![]() |
|||
|
April 1, 2002
Timeless Judy Collins continues to comfort
By MIKE BELL
But axe makers don't just honour any old player by putting that person's name on an instrument -- you have to earn it. That's why the list of those so blessed is an impressive one, featuring the elite of the rock 'n' roll world: Eddie Van Halen, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Ace Frehley and ... Judy Collins? That's folk star Judy Collins, not rock star Judy Collins. "Oh, I am a rock star -- didn't you know," laughs Collins, who performs tonight at the Jack Singer Concert Hall. "There are 30 people with signature guitars, and I'm the 31st and the second woman. "I'm very excited." Aside from the signature series of 12-string and a six-string instruments, which Martin Guitars is producing, the 62-year-old Collins has plenty of other things to be excited about these days. There's her new record label, Wildflower Records -- named after her 1967 album, Wildflowers -- which just reissued her first two recordings. There's also the Judy Collins Wildflower Festival tour, which she'll embark on in the summer with Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens and Canadian fiddler Natalie MacMaster. And then in November, she'll perform a show at Carnegie Hall to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first time she sang on that famous New York stage. No, after more than four decades as a folk staple, she and her career show no signs of slowing down. And it helps that audiences don't want her to. They still want to hear her vocal interpretations of great songwriters such as Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Gordon Lightfoot and Bob Dylan. The reason why is the same reason that Collins herself never tires of the material she sings. "The trick is to choose a song that is timeless, and to learn how to interpret a song. So I'm always learning even with a song that I've sung maybe 2,000 times," she says, explaining that after this long, she has a good sense of what she should and shouldn't attempt to sing. "There are things that you can't sing and things you have to sing ... You know, you know what it is, you know if you can handle it, and you know if you need to sing it. "There are a lot of songs that I really need to sing," she says. And these days, Collins notes, there are songs that audiences need to have sung. She's a big believer in the comforting power of song, and with recent world events, she's found that there are plenty of people who want that comfort. "I think it was very symbolic and interesting that the O Brother, (Where Art Thou?) soundtrack won the Grammy (for album of the year)," she says. "The core values are certainly being celebrated in a way that they weren't previously ... Songs that have value and have a beautiful, lyrical, timeless quality about them are things that people want to hear now." |
|||