The Catalyst interview: Judy Collins

In a career that began more than 60 years ago, Judy Collins has recorded just about everything, including tribute albums to Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Stephen Sondheim.

Her extraordinary discography includes two children’s albums, three Christmas albums, a collection of show tunes and a chart-topping bluegrass album. Collins is the only artist to place a song by theater legend Sondheim in the pop charts (“Send in the Clowns,” 1975).

She performs in concert Sunday (Feb. 16) at the Capitol Theatre in Clearwater. Find tickets here.

The bright-blue-eyed woman with the angelic soprano voice re-wrote the road map for folk music in the 1960s, selling millions of records while introducing the world to the songwriting talents of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and Eric Andersen, among others.

In 2017, Collins’ a cappella reading of “Amazing Grace” was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

That year’s Everybody Knows was a collaboration with Stephen Stills, who had been Collins’ romantic partner in the late 1960s. The Crosby, Stills & Nash classic “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” was written for her, after the couple’s breakup.

On the 2022 album Strangers Again, she sang duets with Jimmy Buffett, Joan Baez, Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald, actor Jeff Bridges and others.

Coming to Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium Feb. 22: An all-star “Judy Collins & Friends” concert, to celebrate her 85^th birthday. On March 8 – International Women’s Day – there will be another celebration at Town Hall in New York City, the same place she recorded her first-ever live album, in 1964.

St. Pete Catalyst: You’re well-known for your ability to hone in on and record material by new songwriters. You must be proud of that.

Judy Collins: Well, that’s what I do really. That is. My father was like that; he taught that to me. And my mother always said “You know, you’re not the first one that thought of this!” [laughing]. He always chose the very, very best, and that’s what I have tried to do. And I’ve been lucky, because I’ve been involved in so many people’s early careers, where they wrote incredible songs, like Joni Mitchell.

My method is, if I hear it, and I fall in love with it, I want to record it.

Another person I thought of was Tom Rush, who did similar things.

Tom was the one to first find Joni, because he recorded “The Circle Game.” Probably about a year before I recorded “Both Sides Now.” But it’s a fundamental to my own career, absolutely.

Your 2022 album Spellbound was entirely self-written, for the first time. What’s your whole songwriting arc? Was it something that you had to build up to over the years?

I did not write songs, or I wasn’t aware that I had written songs. When I moved to New York in 1963, I suddenly was falling in love with all the singers of the Village. And recording Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie … I was one of the first people to record Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, and so forth. So I just had an accumulation of extremely great songwriters. Including “Mr. Tambourine Man” and so forth.

Then I was introduced to Leonard Cohen, who came to see me to play me his songs that he had written, his new songs. He sang me “Suzanne” and I recorded it immediately. And after that, after I had made him famous, according to him, which was wonderful, he said “Why don’t you write your own songs?”

So I rain home to my Steinway and wrote a song called “Since You’ve Asked.”

I was a classical pianist, that was how I was trained as a child; and to reference that today, I’m coming out with a book of poetry, called Sometimes it’s Heaven. And on that cover is a picture of me at 13, in a white organdy dress with the orchestra behind me. I was playing the Mozart Two Piano Concerto with another artist.

That’s what’s on the cover of my new book of poetry! I’ve had an interesting life, so to speak.

“Since You’ve Asked” was my first effort. I’ve been writing songs ever since. I’ve written a number of songs and they’re on many, many albums.

I said to Leonard, “You have to sing your own songs.” And he said “No, I can’t do that, I have a terrible voice.” I said “You don’t have a terrible voice. It’s a little obscure, but it’s not terrible.” So of course I pushed him onstage, in what has become a rather famous moment, at a big fundraiser in New York. And at first he broke down in tears, and came running off the stage. And then I went back on the stage with him and helped him a little bit, gave him a little moral support. And he went crazy, because the audience went crazy. And then after that he always sang his own songs.

So we did each other very, very good favors. Let’s put it that way.

James Taylor did a nice version of “Suzanne” not so long ago.

I’m glad I exposed the song to the world. That’s a good gift!

Like all of us, there’s been some great things, and some not so great, in your life. But you’re still here and you’re still doing this. Do you consider yourself a survivor? “There but for the grace of God …”

Oh yes, of course, of course. We all have such fragile lives, my friend Pia Lindström said to me the other day. We’re here such a short time.

I couldn’t let you go without asking about the experience with Mr. Stills in 2017 and 2018. You made a record and you went on tour. What was that like?

We were on the road for a year and a half. We did 115 shows in a year and a half. We had a ball. First of all, we were on the stage for the whole show, together. We sang everything together, except one song each. We each had a solo. And then, at the end, we sang “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”!

In the day, what was your reaction to that song? Did he play it for to gauge your reaction?

He played it in May of 1969. It was my birthday. I was doing a show out there [in California] and he came up to the hotel and sang it for me. And we all burst into tears.

And I said “It’s beautiful. But it’s not gonna get me back.”