Few singers have the kind of staying power–or repertoire–that Judy Collins has. For those who lived through any part of the 1960s, her songs remain timeless. Songs like “Both Sides Now,” “Send in the Clowns” and “Amazing Grace,” though originally written and recorded by others, now seem to belong on no one else’s lips. President Clinton, perhaps the most famous child of the ’60s, admitted years ago that Collins’ rendition of “Chelsea Morning” inspired the naming of his daughter.
Folk singer, writer and activist, she has come to transcend periods and labels. To borrow a phrase from the late songwriter Woody Guthrie: From the redwood forest to the White House to the Gulf Stream waters, Judy Collins has made herself accessible to the likes of you and me.
So you won’t be surprised to find that she is still going strong. And if she has her way, she will keep going for a long time to come.
“I’ve been able to carve out a sound, a point of view, a career, which is very long-lived,” Collins says from her office in New York. “It’s just getting better and better, which is amazing because so many people burn out so fast. The attrition rate is very high,” an obvious reference to some of her fellow performers from the ’60s (Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Guthrie) who are no longer around.
“It’s always been important to me to sustain my work, to work in such a way that I’m going to love what I do. I think that it makes a big difference. I have a fundamental feeling about music and an understanding of what I want to do. And I’m in it for the long haul.”
Indeed she is. Collins, who performs at Governors State University on Saturday and turns 61 on Monday, made her public debut at 13 as a classical pianist in Denver, where her family settled in 1948. But by 15, the music of Mozart and Rachmaninoff could not compete with the folk tunes she had recently discovered. She convinced her father, a successful radio broadcaster, to get her a guitar, and her musical fortunes changed forever.
In the early ’60s she moved east and was performing at hot spots like the Gate of Horn, here in Chicago, and New York’s Greenwich Village folk clubs. Her Village Gate appearance in 1961 captured the attention of the head of Elektra Records, who signed her to a contract that began a more than 20-year relationship with the company. She soon recorded “Maid of Constant Sorrow,” the first of 19 albums she released on the label between 1961 and 1984.
With the folk movement in full swing, she was flying high. As the turbulent ’60s wore on, she became involved in many of the social issues of the times, registering black voters in the South and protesting the war in Vietnam.
Her musical career was soaring, but by 1965 her personal life was falling apart. In May of that year, as she recounts in her 1998 book, “Singing Lessons: A Memoir of Love, Loss, Hope and Healing” (Pocket Books, $25), a court in Connecticut awarded full custody of her son, Clark, to her former husband, Peter Taylor.
Collins was devastated.
“I cried until I couldn’t speak. I drank until I couldn’t walk or speak,” she writes in “Singing Lessons,” which was written as a creative and cathartic response to the ultimate separation from her son–his suicide in 1992 at age 33.
That tragedy was a “very tough thing” for her, she says now with the objectivity that time has brought.
Was there any of the so-called “survivor’s guilt” on her part?
“That’s a whole lot of hogwash,” she says about the term. “It’s been perpetrated on survivors and it is just so damaging and it’s so unnecessary.
“Joan Rivers (the comedian whose husband committed suicide in 1987) called me right away after my son died, and she said `You know I have to tell you, there are no guilts in suicide. You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, you couldn’t have changed it, you couldn’t have done a thing about it.’
“The guilt is just kind of inflated ego, the other side of egotism–I’m so powerful that I could have changed it. Well, it’s nonsense. We can’t do that, we can’t live other people’s lives and the more we try, the worse it is,” Collins says firmly, philosophically.
Having come through that experience, which was preceded by a battle with alcoholism (which almost cost her her voice) and bulimia, Collins says her life is on a solid, satisfying plane down. She can honestly say, as the song goes, that she has seen “both sides now,” the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, the darkness and the light.
Four years ago, she married Louis Nelson, an industrial designer, whom she has been with for 22 years.
“It is a great life,” she says. “I’m glad he’s not in the music business. I think it’s very hard to have two people doing the same kind of schedules and the kind of lifestyle that I have to have.”
Over the phone, her voice rings with the optimism of someone who relishes every moment. She laughs merrily when she says she is truly happy with her life and her work.
On this particular afternoon, two weeks away from her Chicago engagement, she is spirited, engaging and open to discussing a range of topics.
What comes through, in fact, is the picture of a Renaissance woman, someone who enjoys learning and immersing herself in her latest interest.
One of those interests is computers, which she has been using since 1984, when she started to write her first biography, she says. At the suggestion of one of her brothers, she purchased an Apple, but the computer, as purchased, did not meet her needs.
“I started taking it apart because I quickly learned it didn’t have enough power to do what I wanted it to do.”
Now, several computer purchases later, she doesn’t leave home without one. When on the road, she takes a notebook computer along so she can check her investments and answer e-mail.
And now, like the rest of the world, it seems, she has taken to the Internet, pointing out that her recordings are available on-line through her Web site (www.judycollins.com) and from other on-line vendors such as amazon.com.
Suddenly this sounds like Collins, the savvy businesswoman, talking. And it is.
From New York, where she has lived since 1963, she runs her own production company, Wildflower Records, effectively putting her in charge of every aspect of her career.
“I’ve been pretty much my own manager for years, since 1972. I have an agency that does my bookings, but I really run everything.”
Her team is “small but very efficient,” she says, and they work to coordinate all aspects of her business, whether it’s putting out a book (Collins has written six to date), putting out a record or running her concerts.
One of the other joys in Collins’ life now is spending time with her granddaughter, Hollis, 12, the only child of Clark. Collins literally squeals with delight at the mention of the girl’s name, exclaiming how much she anticipates Hollis’ next visit to New York. “We’re going to have a ball.”
In between her full life as a performer and family woman, Collins maintains her long-time dedication to social and cultural causes. She recently wrote the song “Beyond the Sky” in honor of Eileen Collins, the first woman commander of a space shuttle. Her latest CD, “Judy Collins: Live at Wolftrap,” features that song.
Since 1995, she has been a UNICEF special representative for the arts, visiting countries such as Vietnam and Yugoslavia on the international agency’s behalf, campaigning against land mines, reaching out to children in hospitals and orphanages.
“UNICEF has given me a tremendous opportunity,” Collins says. “There’s so much need around the world. We have so much and you see people who literally have nothing. UNICEF is able to do so much with so little. Even Jesse Helms loves UNICEF.”
Politics aside, it’s evident that she has a sincere commitment to others. You can hear it in her voice, that clear, crisp, warm, unmistakable Judy Collins voice.
“I have always felt strongly about giving back to the society in which I live. I look at my work, really, as trying to be of service to people.
“I was brought up with the idea that you’ve got to have a good attitude. A lot of things happen to us, good things, bad things, happy things. It’s not what happens to you, it’s really what your attitude to it is.”
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Judy Collins performs at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Center for Performing Arts at Governors State University. Tickets are $39. Call the Center Box Office at 708-235-2222 or Ticketmaster at 312-902-1500. Based on availability, two-for-one tickets will be sold from 6 to 7 p.m. the evening of the performance only.
