America Over The Water: A Musical Journey With Alan Lomax

by Shirley Collins

Renowned English folk singer, Shirley Collins, met the famous American musical historian and folklorist, Alan Lomax at a party hosted by Ewan MacColl. In this highly personal and heart-rending account, she describes her year-long stint as Lomax’s assistant and lover, and their diligent work uncovering the traditional music of America’s heartland. The result is a finely woven tapestry of one woman’s journey, both emotional and musical, and her discovery of a world of beauty and dignity, as well as deprivation and prejudice, amongst the folk musicians across the water in America.

Genres: Music, Biography, History, Folklore, Nonfiction, Memoir

223 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Shirley Collins is a renowned folk singer. She is the president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in London. Her critically lauded album Lodestar, released in 2016, marked a triumphant return to performance after a thirty-year absence.

Reviews

[Kelly McCubbin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dear friend bought me this book as a gift some years ago and it became the single most lost and re-discovered book I own. Finally, though, I found it, again, and read it and it is such a delight.
Much like her singing, Collins' prose has a direct simplicity to it that is affecting in the most delightful ways. Her takes, as an Englishwoman in a foreign land, on attending an ecstatic religious ceremony in Kentucky or hearing the slave songs passed down in relative isolation on the Georgia sea islands or recording the great Mississippi Fred McDowell for the first time are frank and full of wonder. Interspersed with the story of her growing up in Hastings, one gets the picture of someone who is perhaps the most critical figure in linking American and British folks musics together as well as being a giant in each one individually. All with zero pretense.
Collins is an absolute treasure.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although Alan Lomax, as the more famous one, is theoretically the selling point, you will be reading this because you (as you should) admire Shirley Collins enormously and her engaging and sympathetic autobiographic tone more than repays your admiration.
The book alternates 11 chapters on her southeastern English childhood in the 40s and early 50s, with a similar number focused on a place by place account of her folk-song collecting trip with Lomax in the American south in 1959. Her lack of artifice in describing both the rather narrow world of working class coastal England in the war and post-war years and the revelatory nature (both good and bad) of the America she encounters makes for an excellent mix of autobiography, sociology and musicology.
There are few things that are surprising but nothing really seems sanitized - her mother, an early divorcée, feminist and socialist, seems to have registered no concern about her 19-year-old daughter moving in with a 42-year old man, in a Hampstead house that already contained his ex-wife and her current partner. Subsequently the two travel around the American South, checking into hotels as an unmarried couple with seemingly no trouble. But she's also frank about the tensions of pursuing this dedicated Bohemian life with no reliable income, the glaring racism that they encounter and so on.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this very much. I am a fan of Shirley Collins and didn't realize until recently that she had traveled through the American south with Alan Lomax in the 1950s as his assistant. The book is based on her letters home but also includes chapters about her life, growing up in post-war Hastings, and becoming a singer. I wish she wasn't quite so self-deprecating - I would have enjoyed a stronger voice, but it's a sweet and lovely piece, much I like imagine the woman herself to be.

[Charliecat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a little jewel of a book, and especially so for anyone interested in folk music. The chapters on growing up in Hastings are as good as the chapters set in the Southern states. Her love of the music shines clearly and the whole book is written simply, without guile or pretence.

I have been aware of Shirley's music for many years and have seen her perform live under various guises. What I didn't know were the biographical details. She has written a brief coda about her life in the long hiatus after her divorce from Ashley Hutchings when her confidence was shot and she stopped performing for many years.

This book's re-issue will hopefully put her firmly back in the pantheon of great English artists, where she belongs.

Thanks, Shirley.

[evelyn taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey! I just finished reading your story and I have to say, it was incredible. The way you write makes every moment feel so alive, it has a cinematic quality that’s rare to find.

I’m a commission artist who creates comics, manga, and webtoons, and I couldn’t help but imagine how stunning your story would look visually. No pressure though if you are not into the idea, but I just thought I should put it out there.

If you like the idea, you can reach me on Discord (eve_verse). I’d love to show you my work and discuss this further.

Regards,
Evelyn

[Sarah Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modest, unassuming account of what must have been an incredible journey across the USA in the late 1950s, to record traditional folk music in all its guises. Plainly written, interspersed with chapters on her Hastings childhood. A good read.

[Lisa Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite films is "The Song Catcher," about a musicologist who attempts to save the traditional ballads from in the Appalachian mountain area. Such is the reason I chose this book. Well worth the read.

[David Botcherby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great biography of a very interesting and understated character. Her life and philosophy of continuing folk traditions is interesting enough on its own, but paired with the account of a journey through a relatively untravelled American south in the 50s this is a great read

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literate memoir/road trip with plenty of characters and, above all, a love for folk tradition. A set text.

[Rhiannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written book!

[Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book. Wonderful writing about music, travel and food in equal measure.

[Ann Baxter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly evocative of a type of music that charmed so many & also the biographical side too

[MH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet, enjoyable memoir where Collins alternates between writing about her childhood in WWII and post-war England, and her time in the American South recording folk music with Alan Lomax. Her voice is engaging and honest, and she sees her teenaged self, the people she encountered, and the shocking (to a young girl from a small English town) race relations of 1950s America very clearly.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love traditional folk music "from both sides of the pond", this is an engrossing and enlightening read. Collins shares details of the recording sessions for Alan Lomax's Southern Journey series, describing the people who sang ballads, shape note, blues, and prison work songs that have become part of the American canon. (Lomax and Collins collected the first recordings of several songs that ended up in the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.) This is interspersed with an account of her childhood in England, letters home about the landscapes and cultures she traveled through, and amusing stories about her relationship and road trips with Lomax.

[Gareth Kenyon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful lady tells her remarkable tales of her early life and that of her time spent in America recording traditional folk and blues with Alan Lomax. A great read for anyone fascinated in any of the above mentioned.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

On par with White Bicycles in terms of a capturing the cultural feel of a specific time and place via first person narrative. Collins' whimsical tone is quite infectious as well.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute joy from start to finish