COLOR BARS

INTERVIEW BEGINS

Judy Collins 0:28
Leonard, Leonard Cohen, my muse, my mentor, and the person who first told me that I should be writing songs. I met him in 1966. He was he was living in Canada, writing poetry. So sorry. You have a helicopter. Oh, somebody's going to rescue that plane. I guess.

Murray Lerner 0:50
Oh really thought about helicopters here

Judy Collins 0:55
we don't hear them often. But if there's something Sure. God bless Leonard Cohen. Yes. And his muse and I guess I feel I can borrow his muse once in a while, because he started me out writing and I was the first one to sing his songs. I, I, when he came to see me in 1966, he was sent by a friend of ours mutual friend, Mary Martin, not the woman who flies in Peter Pan, but a woman who worked for Warner Brothers who was Canadian, and who knew him. And she said, there's this guy, and he's in Canada, and he's a renowned poet. He's written a lot of poetry. And now he thinks he might have written some songs. So he wants to come to New York and talk to you and play you his songs. And he came to see me and it was funny, I was writing about this recently, and I said to myself, he didn't we didn't do any, any music at all. The first day, he came the first evening, we talked, we had dinner, we eventually went out to dinner with some friends. And then the next day, he came and played me Suzanne, and Dress Rehearsal Rag, and a stranger song, which I've never recorded, but I've always loved. And after that, as you probably know, I recorded Suzanne, and lots of songs, dozens of songs. And every few months, I would get a little tape with you reel to reel tape with oh, maybe six or seven or eight songs on it, and a little note that would say, try out some of these and see if you like them. And I also put him on stage the first time he ever performed in public, except for reading poetry in little clubs in Montreal and Toronto, which he had done. And so I took him to this fundraiser we were doing for WBAI. My memory is that it was at the I don't know where some someplace downtown and it was a big concert. And my memory is that Jimi Hendrix was there, but I could be mixing that up with some other time. But in any case, Leonard went out on the stage and started to sing Suzanne, and in the middle of the song, he stopped and

Murray Lerner 3:17
Start that last. Leonard went out on the stage. That's a little

Judy Collins 3:21
it's a little out Leonard Leonard went out on the stage, perfectly confident after shaking a lot backstage and, and he began to sing Suzanne. And he got about halfway through it. And he stopped and turned and walked off stage. And I said, I took I took his arm and I said, Leonard, it's okay. I said, I'll go back on stage with you. And we'll finish the song together, which we did. He, after that, of course, became a spectacular performer and has continued to be. But a few months after I'd recorded the first maybe four songs of his, he sent me he called me up one day and he said, I don't understand why you're not writing your own songs. And I said, I never I never thought of it. I mean, it never really never crossed my mind. When I was growing up, there was so much music in every part of my life and so many songs I wanted and needed to sing. It's still true. It's still true. I'm still finding songwriters that I fall in love with their songs. Not always them which is good. In fact, I don't even know if I ever fell in love with a songwriter No, not Leonard. Yes, I did. Well, Stephen is the exception

Murray Lerner 4:42
I forgot about that. Let me ask you, did you also say, listen I like this. The Hunting of the song is mystical and mysterious. And what was it about? Suzanne, that had that effect on you?

Judy Collins 5:00
It's a very powerful song. It was powerful when I first heard it and it's always powerful when I hear it, it's it's when I sing it, when I hear somebody else sing it. It has a poetic depths and a kind of mystical feeling to it. They say in Montreal that Suzanne is the story of their city, and that they get that feeling of other worldliness. From Suzanne, I get that feeling very strongly from this song that it's an another dimension entirely. That's also I think, what intrigued me about Canadian writing in general, not just Leonard, but in McCurdy who wrote last night I had the strangest dream and of course, I heard Joni songs Joni Mitchell songs in the in the coming year after I heard Leonard the following year, I heard her songs. And they seem to be there was some other leverage going on politically and musically, a different slant, including, of course, Ian and Sylvia, same idea that it was a different point of view, something was happening, sort of from the ground up with those songs. (Judy takes long pause - camera zooms in)

JUDY COLLINS PLAYS PART OF HER FIRST SONG ON THE PIANO

JUDY COLLINS PLAYS A PORTION OF HER SONG "SUZANNE" ON THE PIANO

COLLINS PLAYS A PORTION OF A SONG ON THE PIANO

Judy Collins 20:40
Hmm. Well, it's a vibration of course, it's a it's also but But music is, is a stimulant to memory. And to, to the inner workings of dreams and reflections. When I go to a concert, and I'm going to hear music that inspires me and, and, and transports me what I'm doing. And I would think that a concert is not successful. And unless this is happening, what I'm doing is looking at my life, reflecting on my journey, figuring out what's happening, it's a meditative state. For me, for the most part, well, sometimes we go to a hot rock and roll show, perhaps not quite so meditative, but a meditative been on many levels, it does become that. So that's a, it's almost as though you're going to a an emotional retreat, to go and hear music where you can get refreshed and you can think of things newly in a new and different way. And people have always needed that they've always needed to play music to get out of themselves to take a journey that they wouldn't go on otherwise, it operates for me as as healing. From the very start, when I started playing the piano as a kid and listening to all the music and singing all the music in my family, it was very healing, it was very meditative. And people tell me that music is is a healing experience.

