Mark Twain once famously said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” It’s an adage fiercely embraced by the ever-youthful Judy Collins, currently on the road celebrating her 85th birthday, which was on May 1, 2024.
And while artists of her vintage might be expected to be doing some kind of greatest hits tour, that’s not the case for Collins. She is not only promoting her current record, 2022’s Grammy-nominated “Spellbound,” but also her forthcoming book, “Sometimes It’s Heaven: Poems of Love, Loss and Redemption.” To call the Seattle native a creative dynamo is an understatement, but it’s the only way she knows how to approach life.
“I always say I’m the Betty White of the music industry,” she said with a laugh during a late-January interview. “I have the blessing of having had incredibly good health and incredible stamina. I work out all the time — I’ve been doing that for years. I have been given a second career, doing all kinds of things that I’ve wanted to do that I’m doing. And that’s always refreshing. I’ve done a lot of writing. The last book I put out in 2017 was called “Cravings: How I Conquered Food.” I wrote [2011’s] “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music” before that. I’ve written eight books over the years. I’ve been doing this, singing, performing, telling jokes, writing books and going on tour for 65 years. That’s a long time.”
And while that might seem impressive for an artist half her age, this flurry of activity is all the more remarkable given that husband Louis Nelson, who Collins had been with for 46 years and met at an Equal Rights Association fundraiser in 1978, passed away on December 3, 2024.
“It’s a disaster and the worst,” Collins said. “So it’s a good thing that I’m working because it’s the only thing that can get you through these kinds of tragedies. And it was a tragedy. He was diagnosed with undiagnosed cancer. It suddenly came upon us and he only had two weeks to live after they found it.”
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Nelson’s influence had a direct effect on Collins’ aforementioned projects, as her late spouse challenged her to write 365 poems in a year, a dare she took on back in 2016.
“In my new book, I’ve got 100 of my new poems,” Collins explained. “In a way, it’s a dedication and celebration of my husband. And then I carved out and hatched the songs from some of those poems. It’s my first album of all self-penned material. I wish I could call Leonard Cohen and tell him about that. He’s the one who started me on this writing path and I’ve never stopped since 1966.”
For this current string of dates, Collins will mix in material from “Spellbound” along with songs from her deep catalog. As someone who has become known as an interpreter of other artists ranging from Lennon/McCartney and Stephen Sondheim to Train and new wave duo Yaz, her rationale for covering a song is pretty straightforward.
“On this tour, people can expect all kinds of music,” Collins said. “It’s been a lifelong career of falling in love with songs. I have no idea [what attracts me to a song]. I fall in love with a song because I fall in love with a song. I am not an analyst. I’m not a music critic. I don’t have any way to put numbers or edginess into it. It’s just a love affair. It’s not unlike how you don’t make any qualifications to a person you fall in love with.”
Collins’ love of music and performing dates back to a childhood as the eldest of five siblings who traveled with her father Chuck Collins, who was a blind singer/pianist/radio show host. Her earliest memories include a particularly memorable gig when she was on the road with her pop.
“I remember being three years old with my father being on tour with something called National School Assemblies, which was created by the Roosevelts during the Depression in order to give musicians a place to work,” she said. “My father was on tour with National School Assemblies in the Northwest and when we got to Butte, MT, we did a show and he said, ‘Honey, how would you like to sing a song for the nice people?’ I strode out in my pigtails and my pinafore and sang ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ and the audience went crazy. But it was also April, but the audience didn’t care.”
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Collins’ decision to explore folk music when she was 16 eventually led her to Greenwich Village in the early 1960s following her graduation from Denver’s East High School. And while as of this writing she’s yet to see the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” there is nothing quite like getting stories straight from someone who not only had a front-row seat for what was going on, but was an active participant.
“I was one of the first people to record Mr. Dylan,” Collins said. “I met him when he was Robert Zimmerman, homeless and dressed badly, even for the ‘60s, in Denver. He followed me to Central City, where I was working and I got to spend time with him there. When I got to New York, there he was at Gerde’s Folk City. He was actually singing under his name — he hadn’t changed his name to Dylan yet. I started singing his songs right away and recorded ‘Masters of War’ and ‘Fare Thee Well.’ We were in the same bundle, and as soon as I moved to Greenwich Village I started recording all these songs of people like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, etc. And then of course, I met and introduced Leonard Cohen to the world, along with Joni Mitchell.”
As long as her health holds out, Collins has no intention of slowing down. That indefatigable spirit keeps her going well into her 80s.
“I have a sign on my mirror that says ‘Do it now — whatever it is,’” she said. “I have a viewpoint about courage and adaptability that plays into my love of the road. I’m unusual in that regard because a lot of people don’t like the road. I love the road. I love the planes. I love the cars. I love the drivers. I love the venues. I love the audiences. What’s bad about that? Nothing.”
Wednesday, March 12,7:30pm, Stranahan Theater, 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd., stranahantheater.com
