Folk - In Praise of Shirley Collins MBE

After veteran folk performer Shirley Collins was included in the New Years Honours list earlier this year, Vic and Tina Smith, promoters of the Lewes Folk at the Oak programme hastily rearranged their schedule to make room for a night which pays homage to the star. When I ring up Vic Smith to clarify the line-up, I am met with a surprisingly dramatic reply. "We've got a monster on our hands", he says. Sorry? "I'm worried that the gig is going to get out of hand. People are going to be travelling from all around to come."

I can believe it. She seems to have some pretty high-profile fans. Billy Bragg picked two Shirley Collins numbers in a selection for Q Magazine recently. "Shirley has this wonderful, unaffected way of singing, like she's doing something else", he said of her. "It reminds me of my mum singing while putting out the washing”. Likewise, Blur's Graham Coxon, ranked Collins' The Cruel Mother, tenth and The Murder of Maria Marten by Collins and The Albion County Band, eighth for Q Magazine's Apocalyse Jukebox, "It's an amazing story", he said of the latter. "That's what got me into folk music - the gruesomeness of some of the stories. It's the antithesis of pop".

So you can't give me any names? I persist. "Well, we're going to have a selection of the top names in the country", says Vic, "but I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep the details a secret." Intriguing or what? ER