Judy Collins
Holidays and Hits
Music Instrument Museum Theater, Phoenix, AZ, November 21, 2024
Reviewed by Lynn Timmons Edwards
You have to love iconic octogenarians who are still touring—everyone from the Rolling Stones to Johnny Mathis. You can count Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Collins among those who still love being on stage. She released her debut album in 1961, and her discography consists of 36 studio albums, numerous compilation albums, four holiday albums, and 21 singles.
She brought a mixed bag of repertoire to her cabaret show at the MIM, she was accompanied by her music director and pianist Russell Walden. She opened with her first big hit from her 1967 album Wildflowers “Both Sides Now” (Joni Mitchell). Her recording skyrocketed her to international prominence, and she won the Grammy for Best Folk Performance. She closed the show with her most commercially successful hit, Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” followed by her encore of “Amazing Grace,” which is preserved in the Library of Congress. In 2019 at the age of 80, she scored her first number-one album on an American Billboard chart—Winter Stories, a duet album with Norwegian singer/songwriter and guitarist Jonas Fjeld.
The most stunning moment of the night came when she sat at the piano, and with little introduction, sang “The Blizzard” from that album. It is a great cabaret song that has a beginning, middle, and end and that keeps listeners riveted. Singers, take a listen. Another highlight was “The River,” which was a perfect song for her style that fulfilled her promise to do some “holiday” songs. She often asked the audience to sing along on other classic holiday fare such as “Silver Bells” and “What Child Is This?,” which she joked was written by King Henry VIII.
Her patter leaned toward the comic with some funny and sometimes corny jokes. She talked about Christmas Eve when she was a child and then sang a beautiful arrangement of “Norwegian Wood” (John Lennon/Paul McCartney); it seemed to have nothing to do with the story until she emphasized the lyric “It’s time for bed.” She shared many stories of her childhood travels and told us that her father was a radio performer steeped in the Great American Songbook. She talked about the folk movement of the 1960s and mentioned that she knew Bob Dylan when he was still Robert Zimmerman. She made a joke about not doing many drugs—“It interfered with my drinking.” One night she woke up at a party and listened to Dylan writing “Mr. Tambourine Man” and then she sang it as though we were all hearing it for the first time.
Her voice showed her age, and she might do well to lower some of her keys, but she still floated high head notes and sang with a sharp, articulate tone and confidence. Walden was the perfect musical partner; he added harmony and vocal backup and kept everything in synch. She accompanied most of her songs on guitar, which required constant tuning. I would have preferred that she had focused on singing the best of her 60 years of songs, both her own and those of her contemporaries. She sold out two nights at MIM, which proved she still has an avid fan base, so why stop touring? Compared to Marilyn Maye, who makes her return appearance at the MIM on December 12, Collins is still a kid.
