Gilbert, a fine singer, fiddle player, maker of moonshine, and known as the fightingest man in the county. I’d been banished to join the womenfolk – but I had the recording machine with me, and took down several songs from Oscar’s wife Ollie, a good singer in true Ozark mountain style, and a great source of songs. “Pretty Polly” remained a favorite of mine for over fifty-five years; I could never quite get out of my head her use of Nunited instead of United and the way she fitted in ‘I’m a Nunited States soldier from George Washington I came’ in a line that didn’t quite have enough notes.
Lodestar – to be released on November 4th through Domino Records – is a collection of English, American and Cajun songs dating from the 16th Century to the 1950s, recorded at Shirley’s home in Lewes by Stephen Thrower and Ossian Brown of Cyclobe and produced and musically directed by Ian Kearey.
Collins previously shared ‘Cruel Lincoln’ and ‘Death and the Lady’ from the album.
Additionally, Shirley Collins will be performing at two record shops next month to launch the album – Rough Trade East in London alongside a Q&A with Pete Paphides and Union Music Store, Lewes where she will be joined by Brighton Morris Men.
Live Dates
Friday 4th November
Shirley Collins @ Union Music Store, Lewes
For more information, click here.
Monday 7th November
Shirley Collins in conversation with Pete Paphides + live performance @ Rough Trade East, London
For more information, click here.