When the Dakota announced a few months ago that Judy Collins would be appearing on April 30, I jumped on the tickets to get a table up against the front of the stage. Tickets for the first show sold out quickly. The Dakota then arranged for a second show, this one on April 29. Tickets again sold out quickly. We bought tickets for the April 29 show as well, up against the stage to her left. I snapped the photo below from our table.
Judy established herself in the first wave of the folk scare in the early 1960s. She came up on the scene with Tom Rush, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and, of course, Bob Dylan. She tells the story in her terrific memoir Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music. In addition to everything else, she is a gifted writer and vivid memoirist.
How good a writer is she? Last night she told the story of an essay she wrote on the T.S. Eliot play The Cocktail Party. She listened to the play as it was performed on a recording her blind father had obtained. She felt she understood the play deeply and wrote up her interpretation for a high school book report. She was proud of the report and expected her teacher’s commendation. Instead, her teacher had her stay after class and asked her, “So who wrote it?” (That is one story she does not tell in her memoir.)
Having seen Judy both nights this week, I want to report that the setlists for her two shows barely overlapped. Although she uses a notebook to consult the lyrics for the songs she performs, the two shows were almost entirely different — different songs, different stories, same vibe. You had to be there both nights.
Judy’s electrifying lover and Elektra producer Walter Raim took her to see Bobby Darin perform in Las Vegas in the late summer of 1963. She writes in her memoir: “I was unprepared for Darin’s sophistication, his down-to-earth humor, and his wonderful voice. He came onstage, dark-haired, slender, almost like a boy, and showered us with gentle humor between songs and a light touch in his manner….his manner was very personal and direct.” That is a good take on her own show, with the exception of the “dark-haired” and “almost like a boy” parts.
Backing herself on guitar, Judy was supported by Stu Lindemann on piano. He told me he had been playing with her over the past two years. Having seen Judy perform solo a few years ago, I can tell you he adds immeasurably to the show. Lindemann’s work on piano provides the perfect setting for the songs. As for Judy, especially in the upper reaches of her register, her voice retains its crystalline beauty.
The timing of the shows was lucky. Judy turns 85 today. She introduced herself as the American Idol of 1956. Without bidding on either night, fans in the audience sang her “Happy Birthday.” We celebrated her, birthday, her career. I thought I would take this brief look back via recordings dating to the early stages of her career.
On her first two albums, Judy explored the traditional ballads that had attracted her to folk music. Judy then sought out the work of her contemporaries on the scene in Greenwich Village. By the time of Judy Collins 3 in 1963, Judy had seized on the work of a young Bob Dylan. Her version of Dylan’s “Farewell” is below. Walter Raim had taken her to see Darin in order for her to hear the work of Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, who backed Darin on guitar. They recruited McGuinn to back her on 3. Read more here >>