The silent auction, the five-course dinner and the last of the baked Alaska had been extinguished. The 300-plus members of Chicago’s Institute for Psychoanalysis gathered in the glittering ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton to await the night’s special event: a benefit performance by folk legend Judy Collins.
For almost an hour she gave the audience a tour of her musical history, moving from keyboard to guitar and piano, singing newer story songs, a few by her contemporaries (Bob Dylan and Harry Chapin) and a smattering of her own hits, “Both Sides Now,” “Chelsea Morning” and “Send in the Clowns.”
Although her recent “Song for Sarajevo” was well received by the audience, her introduction to it–“I’m going to put this on every album until the madness ends!”–was met with silence. Nonplussed, the singer moved along.
For more than 35 years Collins has been doing just that–making gentle waves while using her vocal talents to ease the sometimes troubling messages.
During an interview after the Chicago performance, Collins, 56, talked about her career, which is flourishing and moving in new directions. There is a new album, her first novel, a 23-city tour, a film to be produced, a trip to Vietnam–all on the agenda this year.
The main project is her first novel, called “Shameless,” which is scheduled to come out in July.
“The new album, by the same name, comes out at the same time,” Collins said. “In fact, in the book they’re putting two of the songs from the album. We think, at least they tell me, that they’re never done this before. It’ll be a CD in the pocket as you open the book. So it’s very exciting.”
Collins’ autobiography, “Trust Your Heart” (1987), led her to try her hand at a novel: “Writing an autobiography keeps you very tied to the facts, and you have to be very careful. It doesn’t leave you much freedom to roam, and once you’ve done that it’s a big piece of experience and education.”
“Shameless,” which Collins describes as a “romantic suspense thriller,” began when her lead character, Katherine, “popped into my head, and I sat down to write. I’ve never written fiction in my adult life although I think songwriting burgeons on fiction–you tweak the fiction with one fact.
“For instance, you take a feeling that you’ve had personally and then you fantasize, you conjecture, you let your character loose and this is what happened with me. And before you know it you have four chapters. I sent them to my agent with my heart in my mouth, and she said, `I think you have a book here.’ “
That was eight years ago, and Collins describes the book as a “psychological breakthrough in my life to enable me to write songs more easily.”
Writing on airplanes and during the few lulls in her schedule helped the process.
“I think that having to find a way to finish it posed such an enormous challenge to me that I had the courage to finish. It’s sort of daunting, the idea of writing a novel.”
“Shameless” the album, which Collins co-produced with her recording engineer, has 13 songs, several of which figure into the plot of the book.
“Also, we’re putting `Song From Sarajevo’ on the album again because I feel so strongly about it.”
The song first appeared on last season’s “Come Rejoice! A Judy Collins Christmas.”
“The reason that I wrote the song is that about a year ago I was asked to be a spokesperson for UNICEF, and I saw a book of artwork done by the children of the former Yugoslavia, and it was so moving and so powerful, filled with hope and rage and feeling and just depth, so I wrote the song.”
Following the recording, she visited the former Yugoslavia, “and it was quite an enlightening experience, a very distressing one on many levels, but the one thing that encouraged me was the wonderful work that UNICEF is doing and how fortunate that we have it. People don’t understand how linked we are to issues of disease and culture and children’s rights around the world. It’s universal.”
Her trip to Vietnam on behalf of UNICEF is scheduled for later this year.
Collins will also present President and Mrs. Clinton with a series of drawings that “I witnessed done by these wonderful children” while in the former Yugoslavia.
Collins met Clinton in 1991 and was his first choice to entertain at his inauguration. The Clintons named their daughter, Chelsea, after the song “Chelsea Morning.” Clinton gets high marks on Collins’ report card: “I think he’s doing very very well in the world of international relations, and I think he’s coming on very strong and clear about his issues here at home–the budget, gun control, the assault weapons issues, the welfare issues, the issues of Medicare, and he has to stand firm with what he’s doing.”
Politically, Collins is optimistic about the difference between the climate during the ’60s and today.
“In spite of the climate of what we might call conservatism, I think there are a lot of people who are very, very faithful to the democratic process in this country who would rather be seen as compassionate people who have room in their hearts for all kinds of humans no matter what their color and for all kinds of political persuasions.”
The sense of optimism she feels for the country stems from personal growth.
“I’m very fortunate that I have a very strong relationship with my higher power, whom I choose to call God. I was raised with a faith, and I rediscovered it and deepened it in my adult life. I have a lot of life on another dimension, not a material one. I don’t drink anymore, I don’t do drugs anymore–you’d be surprised what a difference that makes!” she says, laughing, adding, “I mean, I don’t have to wake up half cracked every day.”
Collins’ battle with alcoholism led her to treatment.
“In my earlier years in therapy nobody knew anything. The medical community was completely in the dark about addiction. Now that’s not so true.”
Although she says she likes to “keep my personal life personal,” part of the balance includes a successful relationship.
“I’ve lived with a wonderful man for 18 years. My life person, Lewis Nelson, is a designer, and he and I are so happy together.”
Her centeredness also comes from taking control of her professional life.
“There are many women who have been incredibly intelligent about the business side. I have been a slow learner. It’s taken me a long, long time. I didn’t sign checks until I was 42 years old. That’s pretty strange. I didn’t know how much money I was making, and I didn’t know how much money I was spending. I had tremendous financial dysfunction. Part of that was because I had a manager for years who took care of everything; part of that was my absolute inability to take responsibility.”
In Collins’ view, being a woman in the music business hasn’t necessarily made it more difficult to maintain control and get ahead.
“I think that it’s difficult for any woman in any business, music business or not. I think it’s difficult for men and women in the music business, and I would say that it’s not based on a sexual problem so much as a problem of surviving in an industry where people treat you with such deference and such callousness at the same time.
“I think entertainers are treated like children, and they have to learn to be grownups and that’s tough for men and for women. I don’t think that men have as many problems as women.”
Collins will appear at Ravinia in August, along with David Gates, of the group Bread.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” she says, “David and I were label mates at Elektra Records for many years.”
Acting is also a fairly new color on Collins’ creative palette. She made her film debut in the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny Devito comedy “Junior,” and appeared in a recurring role in the television series “Christy.” But her schedule doesn’t leave much time for this new career direction at the moment.
“I haven’t even thought about it. I have so much work that has to be done with my recordings and with my writing, and I’m going to start working on producing `Shameless’ as a film. Something will have to be very special to take me out of the studio right now.”
She’d also like to produce and work on a musical–“that’s a real desire, and I think from this project we may move in the direction of a musical with `Shameless.’ “
In the meantime, it’s back to the studio for another take (her vocal secrets: “live like a nun, no spicy foods and you can’t smoke or scream–that’s about it!”).
Reflecting on her career, Collins says: “You know, the primary issue for me in the ’60s was survival. I was singing, of course, and I had a tremendous amount of success externally but never very much internally, and I would be the first to tell you that the reverse is the most important thing in life, and I feel a lot of internal success now.
“My life is rich and full and creative. I’m doing more, I’m accomplishing more, I’m reaching out to more people than I’ve ever been able to do, and my own sense of who I am and who I’m about is so much clearer. I thought that I would be a late bloomer, and I think that I am.”
