Judy Collins brings star power to OKC showcase
Perhaps it’s the angelic voice or her obvious love for great songs, but Judy Collins continues to venture musically where other singers fear to tread.
Throughout her long and celebrated career, the legendary songwriter and song interpreter has favored sweeping ballads and literate story-songs designed not just to showcase her crystalline soprano but also to push her soaring voice to impressive new heights.
At 78, the Grammywinning singer-songwriter continues to fill out her set lists with indelibly beautiful and undoubtedly challenging songs, or at least that was the case with her March 9 concert at Oklahoma City Community College Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater. Collins brought plenty of star power to OKC for a special delivery of her “A Love Letter to Stephen Sondheim,” presented as a fundraising event for the award-winning nonprofit Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre.
Accompanied only by her capable pianist and musical director Russell Walden, the folk music icon often performed with more passion than precision during her OKC concert. But she still selected only the best songs, covering not only on Sondheim but also Joni Mitchell (“Chelsea Morning”), The Beatles (“Norwegian Wood”) and Ian Tyson (the famed Western love song “Someday Soon”).
From Sondheim’s deep catalog, she plucked more classics, like “Green Finch and Linnet Bird” from “Sweeney Todd”; “Being Alive” from “Company”; “I’m Still Here” from “Follies”; and “Sunday,” “Move On” and “Finishing the Hat” from “Sunday in the Park with George.”
Her rendition of “No One Is Alone” from “Into the Woods” was tender and lovely, but her performance of one of her signature songs, the poignant lament “Send in the Clowns,” from “A Little Night Music,” gave me goose bumps and brought some in their audience to their feet in rapturous applause.
She introduced the title theme from “Anyone Can Whistle,” Sondheim’s famous flop that closed after only nine performances on Broadway, with the wry wisdom, “Just goes to show you, you can never give up on your dreams.”
Although it took a bit for her singing voice to warm up, Collins’ stage presence was fresh and inviting from the start as she shared entertaining tidbits from her storied career, chatted readily about her experiences with her former flame Stephen Stills and her poetic pal Leonard Cohen and punctuated her anecdotes with dryly, witty zingers and selfdeprecating humor.
“I want to thank all the people who made me look and sound like Judy Collins tonight,” joked the singer-songwriter, who looked like the New York artist she has been for years in her all-black ensemble of slim pants, tall boots and neat tunic, with a couple of glamorous jackets spiffing up her outfit.
Collins’ cover of Cohen’s mesmerizing ode “Suzanne” remains one of the high points of her career, and she did it justice in Oklahoma City. Although her voice occasionally got breathy or a bit shrill, she nailed her trademark tunes— including her lovely breakout cover of Mitchell’s ballad “Both Sides Now,” which was ushered into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003— and when she was on, she was spellbinding.
Although a broken elbow prevented her from playing guitar— and despite her “the show must go on” matter-of-factness about the injury, you had to wonder if she felt unwell at times— Collins showed off her childhood classical training on piano with her gorgeous rendition of “New Moon over the Hudson,” a transporting ode she penned.
One of the highlights of the show was the renowned social activist’s a cappella performance of a new song she wrote, an impassioned tale of immigrants and Dreamers that rendered the crowd absolutely silent to hang on every perfectly placed word.
Her status as the angelvoiced songstress was assured when Collins performed for her encore her famed a cappella arrangement of "Amazing Grace" — it was selected last year by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry — and invited the crowd to sing along with her, filling the auditorium with music that was heavenly in every way.