A Maid of Constant Sorrow
1961 debut studio album by Judy Collins
A Maid of Constant Sorrow is the debut album by American singer and songwriter Judy Collins, released in 1961 on Elektra Records and featuring traditional folk songs.
Content and style
On the album Collins' voice and guitar are sparsely accompanied by Fred Hellerman on second guitar and Erik Darling on banjo. The title song is a variant of "Man of Constant Sorrow". The selections range from the Scottish anthem "Wild Mountain Thyme" to the Irish standards "Bold Fenian Men" and "The Prickilie Bush". The album also includes more obscure numbers, such as "Tim Evans", "Wars of Germany" and "John Riley".
These songs are in the style of social protest, similar to early recordings by Bob Dylan. They reveal a style from Collins different than her later, better-known releases. In "Tim Evans", written by Ewan MacColl (Grammy award-winning writer in 1972 of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"), she sings about Timothy Evans who was wrongfully convicted and hanged in Britain in 1950 for the killing of his wife and daughter ("Go down, you murderer, go down"), whose exoneration comes only after having been hanged. Her alto vocals on lively songs like "O Daddy Be Gay" contrast with the social message material.
In 2001, Elektra re-released the album on CD with Collins' second album, Golden Apples of the Sun (1962).
The public source identifies “A Maid of Constant Sorrow” as 1961 debut studio album by Judy Collins. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Maid, Constant and Sorrow.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4658029. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1972, 1950 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “A Maid of Constant Sorrow” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.