Judy Collins—the Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, musician, actress, activist, and Academy Award-nominated director and producer (!)—will be honored as “2022 Woman of the Year” at Nevada Ballet Theatre’s 38th annual Black & White Ball, on Saturday, April 09, at Encore at Wynn Las Vegas.  Chaired by Todd-Avery Lenahan & John Gorsuch and Dawn & Christopher Hume, it is destined to be a night to remember!  Collins, a living American treasure blessed with perfect pitch and a remarkably clarion soprano voice, established her bona fides during the late Sixties, singing beautifully arranged covers of songs by then-emerging songwriters—think Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, and the late, great Leonard Cohen—in her crystal-clear voice. 

[For more background on Collins’ remarkable career of more than 60 years, take a gander at my article, NBT to Honor Judy Collins as 2022 Woman of the Year, from last December.]

I was fortunate to spend an unexpectedly laughter-filled half-hour, recently, speaking with Collins, telephonically; and after we’d chatted for a bit about our mutual love of Agatha Christie and some related authors, we got down to it.

ShulmanSays:  Going from writing to songwriting, is there a particular song or the work of any particular songwriter that you've always admired but for whatever reason, have not sung or recorded?

Judy Collins:  Oh, let's see. I don't think I've ever sung any Jackson Browne songs, but I admire him very much. I've sung with him. I recorded a duet with him, though it was not a Jackson Browne song.  Anyway, Jackson is one of the people whose songs I haven't recorded, but I sure do love him. *

Excellent. Conversely, has any artist or songwriter ever begrudged or disparaged a cover of their songs that you have performed or recorded?

Oh, Joni doesn't like my version of “Both Sides Now.”  And she has said so publicly.

Well, there you go! Let’s put a pin in that; because I've really been enjoying listening to Spellbound, and I have to say, I find it hauntingly gorgeous. And my favorite songs are “Gilded Rooms,” “Shipwrecked Manor,” and “So Alive.”

Oh, good. Good. I'm glad you like those.

I just think it's moody and gorgeous, and it's in your voice, which is always lovely and also haunting in the most beautiful way. But I’m wondering, from where do you take your inspiration as a writer?

Any place I can get it, frankly. I always said the most inspiring thing that I do is to sit down and write. That's where you sit down or you find a place that's quiet or you ride on a train or a plane or in your studio, if you're lucky, and see where it takes you. And I also keep notes. I keep a record. And now I do it on my iPhone. When I hear something that's intriguing, I will write it down. Now, today, what's in here? Let's see. I don't want The Morgan Horse. No. “The game isn't worth the candle.”  “I'm still not a lady.”  “Bringing in the roses.” Let's see. What else is here? “Small towns are strange places.” “My ruin is my fortune.” Now, those are things I hear somewhere or other, and I write them down. And then when I can sit down and finish off a few lines to fill in—short-range planning, the serious life—that's a movie.

So, it can be a snippet?  A word?  A phrase?  Then you revisit it?

Yeah. And I write a lot of poetry, and I then put the poems—they could be long or short—I put them on the piano. Print them out and put them on the piano. And then I sit down at the piano and begin to see where they will go. Sometimes they go nowhere. Sometimes there's actually a song in there somewhere. So that's how I do it. And then the rest I keep as poetry. And I'm going to try to put out a book of poetry soon.

Wow!  You might have just answered my next question, which is does your process for writing poetry and writing a song differ? Is the process different?

It's very different. Poetry and lyrics are very different. And it all, of course, depends on the meter. A lot of the settings of various poems to music are quite baffling, and they often don't work. It's very, very hard to find any poem or group of poems that are set to music that really turn them into lyrics because lyrics and poetry are very different things. So, I need to always be keeping my eye on the prize, which is to find the way to insert into whatever it is that I'm writing, but I need to turn it into a lyric. It has to, in a way, sing itself. I mean, if you look at the lyrics in this album, they're all metered in some way, rhyming in some way. “A Girl from Colorado” is a good example.

Oh!  That one seemed very autobiographical…

Well, they're all autobiographical. That one is just more specifically autobiographical. But people who know me know that I write a lot about Colorado because I grew up, there.  

Speaking of Spellbound, I read that you recorded it even with COVID protocols, live sessions in the studio with the artists...

Yes, we did.

How important was it to you to do those live?

Well, I always record live. I mean, I have recording sessions, and they all involve live singing, live playing, and a band that is actually doing five or six tracks to make sure they get it. And then I'll do a couple of vocals that are to clean up any mess that I've left. And then the process is to get the mix and remix and then to redo again, to go back in and check vocals and make sure that the comps are right and that you have got the final version of the vocal. But the band's tracks are live, and then we choose the very best, and then we work off of that.

I've read where you’ve been described as a musical interpreter, a curator, an arranger, and a vocal stylist. How would you describe yourself?

A singer.

Okay, then!  And what has been your greatest joy as an artist?

Being able to continue this career for—what is it now?—63 years and to keep treating the songs that I sing, the new ones and the old ones, as if it's the first time you've heard them; because some of them are classic, some of them I've sung for years, like “Send in the Clowns,” but then it's thrilling to go out now as I'm doing and sing a bunch of the new songs. I love doing “So Alive.” In fact, my friend Ron Chernow decided that now his favorite is “So Alive.”  It used to be “The Blizzard.”  You've got to hear “The Blizzard,” by the way. **

I will: I can't wait!

Anyway, it's very exciting to be able to sing the new songs, a really wonderful treat.

CONTINUED IN PART 2...

Judy Collins honored as 2022 Woman of the Year
Nevada Ballet Theatre | 38th Annual Black & White Ball
April 09, 2022 | Encore at Wynn Las Vegas
Click HERE for info and tickets

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#NBT

[Editor’s Notes: * Written by Randy Newman, and first recorded by Linda Ronstadt, in 1995, Collins recorded a duet of “Feels Like Home” with Jackson Browne for her 2015 album of duets, Strangers Again // ** Ron Chernow is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, biographer, and journalist, perhaps best known for his 2004 biography, Alexander Hamilton, upon which the musical Hamilton was based (with Chernow serving as a historical consultant)]