“Randall Collins” is an original song by the guitarist and singer Norman Blake, recorded for his 1972 album “Home in Sulphur Springs.”
That album was Blake’s first under his own name, and it announced a distinctive voice: a musician deeply versed in old-time and traditional song who wrote new material in the same plain, weathered idiom, so that his own compositions sounded as though they had been carried down for generations. “Randall Collins” is one of those originals, a character-centered piece in keeping with Blake’s gift for quiet, finely observed storytelling.
Blake went on to become one of the most admired figures in American acoustic music, and “Home in Sulphur Springs” is regarded as a quiet landmark. “Randall Collins” stands among the early songs that established his reputation as a writer as well as a player.
