“Music is my life,” Judy Collins, who began her musical journey in 1952, said. “It’s fundamental to my physical and mental health.”
While she started out performing classical numbers, such as Mozart’s “Concerto for Two Pianos” at age 13, she gained popularity in the 1960s as a folk musician.
She released her first album in 1961 when she was 21 years old.
“I was raised and trained in music,” Collins said. Her father was also a musician.
Collins continued writing and performing music, and she is currently on tour with former partner and 1960s band Crosby, Stills, and Nash member Stephen Stills. Their final tour date together was November 4, after which Collins will continue performing solo.
She will perform at the Carolina Theatre in Durham on November 16.
“I write all my songs on the piano, but I perform most everything on the guitar,” Collins said.
As well as originals, Collins performs many covers. Her cover of “Send in the Clowns,” originally from the 1973 musical A Little Night Music written by Stephen Sondheim, won her a “Song of the Year” Grammy in 1976.
“I only [choose to cover] songs that completely invade my body, mind and spirit,” Collins said.
As a musician who has been in the business for almost 60 years, Collins does not believe that the influences of new digital recording techniques and other factors have changed the essentials of music.
“[Music] is still always about the song quality and the emotional response,” Collins said. “If it’s good, it’s good.”
Along with her music, Collins has produced several books and is a social activist, participating in programs with United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and other organizations.
“I respond to things I believe in,” Collins said of her charity work and how she chooses which groups she to align herself with.
Collins also works scouting out and nurturing new talents in the music industry.
“People come up to me randomly asking to listen [to their music],” Collins said. “Anyway it happens is fine.”
In 2014, Collins collaborated with up-and-coming artist Rachael Sage, with a piano cover of “Helpless” by Neil Young, another folk singer who began his career in the 1960s.
After years of mentorship from Collins, Sage will begin a tour of her own on November 11 and will continue touring sporadically until the end of March 2018.
Collins’s tour will continue until her final show in Annapolis, Maryland on April 29.
