Judy Collins

Judy Collins

Judy Collins is an American folk singer and songwriter from Seattle, Washington, born in 1939. She is associated with folk music, but her recordings cover a wider range of material, including show tunes, pop, rock and roll, and standards. She is also known for social activism and continues to record and tour.

Early life and musical start

Collins is born Judith Marjorie Collins in Seattle and spends the first ten years of her life there before moving to Denver, Colorado, in 1949. As a child, she studies classical piano with Antonia Brico and makes her public debut at 13, performing Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos. Three years later, she begins playing guitar. Her interest in folk music develops in 1959 after hearing Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, as well as traditional songs from the early 1960s folk revival.

Recording career

Collins moves to Greenwich Village in New York City, where she busks and performs in clubs before signing with Elektra Records, with which she is associated for 35 years. Her first album, A Maid of Constant Sorrow, appears in 1961. In her early recordings she sings traditional folk songs and songs by other writers, including Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan. She also records songs by Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, helping bring both writers to a wider audience.

With Wildflowers in 1967, Collins begins recording her own compositions, starting with “Since You’ve Asked”. The album also gives her a major hit with her version of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”, which reaches number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and wins a Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance or Folk Recording in 1968. In 1968, Who Knows Where the Time Goes is produced by Stephen Stills, with whom she is romantically involved at the time; she is the “Judy” in the Stills song “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”. The album has a mellow country sound and includes “Someday Soon” and the title track by Sandy Denny.

Later work and style

By the 1970s, Collins has a strong reputation as an art song singer and folksinger, and she is also recognised for her own writing. Her recordings from this period include “Amazing Grace” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns”, both of which become top 20 singles, as well as her own songs “My Father” and “Born to the Breed”. She receives a Grammy Award for Song of the Year for “Send in the Clowns” in 1975. In 1979, she appears nude on the album Hard Times for Lovers.

Her later releases include a memoir, Trust Your Heart, published in 1987, and two novels. She also records a collection of songs based on her novel Shameless. Her discography includes albums such as Whales and Nightingales, Both Sides Now, Living, Colors of the Day, Judith, Bread and Roses, Running for My Life, Times of Our Lives, Home Again, Fires of Eden, Judy Sings Dylan... Just Like a Woman, Voices, Classic Broadway, Judy Collins Sings Leonard Cohen: Democracy and Portrait of an American Girl.

Activism and recognition

Collins is active in social causes and is a representative for UNICEF. She campaigns for the abolition of landmines and becomes a strong advocate of suicide prevention after the death of her son Clark Taylor in 1992. Her book Sanity & Grace describes her experience of grief and recovery and sets out her “Seven T’s”: Truth, Therapy, Trust, Try, Treat, Treasure and Thrive.

She performs at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993, singing “Amazing Grace” and “Chelsea Morning”. She also receives an Academy Award nomination with Jill Godmilow for the documentary Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman, about her piano teacher Antonia Brico.