Sweet England

Released in 1959 on Argo, this album comes from the beginning of the folk revival, and Fledgling’s remaster from the original tapes comes with liner notes by Collins, looking back to her 22-year-old self when she cut these songs in Peter Kennedy’s home studio in Belsize Park. There’s a strong Anglo-American feel, with five-string banjo, rather than guitar, dominating the sound palette. Collins accompanies herself on banjo (sometimes with John Hasted taking over) supported by American guitarists Guy Carawan and Ralph Rinzler, and the songs include several from Collins’ home repertoire – the likes of ‘The Bonny Labouring Boy’, which her grandfather used to sing, and ‘Barbara Allen’, ‘The Cuckoo’, and ‘Hori-Horo’, which she first heard from her grandmother, great– grandmother and uncle. She describes the resulting recordings as ‘the first shaky steps of a journey that I have been on all my life, and that, happily, I still am’. Her liner notes, however, are too modestly apologetic, for this is a delightful and still-fresh recording of a young singer who already possessed a distinctive style and presence. Though lightened by a number of comic and children’s songs, it also includes the likes of the American murder ballad ‘Omie Wise, alongside the stunning ‘Turpin Hero’, the beautiful ‘The Cherry Tree Carol’, and ‘Hares on the Mountain’ – one of numerous cuts that would be reinterpreted on later, seminal albums such as Folk Roots, New Routes with Davey Graham. ‘The burgeoningfolk scene was in its infancy, and young singers like me were finding their way,’ she tells us. As the recordings attest, there’s nothing quite like the moment of starting out, and Sweet England has the enduring charm of fruitful beginnings.