Glenda Collins - Self Portrait - The Rockin' Glenda Collins (2020)

Glenda Collins is an English vocalist known for a dramatic take on the girl group sound as produced by Joe Meek. The pair worked on a series of singles in the mid-60s that took the sound and made it weird, placing Collins' ringing voice in amongst wheezing keyboards, twangy guitars, and a bathtub's worth of echo. Their records made her an icon, enough so that after she retired in the late 60's there were constant requests for her to record again. She did infrequently, then in 2022 finally released her debut album titled Second Chance.
Collins began her career at a young age appearing on a variety of radio shows and in cabaret. Along the way she caught the ear of talent scout Carroll Levis, who worked out a deal with Decca Records. She released three singles for the label, starting with 1960's "Take a Chance.' This string-laden pop song was followed by two more -- 1961's Oh, How I Miss Tonight!" and 1962's Find Another Fool" -- in a similar vein. When her deal with the label expired, she recorded a demo that found its way to producer Joe Meek. He fell in love with Collins' voice and took her on as a protege. Her first single with Meek was 1963's "I Lost My Heart at the Fairground"; a mini-epic filled with sound effects, Telstar-adjacent keyboards, and Collins' dramatic vocals. That same year, the more rockabilly-influenced "If You've Gotta Pick a Baby" showed off a tougher vocal sound and featured backing from the Ritchie Blackmore-led Outlaws. Over the next three years Meek and Collins continued to issue singles on the HMV and Pye labels -- 1964's "Baby It Hurts" and "Lollipop," 1965's "Thou Shalt Not Steal" and "Johnny Loves Me," 1966's "Something I've Got to Tell You" and "It's Hard to Believe It" -- that stuck to their girl group guns, delivering echoing kitchen sink drama that never wavered even as the Beatles and their followers took over the airwaves. Her career came to an abrupt end with Meek's death, though she tried to get a new recording deal on the basis of a demo she recorded with her father. However, there were no takers and she stayed out of the limelight until 1989, when she performed a song at a party celebrating the release of a Meek biography. Two collections dedicated to her Meek-produced singles were released in the decade that followed - 1990's Been Invited to a Party: The Singles 1963-1966 and 1997's This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'. Two year after the release of the latter she was contacted by producer Russel Brennan and he convinced her to come out of retirement to add vocals to a cover of the theme song to the TV show The Protectors. Though she enjoyed the experience, it took another ten years for Brennan to convince her to record again. She covered another TV theme, this time the theme song to Budgie, then the pair decided to keep working together. After the release of an EP titled The Long Drop, where the title song featured Collins singing new words over a previously unused Meek-recorded backing track, she finally issued her first full length album, Second Chance, in 2022. The following year Cherry Red issued a three disc set titled Baby It Hurts: The Holloway Road Sessions 1963-1966 that was made up of recordings excavated from Meek's voluminous stash of unreleased tapes.