On the move

Judy Collins stays busy with touring, new book and collaborations

Judy Collins doesn’t stand still for too long. Over the course of her 60-plus year career, she’s had plenty of ups and downs. She’s one of the very few musicians to have remained relevant in music.

It’s because she has drive. “I don’t like to stop,” she says during a recent phone interview. “I’m always up for an adventure.”

Collins’ latest adventure with fellow songwriter Ari Hest, garnered the duo a Grammy nomination this year for “Silver Skies Blue.”

She says it was a collaboration that just came together.

“Ari and I have been working together for four years,” she says. “We met at a big concert, and he began to come around the country with me on tour. We decided to try and write something together for my duets album. Little did I know that we’d do an entire duet album together.”

Collins began her impressive music career at 13 as a piano prodigy dazzling audiences performing Mozart’s “Concerto for Two Pianos.”

But it was the music of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger that pulled her away from classical music.

In 1967, Collins recorded a rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” which helped catapult her career further.

Then in 1975, her version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” won song of the year at the Grammy Awards. The song was from the Broadway musical “A Little Night Music.”

She’s released more than 50 albums over the course of her career. She’s collaborated with legends in the music industry.

Yet the 77-year-old remains humble.

“I’ve been very blessed to have this career,” she says. “Some of it has been luck, but I’ve worked hard for every moment of it. It didn’t come easy at all and it’s what I was born to do.”

Collins will embark on a short tour that will take her to Taos on Thursday, Jan. 19.

In February, a new book will be released, and she plans to release an album of her own songs in 2018, as well as a pop album with Hest.

“Ari is a genius,” she says. “He’s so musical, and our voices go together so well. I’m just thrilled to work with someone that I have so much respect for. I think he’s just remarkable, and it’s a privilege to work with him. It’s not too often in life where I’ve had that musical connection with such a high level.”