The Unstoppable Judy Collins Plays Town Hall in NYC

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 85^th birthday, which was officially on May 1, 2024. While artists of her vintage might be expected to be doing some kind of greatest hits tour, not so for Collins. She’s not only promoting her most 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 laughed. “I’ve been blessed with excellent health and incredible stamina. I work out all the time—I’ve been doing that for years. I’ve been given a second career, allowing me to do all sorts of things I’ve always wanted to. I’ve done a lot of writing. The last book I released in 2017 was titled Cravings: How I Conquered Food. I wrote [2011’s] Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music prior to that. Over the years, I’ve written eight books. I’ve been singing, performing, telling jokes, writing books, and going on tour for 65 years.”

While that may seem impressive for an artist half her age, this burst of activity is even more remarkable considering that Collins’s husband, Louis Nelson, with whom she had been for 46 years after meeting at an ERA 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.”

Nelson’s influence directly affected 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.”

Part of what makes this tour so special is that Collins will be making a stop at Town Hall, where she’ll be joined by Paula Cole, Richard Thompson, and Justin Vivian Bond. Much of the material will come from Spellbound, along with her extensive body of work. This venue is a place to which all roads lead back for the octogenarian who arrived in New York City in the early ‘60s as the folk boom was beginning to take off in Greenwich Village. “Town Hall is very significant in my life because in 1964, my first full public concert in New York took place at Town Hall, and it was recorded,” Collins recalled. “They actually have a small plaque recognizing the album that was created at Town Hall. My teacher, Dr. Brico, for whom I made the film Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1975, had her own orchestra both at Town Hall and Carnegie Hall in the ‘30s and ‘40s. It’s somewhat part of my adopted history as well.”

Collins’ passion for music and performing traces back to her childhood. As the oldest of five siblings, she traveled with her father, Chuck Collins, a blind singer, pianist, and radio show host. Her earliest memories include a particularly unforgettable gig while she was on the road with her pop.

“I remember being three years old while my father was on tour with something called National School Assemblies, which the Roosevelts created during the Depression to provide musicians with a place to work,” she said. “When we arrived in Butte, MT, we did a show, and he said, ‘Honey, how would you like to sing a song for the nice people?’ I walked out in my pigtails and pinafore and sang ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas,’ and the audience went wild. It was April, but the audience didn’t mind.”

Collins’s decision to explore folk music at age 16 eventually led her to Greenwich Village in the early ‘60s, after graduating from Denver’s East High School. While she has yet to see the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown as of this writing, there is nothing quite like hearing stories straight from someone who not only had a front-row seat to what was happening but was also an active participant participant.

“I was one of the first people to record Mr. Dylan,” Collins said. “I met him in Denver when he was still Robert Zimmerman, homeless and dressed poorly, even by ‘60s standards. He followed me to Central City, where I was working, and I spent time with him there. When I arrived in New York, there he was at Gerde’s Folk City. He was actually performing under his own name—he hadn’t changed it to Dylan yet. We were in the same circle, and as soon as I moved to Greenwich Village, I began recording songs from artists like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and others. And then, of course, I introduced Leonard Cohen to the world, along with Joni Mitchell.”

As long as her health holds out, Collins has no intention of slowing down. It’s that indefatigable spirit that fuels her well into her eighties.

Judy Collins will be playing on March 8 at Town Hall, 123 W. 43^rd St., NYC. For more information, visit the-townhall-nyc.org or call 212-307-4100.