Judy Collins, 2008, photo by Bryan Ledgard
Judith Marjorie Collins (5/1/39) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. She is a Grammy Award-winning artist known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records (which has included folk music, country, show tunes, pop music, rock and roll and standards), for her social activism, and for the clarity of her voice.
Discography:
Her discography consists of 28 studio albums, four live albums, numerous compilation albums, and four holiday albums. She’s been in 13 films, the most recent being, “Danny Says” (2016,) and has written 7 books!
One thing to share:
Collins suffered from bulimia after she quit smoking in the 1970s. “I went straight from the cigarettes into an eating disorder“, she told People magazine in 1992. “I started throwing up. I didn’t know anything about bulimia, certainly not that it is an addiction or that it would get worse. My feelings about myself, even though I had been able to give up smoking and lose 20 lbs., were of increasing despair.” She has written at length of her years of addiction to alcohol, the damage it did to her personal and musical life and how it contributed to her feelings of depression. Collins admits that although she tried other drugs in the 1960s, alcohol had always been her drug of first choice, just as it had been for her father. She entered a rehabilitation program in Pennsylvania in 1978 and has maintained her sobriety ever since, even through such traumatic events as the death of her only child, Clark, who died by suicide in 1992 at age 33 after a long bout with clinical depression and substance abuse. Since his death, she has also become an activist for suicide prevention.
Official website: here
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I heard someone say recently that she was pretty much the first confessional singer-songwriter but gets overlooked for some reason.
Even if she’s never recorded a note, she’d have a place in music folklore as the muse behind ‘Suite; Judy Blue Eyes’.
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Wonderful comment on “sweet” Judy. It never fails to astound me to learn what so many musical (and other) artists are going through at the same time that they are giving/sharing of themselves such beautiful music (creations). Can’t imagine how many times joy came to her while listening to “Suite…”
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I understand it was written when they were breaking up and he was trying to convince her to stay. So maybe she had mixed feelings?
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She is a true legend. Now when I hear her name…I can’t help but think of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. I didn’t know she had the addiction problems.
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So amazing she is the one the song is named after. I should know this but are there songs about Joni? There has to be!
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Well one that I know on the top of my head is “Our House” written by Graham Nash… Only Love Can Break Your Heart was written by Neil Young about Nash when he broke up with Joni… I just looked it up…Our House isn’t listed but Nash has said it was about her and him…here ya go.
https://jonimitchell.com/music/songsaboutjoni.cfm
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Wow! I knew there were some but not that many! Thank you for finding this for me. Besides the CSNY group, this one is one I know and love but didn’t know it was about Joni:
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I didn’t know that one was about her.
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Sadly, I only know Judy Collins by name. I’ve also heard her rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.”
It’s great that at age 82 she’s still performing. In fact, I just checked her website, and she has shows scheduled throughout the year in the U.S. and Europe!
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Oh wow didn’t know that about Judy. I do know you just reminded I forgot to put her website on the post. Thanks, Christian 🙂
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Some of these singer-songwriters are like the Duracell bunny!😀 Gordon Lightfoot is also still going strong at 83!
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She lives in the neighborhood, and I know people who have seen her around. I thought she lived in a brownstone on Riverside Drive, but a friend told me she lives in an apartment in a building near hers on West End Avenue. She still does perform and is evidently in fine voice.
I love all of her work, from the early folk stuff to Wildflowers to her Sondheim album. (K)
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That is wonderfully groovadelic, Kerfe. I don’t know a lot of her music. So happy to know she is still performing.
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It’s worth getting to know. “In My Life” and “Wildflowers” are good places to start.
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