Muse to the stars
How songwriter Judy Collins overcame alcoholism, inspired Leonard Cohen and Stephen Stills, and won a Grammy
This year, Judy Collins celebrates her 80th birthday and 60 years as a performer. The Grammy-winning folk rock legend, whose crystalline voice helped introduce the songs of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell to a wider public, shows no sign of slowing her touring schedule and has two new albums scheduled for release later in the year.
“It seems to be what keeps me healthy and creative and enjoying myself,” Judy says. “I love my audiences and I keep learning new things.”
While Cohen and Bob Dylan were pals, her lover Stephen Stills tried (and failed) to woo her back with his classic hymn to beauty Suite: Judy Blue Eyes while she fought a losing battle with alcohol.
“I couldn’t work, couldn’t get up in the morning – I was really a wreck. People didn’t know I drank because I wasn’t a fall-down drinker. I was compulsive about my work. I was just about as compulsive about my work as I was about my drinking.”
Now sober for 40 years, Judy bequeathed the “alcoholic DNA” she inherited from her own father to her only son, Clark, who committed suicide, aged 33, in 1992.
“I was a survivor of my own suicide attempt when I was a teenager,” Send In the Clowns star Judy reveals.
“And Clark had the thing that we had, alcohol and drug addiction. Some people make it, but he was one of the unlucky ones.” Last year, she and Stills reunited for a tour promoting their 2017 album Everybody Knows.
“It’s nice that we stayed friends all these years. We never said anything that was unforgivable to one another.
“On tour it was better than ever. He kept saying I was the best partner he ever had.”
Their album was titled after another of the great Leonard Cohen songs Judy recorded, helping him become a renowned writer and performer. “He was my darling friend and inspiration.
“He was the one who said to me, after I started recording his songs, ‘Well, you’ve made me famous now, but I don’t know why you’re not writing your own songs’. That’s when I started to write in 1967.
“I had said to him, ‘Why won’t you sing your own songs?’ He said, ‘I have a terrible voice’. I said, ‘You don’t – it’s a little obscure, but it’s wonderful’.
So I pushed him onstage and we did each other great favours.
“We were true friends, never lovers, and,” she adds, laughing, “I can say I’m very grateful about that.” ■■Judy Collins plays Wickham Festival on August 1 headlining the Valley Stage
Leonard and I were never lovers and I’m very grateful about that