DLWP and Hastings traditional Jack in the Green present: Shirley Collins & the Lodestar Band

Join us for a Sunday evening with Hastings-born Shirley Collins (MBE), for a very special show and a few Traditional Jack In The Green surprises…

Shirley’s love and support for the DLWP rings true as this is one of only two headline shows this year!

Shirley’s Lodestar Band comprise of Music Director, Ian Kearey (ex-Blue Aeroplanes and Oysterband), Pete Cooper and Dave Arthur (Rattle on the Stovepipe), Pip Barnes and of course her star dancer, Glen Redman, from Brighton Morris Men.

Show timings:

• 5.45pm Building opens
• 6.15pm Mad Jack’s Morris and Hannah’s Cat Morris in the main foyer
• 6.30pm Auditorium Doors
• 6.30pm Rattlebag in the 1^st floor café
• 7pm Pete Cooper and Dave Arthur in the main auditorium
• 7.30pm Mad Jack’s Morris and Hannah’s Cat Morris in the main foyer
• 7.30pm Rattlebag in the 1^st floor café
• 8pm Shirley Collins in the main auditorium

Mad Jack’s Morris… 

Mad Jack’s Morris are a traditional Morris team native to Hastings, East Sussex, having been around since our formation in 1976. We dance a ‘Cotswold’ style of Morris, which can be traced back to the 14th Century. We are named after a local eccentric, Mad Jack Fuller, who was the squire of the Village of Brightling during the 18th Century. Our logo is that of the Sugar Loaf, one of many follies he built in the local area. Our uniform incorporates the original colours of the cinque port flag, all of which links us back to the local area in which we are based. Mad Jack’s Morris is one of the founding Morris sides of Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green, helping form the event in 1983, and are keen to continue with the growth of this event. We are always looking for new members to join our energetic group of locals, if interested please do not hesitate to get in contact!

Hannah’s Cat Morris…

Hannah’s Cat Morris are a women’s Morris dance team who practice in Hastings Old Town on a Thursday evening. They dance in the Cotswold style and are known for writing their own adaptations to the dances and tunes; giving them a unique and watchable style. They wear distinctive purple and pink waistcoats and are named after the mummified cats in The Stag, where they drink after practice. They are seeking new members and can be contacted through keith@gleowit.co.uk.

Rattlebag

Rattlebag is an acapella harmony group who have been performing around the folk scene since 2005 including festivals such as Towersey Village Folk Festival, Broadstairs Folk Week, Tenterden Folk Festival as well as at folk clubs across the Southeast. They have recorded 3 CDs; Girls that are Drinkers, Shifting Shapes and their latest, ‘Five for Silver’, is due to be released November 2022.

Rattlebag is Sian Hayward, Lynne Heffernan, Faith Brooker, Judy Atkinson and Emily Chambers. They like to breathe life into traditional songs and their repertoire includes contemporary and self-penned material. Their arrangements and rich harmonies give songs their distinct Rattlebag sound. They sing seasonal songs, attired appropriately, marking the Wheel of the Year events such as May Day at Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green. They organise and sing wassails in orchards, gardens and pubs.  All year round they love social singing and run Singarounds in and around Hastings where they nurture the unaccompanied song.

Shirley Collins Biography

Born in Hastings in 1935, Shirley was fascinated by folk songs as she was growing up, songs she heard on the radio or sung by her grandparents in Anderson shelters. She left home for London to immerse herself in the burgeoning folk scene; at a party held by Ewan MacColl she met Alan Lomax, and in 1959 she joined him in the USA on the renowned field trip ‘Southern Journey’, recording American folk songs and blues, a formative journey for her personally and professionally.

On her return to England, Shirley cemented her role at the forefront of the Folk Revival, recording over a dozen albums including the influential Folk Roots, New Routes with avant-garde guitarist Davy Graham, and No Roses, from which The Albion Country Band was formed. However, in the 1980s, Shirley lost her singing voice – later diagnosed as a form of dysphonia – and withdrew from performing live. It was only in 2014, after coaxing from David Tibet (Current 93), that Shirley sang in public for the first time since 1982. Since then, she has produced two acclaimed albums for Domino Records, Lodestar and Heart’s Ease and performed live at a handful of important festivals with her Lodestar Band including Celtic Connections, Brighton Festival, Green Man, Cambridge Folk Festival, Copenhagen Documentary Festival, Supersonic, as well at major venues including The Barbican, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and The Sage Gateshead.

Though Shirley Collins (MBE) was absent from the music scene for many years, her impact did not diminish, as the likes of Graham Coxon, Jonny Greenwood, Stewart Lee and Angel Olsen lauded her. A documentary The Ballad of Shirley Collins was released about her in Autumn 2017. She was given the ‘Good Tradition’ award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2008, elected President of the English Folk Dance & Song Society and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Sussex University all in the same year. Shirley released her first memoir, America Over the Water, in 2004, (re-printed by White Rabbit in 2021) and has published her autobiography, All In The Downs (2018). Heart’s Ease was released by Domino in 2019, just as the COVID lockdown started, it has been toured very little and this will be a rare chance to hear some of that material live.

Suitable for all ages. U14s must be accompanied by an adult.