Murray Lerner 22:23
Why is it so universal, but what's the, the origin of it,

Judy Collins 22:30
birds, maybe birds, communicating with telling stories in a way that can be remembered, and the end and the music, where however it's played, or whether it's sung, there are lots of wonderful forms that I don't know much about, but when I hear the might, I get very excited and interested and and, and my, my curiosity is, is stimulated. And of course, all the music that I grew up with, in addition to the Rodgers and Hart songs, and all the great lyrics that were written in those great songs, American Songbook, the classical music, I was studying Mozart and Debussy and Rachmaninoff from the from a very young age. Now there's a timelessness to I think that's also part of this. There's something that connects us in music, to something that transcends our daily burden of getting from day to day and from hour to hour and from from function to function. It makes it clear to us that this is that we're actually living in a timeless experience in life. But we don't always know that and music helps us to get out of the routine and to get into that mystical state where we have a better chance actually, of being happy and, and enjoying our lives and reveling in the things we hear and the things we see nothing like a good old English mystery for Birdsong, nowadays, a little bit harder to hear them from the windows in New York, but you can always you can always recognize the birds in the in the fields and behind the mystery. In a good old British mystery. I love that they still do that the landscape and the birds are always very important.

Murray Lerner 24:27
Well, it's interesting, how universal it is, and also how much of a need there is. Now in a way. Folk music, your involvement with folk music was sort of the beginning of that kind of folk music generated that kind of interest in all of a sudden on the American scene. What was there about folk music, interested?

Judy Collins 24:51
It was absolutely the stories. I love the charm of it. The musicality of it, the accessibility of it, that probably brought everybody into a different kind of mood in the mid 50s. You could sing it, you could play it, you didn't have to practice all day to do it, which was appealing in some ways, it was very accessible, very social. There was suddenly this group in Denver, this Denver, folklores society with all these people who, you know, everybody knew a different version of Barbara Allen and everybody could play it and sing it in some different way. And then the songs of Woody Guthrie and, and Pete Seeger began to drift into our community. And so I learned those, there was something else a very, sort of the essential patriotism of a song like this land is your land, which, which again, makes us part of a community and toasting the toasting the evening was home brew, and everybody had a different song to sing and watching the sun come up, sometimes after a night of, of reveling with, with the singing the music, it was really amazing to be part of that community in in that was different from the classical form that I had grown grown up in. And also in the, in the, in the Great American Songbook tradition where where there's then I think there was a kind of a synthesis for me, because I still believe in the as a as an artist, as a performer in the proscenium arch. In other words, when I'm on stage and singing, I'm working, I'm working, I'm also experiencing everything that you're experiencing from a different point of view, but, but we're all sort of in this together. And the combination of the attention of hopefully, the audience, and whatever I'm going through, everybody is part of that. It's very much a participatory, the often people sing along so in that case, it's very participate. But even if it if people are not seeing, there's a kind of emotional participation that's very communal, and again, I think, very healing. And there was a real need for that. That was in me, to be to be freed, to do different things to sing different things to learn different songs. Actually, it wasn't until I was I had learned and started to play the guitar, that I realized that my father had been singing Irish songs from the time I was a tot you know? How Oh, Danny boy who'd be singing in the morning along with Rodgers and Hart, he would throw in these beautiful Irish gems, on the radio and people love that. And so it was a almost as though a circle had completed when I came to, to realize that that too, was part of my upbringing, part of my legacy.

