Folk music icon Judy Collins has shared reflections on her long career and personal relationships with fellow music legends during a Q&A as she continues her farewell tour. So I’m proud that I was able to help introduce her to the world, she was unknown then.
The 87-year-old American singer-songwriter recounted how she first came to record Joni Mitchell’s classic track “Both Sides, Now. In 1967, while she was passed out around 3 a.m. during her drinking days—noting she has now been sober for 48 years—she received a phone call from musician and producer Al Kooper. Kooper mentioned meeting Mitchell at a club and handed her the phone. Mitchell sang the song to Collins, who immediately drove over to listen to it, though Mitchell was initially less than thrilled that Collins released the first recorded version. One night in 1967, I was passed out and the phone rang at about 3am. But it’s really about the ethereal idea we have of our parents and how they inspire us, i had to make it rhyme and make sense.
Collins also detailed her pivotal role in launching the musical career of Leonard Cohen in 1966. A friend at Atlantic Records informed her that Cohen wanted her to sing his compositions. When Cohen arrived at her apartment, he expressed self-doubt, claiming he could not play guitar, had a terrible voice, and was uncertain if his writing constituted actual music. Upon hearing him play, Collins immediately told him it was indeed a song and that she would record it the next day. Following her recording, Cohen famously remarked that she had made him famous, which prompted Collins to sit at the piano and write her own track, “Since You Asked,” in just 40 minutes. A friend at Atlantic Records who always talked about this guy Leonard rang up and said: “Leonard wants to see you, what is your favourite memory of Leonard Cohen? viennesewaltzer In 1966. Upstairs in the bus – guided by the sound of his heels on the pavement, he went anywhere he wanted – through the city. How much of the broadening of your repertoire in the 1960s and early 1970s was due to the environment at Elektra Records and to [the label owner ] Jac Holzman in particular. For 25 years, and Elektra was a very eclectic label, from Carly Simon to the Stooges, he was always there. He called me first and said: “I want you to know that I’m embracing the Doors as an artist and I want you to hear them, when Jac went to Los Angeles and brought the Doors on to Elektra.
Discussing her 1966 albumIn My Lifearranger Joshua Rifkin helped Collins blend contemporary songs from the Beatles, Dylan, and Cohen with the rigor of classical music. Collins explained that she drew inspiration from 1940s Berlin theater music by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, specifically citing “Pirate Jenny,” to create a striking contrast alongside modern pop compositions. Around the same era, she frequented Greenwich Village, interacting with contemporaries like Carly Simon and Tom Paxton, whose songs she frequently recorded on the spot. Once I’d done Pirate Jenny – [sings] “You gentlemen can watch while I’m scrubbing the floor” – I thought it would be interesting to take songs from Berlin from the 1940s and put them with this wonderful music the Beatles.
Her history with Bob Dylan traces back even earlier to 1959 and 1960, when they frequented a mountain club named the Gilded Garter and drank together. At the time, Dylan performed traditional Woody Guthrie blues, leading Collins to initially believe it was a mistake when she first saw written lyrics like “How many roads must a man walk down” attributed to him. Over the years, Collins also collaborated with artists like Carly Simon on “Fisherman’s Song” for Simon’s 1990 album and later recorded with the Manchester band Puressence after hearing their rendition of her song “Che.”
Collins offered background on several of her key tracks, including “My Father,” which she described as deeply autobiographical despite taking artistic liberties with certain details, such as her father being an Ohio coal miner. Her father, who was blind, became a prominent radio personality across three cities, instilling a strong work ethic and belief in his children. Her iconic albumWho Knows Where the Time Goesfeatured a title track penned by Sandy Denny, which came to Collins when a messenger arrived at the studio on a motorcycle and delivered a cassette directly to her producer, David Anderle. Which I did – and it became a huge hit. Although my father wasn’t a coalminer in Ohio and didn’t promise to take us to France, is it autobiographical? mbleeze It’s very autobiographical. But he never used a dog or a cane, my father was blind from the age of four.
Her romance with Stephen Stills inspired the classic Crosby, Stills & Nash track “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” as well as “Helplessly Hoping,” while Collins wrote “Houses” about Stills during their four-month affair while working on her music. Stills later performed with Collins on stage following the 2024 death of her husband, Louis, praising her late spouse. Collins is calling her current tour the Sweet Judy Blue Eyes farewell tour in honor of these enduring musical connections. But Stephen and I have been friends for 60 years, i’d launched into another affair with someone else. After we split up, I was in California doing a show on my birthday and he brought me flowers and sang Judy Blue Eyes to me. Jac’s still working at 95 and we talk often.
Looking back at her origins, Collins credited 1950s pop singer Jo Stafford’s rendition of “Barbara Allen” with sparking her initial passion for folk music, which she expanded by learning traditional songs through the Denver Folklore Society. Among her extensive catalog of around 30 albums, Collins considers her recent releaseSpellboundto be her finest work, as it features 12 original compositions and earned a Grammy nomination. Reflecting on her lifetime since her birth in 1939, Collins noted the vast societal changes from her childhood raised by her parents to the modern era of artificial intelligence. He went through the world determined to conquer. Which he could read to us in the dark, he sang the Great American Songbook and Irish and Scottish folk songs and had books in braille piled up to the ceiling. What is it exactly that people are connecting with? eamonmcc I learned all the gorgeous old songs from the Denver Folklore Society – Maid of Constant Sorrow and the like. Their joy and pain, the folk music genre connects to everyone and everything because they’re stories about people’s lives.
