Judy Collins heads to Cambridge Folk Festival: ‘Leonard Cohen was the one who urged me to write songs’
Taking the ‘US Folk Legend’ slot at the Cambridge Folk Festival this weekend is American singer-songwriter Judy Collins, who will be celebrating her landmark 1967 album Wildflowers with the help of the Unity String Quartet.
Well into her 80s and having released her 55th album last year, Judy, a Grammy Award-winning artist highly respected in the world of folk, country and Americana, has no problem being referred to as a ‘legend’. “I don’t care what they call me, frankly,” she laughs, “if I can just sing and do what I do.”
Judy’s 1967 magnum opus Wildflowers, a 10-track LP which includes well-known songs such as Albatross and the Joni Mitchell-penned Both Sides Now, still occupies a special place in her heart. The album established ‘chamber folk’ as a genre and was also the first of Judy’s records to feature her own compositions.
“I’ve been asked about it [Wildflowers] for a long time, whether I would ever do it,” reveals Judy, speaking to the Cambridge Independent from her home in New York City (where she’s lived since 1963). “Now we are doing it with a small orchestra, or a big orchestra, depending on who can come!
“And it includes, of course, the first airing of Joni Mitchell’s song Both Sides Now, which I recorded on that album – it was the first time it was out in the world.
“[It includes] my first three songs and three of Leonard Cohen’s songs, and it also includes La Chanson des Vieux Amants, Jacques Brel’s song, as well as a song that was from the 14th century by a composer named Francesco Landini. So it’s quite an interesting album and people do love it and I love doing it.”
Judy, who bumped into fellow 2023 Cambridge Folk Festival performer Rufus Wainwright earlier this month at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Canada, notes that the record label will be putting out a special vinyl edition of Wildflowers in August.
On her upcoming appearance at Cherry Hinton Hall, she asks: “Have I been on at Cambridge before, do you know? I wish I could tell you, I’m not sure! But it’s exciting.” A look back over past line-ups reveals that Judy has indeed graced the festival before, back in 2008.
The artist’s most recent album, Spellbound, released in February 2022, marks the first time ever that she wrote all of the songs on one of her albums.
“I always think I should be able to call Leonard Cohen and tell him that I finally did an album of all my own songs,” says Judy, “because he was the one who encouraged me, in 1966, to write my own songs, which I wasn’t doing, and ever since then I’ve been doing that.” She adds that she will definitely include songs from the record at the Folk Festival.
Going forward, Judy plans to cut a song by David Crosby of Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash fame, who died in January.
“I will be recording it and Graham Nash will be singing on it,” she says, “so it’s sort of a tribute to David – maybe I can get Stephen [Stills] to play guitar, that would of course be heaven.
“I have to sing songs that I feel I have to be singing, but there are new songs of mine in the pipeline, so it [the upcoming new album] will be a combination.
“I was lucky enough to write enough poetry and get enough songs together just before the pandemic that I started recording Spellbound at the end of 2019, and then found a couple of studios that were open during the pandemic and got the rest of it done before I was able to release it in ’22 – and then it was nominated for a Grammy, which is always exciting.”
While undisputably an icon in the world of popular music, David Crosby tended to come across as rather a complex individual and had alienated a number of his former bandmates such as Graham Nash and Neil Young, who of course worked alongside Crosby and Nash as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Judy laughs and says: “We always got along very well. He was difficult, interesting, hysterical, loyal, in spite of current evidence…
“I think he made up with Graham at the end and probably with Stephen, I don’t know if he ever did with Neil – Neil was not the inner circle of the trio but he did cause them, I think, to reach even greater heights.”
Judy, whose songs have been covered by the likes of Dolly Parton, Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez and the aforementioned Rufus Wainwright, will be performing at the Cambridge Folk Festival this Sunday (July 30).
She will also be returning to the UK in September and October for a few shows, including one in Bury St Edmunds and one at London’s Barbican.
[Read more: Our guide, including times, to the 2023 Cambridge Folk Festival, Singer-songwriter William Prince: From the Grand Ole Opry to the Cambridge Folk Festival]
For more on the festival, visit cambridgelive.org.uk/folk-festival. To find out more about Judy, go to judycollins.com.