Murray Lerner 28:05
And so what got what attracted you to the Newport Folk Fest

Judy Collins 36:30
Well, there was a snobbery within the folk movement without without being any more exacting, but people like Erwin Silber, who wrote for the for sing out, you know, our Bible went on the the rant about Dylan going doing electric. And it was kind of typical, because underneath was a kind of, it was very odd. It shows how contradictory people can be without even realizing PC or had been writing great songs for decades. After all, he had been taking melodies from here and putting them there and putting words on this and finding that and, and writing some spectacular songs. But there was a prejudice against writing songs altogether, even at Newport, even with somebody on the board and involved in Newports process. Like Pete, you know, who had had tremendous amount of success. I think it was the it was often fear of success that drove that prejudice. I think there was some funny feeling. Burt Burt, what was his name? The man who the man who wrote I met her in Venezuela. You remember who I you know who I'm talking about? With a basket on her knee. So Burl Ives lives said that he had met a woman somewhere and some other place who had taught him that's not when he wrote it. He was just embarrassed to say it, it was not fashionable to say that and he could get beaten up by some critic. There was another instance of that John, Jacob Niles, who said, who wrote black,black, black, black is a color of my true love's hair. And he said he found this woman in coal junction and taken this off from her. He wrote it, but he didn't confess until later. So there was a kind of a snobbery and I was on the board of Newport festival. Why they asked me to be on the board of I don't function. I mean, I've been a lot of boards actually. And I'm not. I don't know if I'm suited to that role anyway, but it's always interesting because in different nonprofit organizations or certain situations, you learn something, but this was it was Pete Seeger. It was George Wein, it was Harold Leventhal, it was Peter Yarrow. And I think I have a feeling Ronnie was around, not always but sometimes. Ronnie Gilbert, but there were real wild arguments. Over on over on Central Park West and we always met in those years we always met at George George and George George Joyce Wein's apartment and they were they were hot under the collar and very, very opinionated about what was folk music What wasn't it actually those of us who became professional made a living at it we lucky to have gotten out with our skin because there was a lot of No no no, that's not you know, that's not anything to do with performance. And as I said, I'm a performer I am an an unabashedly. without any shame, I love to perform in public. I have done did all my life since I could walk and sing and talk and, and I love it. And I think it's a transformational experience both for me and the people who hear me. And I have very high standards in the music that I choose. But for me, it's all. It's all there to be partaken of. I loved some of the songs that Dylan took the the ancient melodies and put new out new words to and it's funny that at Newport, that snobbery should extend to, to that particular skill of his because folk music has been doing that for centuries. The the lyric often is a contemporary story, based on a melody which has been around for centuries, and which is around for centuries, because it's a damn good melody, and people can remember it, and put their own flavorings to it. Their Own the details of their own personal dramas and joys and sadness. So there was that always that kind of. And then there was a lot of sexism. You know, there was a lot of that, and I and I felt it, I was aware of it. It wasn't like being in Japan particularly, but it was sexism. nonetheless. They didn't really appreciate I think women being assertive and taking their own place in their own opinions. That was not, I think, not thought to highly of. Ronnie had some thoughts about that being in the, in the weavers, but she never really told me. I mean, I was very close to her and to them. And I was aware that this is hard. If you're with a quartet for a number of years, doesn't matter if your man or woman, whatever, you're gonna have some issues that come up, but I think she had some things that she never really came out right out and talked about. least to me.

Murray Lerner 42:00
You know, my feeling was the thing of my film was that music became a method of powerful expression that hadn't been available before. hadn't been used before, probably because of the spread of technology that became a comfort music became a commercial, widespread thing and that the great value of the Newport festival was encouraging people to use music to create a new culture.

Judy Collins 42:28
You know, I think that that Newport had a lot to do with it. Also, I was very fortunate because I was with one of the key people within the folk music who was making records, Jac Holzman and a couple of other people like John Hammond, a week after, after Jac Holzman asked me to be on in the in the electric team, which was in 1960. John Hammond called me and asked me and I said y'all have already been spoken for him. Sorry. But these men and the people who worked with them really invented a promotional aspect that we have to remember was part of that just as Newport was Newport served as the emotional center and it kind of the waves came out from there, but the songwriters and singers and performers and artists who were on electric, I watched and was part of the making of a technique of getting the music to the people. And you know, he started out on a shoestring and little tiny, first of first of his albums was an album of the songs of the ovarian, which he made when he was at school in at St. John's University, and they did everything they did, they created. They got us what we needed musically. We guess we didn't need it. We were hungry, hungry, hungry for it. And so beyond Newport, was this wave of people like Maynard Solomon working with Joni let Jack working with me and Colombia, Colombia artists working with Leonard, people like that. And with Dylan, they knew what to do. They had to figure it out. They had to invent it, but eventually they knew about it. And the sad thing about that aspect, I think, is that the commercial record companies forgot they forgot about the connection with the music with the songwriters with the actual physical, the face they lost, they stopped keeping the face with the artists, the young artists and I have a record label myself now and that's the challenge keeping the face into the second and then of course the third album keeping the face with with those artists is a big challenge and and they were up to it. They were up to they did that I never would have lasted All these years without having been brought along, one after one year after another the kind of support, it didn't start big it started. You know, the way you do when you start to work on something you love you do it, you work it. And then of course you work your ass off and you sing in every dive and, and shower and truckstop you can get to until you learn how to do what you do. You have to you have to my friend George first said, you know, it's not enough to have talent, you have to have talent for talent and also stamina and an awful lot of luck and good health.

Murray Lerner 45:42
Did you have feelings change about the festival as the years went on?

Judy Collins 45:46
You know, my feelings have never really changed about Newport. I think it's just a wonderful, wonderful thing. I haven't done it much in the past 20 years a couple of times. We went out to that to the fort fort Adams, I think it is where they changed their venue and started doing music out there. But I've always thought it was a great, great place for that exchange people. We don't get a chance to do that very much. We're out on the road. A lot of us are working all the time. How can you go and see an artist or hang out with artists when you're you have to be in Cleveland or over in England. So sometimes the function of the festival in many ways is to allow the artists to have some time together and say hi, I haven't seen you since last year or how's the year been? Or it's been a decade since I've run into people that I haven't seen for years. Because we're all fortunately out there working.

Murray Lerner 46:46
It's the 50th anniversary

Judy Collins 46:50
Yes