Judy Collins: A Musical Comet Streaking Through Time

New York

OK, so those of you dear readers who check my blog often are thinking: "Where did she go? What is this picture of Judy Collins about with the accolade?" Exegencies of life, I am afraid.

Well, this is the story.

Last Thursday, one short week ago, I went to the Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side, one of my favorite places on the planet.I have had reservations for months dinner and the pleasure of being in a cabaret with 90 others to see the legendary Judy Collins perform.

The evening was magical. As I walked in the jam-packed room, there was a small sea of affluent baby boomers out on a Thursday night to walk down memory lane with the woman who made grown folks weep when she sang "Send in the Clowns", her silky soprano arcing over every high note effortlessly. The stage ( a single riser, really ) was 12 feet from our table.

This is the best part. I always thought that adults in New York went to this kind of elegant affair--just like the black and white movies of post war New York that we grew up with in the 50s. And here I was with my friend, all dressed up and grown up going to a cabaret.

I remember the first time I really listened to Judy Collins. It was 1970. I lived in Iowa City, Iowa, where I taught nursing at the university to make a living for my then husband and our two year old toe-headed toddler, Chris. Collins had just come out with a new album ( back in the day...), and the cover was a nude of her back side, her long brown hair cascading down to ...well you get the idea. She must have been almost 40 at that point--and at that point, I believed 40 meant death of any curves, and the genesis of a lumpy body. So, of course, I bought the album--the music was classic Collins and I played it on our Magnavox console over and over in our tiny garden apartment while I played with my son on the floor of the living room with no idea what lay ahead.

Judy Collins didn't disappoint last Thursday. She's 67 now, her very long silvery hair piled on top of her head in soft rolls that shaped a little like a soft serve elegantly executed! The room was SRO. I would scan the room: people unable to be seated stood at the far end of the room hardly moved, their bodies leaning on the long walnut bar, transfixed. The tables of two and four mostly, were full of 50 somethings, all smiling, many with that wistful, far away gaze. She talked about Dylan, the war, Martin, Bobby, John. And we all remembered.

In what seemed like an instant, we were all applauding for her encore. Collins brushed by tables as she exited, as people touched her black sequined full length gown almost reverently.

One thing she didn't do. She didn't sing Amazing Grace.

She didn't have to. It was.

M.C.