Shirley Collins is an iconic and enduring figure in British folk music, with a storied career that stretches from the mid-1950s to the 2020s. She was born on July 5, 1935, in Hastings, East Sussex, and began playing traditional music with her older sister, Dolly, as a child. Shirley Collins made her studio debut with 1958's Sweet England, an album of sparsely-arranged folk music featuring nothing more than her voice and banjo. False True Lovers, which arrived later that year, offered much of the same. As the 1950s gave way to the '60s, she helped set the stage for the British folk-rock explosion with her groundbreaking 1964 album Folk Roots, New Routes, which found her duetting with British guitarist Davy Graham. Then she reunited with her sister on albums like 1967's Shirley, 1969's Anthems in Eden, and 1971's No Roses, the latter of which became a milestone album of the folk-rock era. After she remaining prolific throughout much of the 1970s, Shirley Collins had retired from music entirely by the decade's end, having lost the ability to sing following a messy divorce. 38 years after her previous release, 1978's For as Many as Will, she returned to the folk mainstream with 2016's Lodestar, a critically-lauded album that received two nominations at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Heart's Ease followed in 2020, peaking at Number 9 on the UK Independent Albums Chart and paving the way for a five-song EP, Crowlink, which arrived in 2021.
