Review: JUDY COLLINS & FRIENDS: 85 YEARS OF PROTEST & MUSIC Stuns at The Town Hall

Legendary singer, songwriter, musician and social activist Judy Collins celebrated 85 years on planet earth along with International Women’s Day at The Town Hall on March 8 with a concert, many musical friends, and a full house. (Though promoted as her 85th birthday concert, she will turn 86 on May 1st.) The concert included both her most celebrated songs and some deep cuts. Collins has 55 albums to her credit since her 1961 debut

Collins’ band for this concert consisted of her longtime pianist Russell Walden, bassist Zev Katz, drummer Doug Yowell, and guitarist Thad Debrock.

Collins arrived to the stage in a, purple sequined dress, her famous long, blonde hair now white and short, the famous blue eyes still bedazzling. With her 12-string guitar, she opened with “Mountain Girl.” At 85, her voice is simply astonishing. It is nearly pristine, both in chest and head voice, her high notes still intact, and never off-key. (Collins was blessed with perfect pitch.) While not quite the young Collins voice, and occasionally uneven, it is ultimately wondrous.

Judy Collins Photo: Sachyn Mital

Sophie B. Hawkins Photo: Sachyn Mital

Singer/songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins served as host for the evening. This talented performer is funny and quick, and clearly ecstatic to share a stage with one of her biggest idols.

The star, a great storyteller, shared anecdotes between songs and segments with great humor, jokes and openness, with surprising and wonderful a capella song snippets strewn in. She claimed she was never much into recreational drugs. “I was afraid they would interfere with my drinking.” (Collins has been sober since 1978.)

Collins’ rendition of Dylan’s “Masters of War” was the first of a number of vintage and newer protest songs in the nearly three-hour concert. Played simply, with guitar, her singing here had a sort of Irish lilt to it, as did “John Riley,” a song Collins has sung since early in her career. Listening to a 1963 live recording of it while writing this article made her performance here seem all the more remarkable.

Collins told a marvelous story of her friend Al Kooper (from Blood, Sweat and Tears) connecting her with a “hot girl he met in a bar” who wrote great songs - Joni Mitchell. After hearing “Both Sides Now,” she recorded it the next day, and it became one of her biggest singles. Collins’ rendition here was closer to that of Mitchell’s version than to her own recording.

Oakland Rain Photo: Sachyn Mital

Rickie Lee Jones Photo: Sachyn Mital

Rickie Lee Jones, in her signature beret, took Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and turned it inside out, performing it almost like a dirge, an interpretation that seemed to completely open up the lyrics and let them ring true. It was fascinating to learn that Collins was present when Dylan was creating the song in 1965, and was the first person to hear it.

Grammy- and Oscar-winning composer Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the scores of such shows as Godspell and Wicked, performed a stunning duet with Collins, now in a pink outfit, of “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz, with Collins first singing, a capella, the rarely heard verse. Schwartz is an accomplished pianist and an excellent singer. It was a thrilling, goosebump-inducing choice.

Justin Vivian Bond, best known as Kiki DuRane from the stage duo Kiki and Herb, performed “Marat/Sade” (Richard Peaslee) from Collins’ In My Life album. The lyrics, with lines like “We want a revolution now,” seem prescient in today’s political climate. Bond has a vocal sound and style reminiscent of David Bowie.

Writer Molly Jong-Fast introduced Martha Redbone to perform the powerful and emotional “Dreamers,” which Collins wrote after President Trump’s first election. It tells the fears of the children of undocumented immigrants whose lives have been in upheaval thanks to various challenges to the DACA policy. One could hear a pin drop during Redbone’s gorgeous and impeccable a capella interpretation of provocative lines like “We came here for democracy and hope. Now all we have is hope.”

Collins helped discover the late Leonard Cohen, then a poet who did not know if he was a songwriter. With her direct encouragement - “That’s a song” - he became both a songwriter and a performer, and Collins recorded a number of his songs over the years. Singer/songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman, on solo guitar, performed Collins’ “Since You Asked,” which Cohen recited on a 2008 tribute album to Collins. Dressed entirely in black, with a black guitar, Chapman gave the song a lovely, ethereal reading. Her simple, beautiful playing harkened back to the simpler time of the 60s and 70s no-frills solo performers.

Paula Cole, whose big break came at Lilith Fair in the late 90s, performed Collins’ “My Father.”

Host and singer/songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins had tried for many years to be on the same bill with Collins. She declared, “Judy Collins is a buoy!” Sitting on a stool and accompanying herself on guitar, she performed a lovely arrangement of “Diamonds and Rust,” by Joan Baez, with some nice touches from Debrock on pedal steel guitar.

Collins returned to perform an exquisite rendition of “The Blizzard,” another song she wrote about Colorado. For the first time, she was at the piano. (Collins actually started in music as a piano prodigy at age 13.)

The very tall singer/songwriter Ari Hest brought his deep baritone voice to perform “Strangers Again” with Collins. The pair sometimes held impressively long notes together.

English singer, songwriter and virtuoso guitarist Richard Thompson, dressed from head to toe in black, with a white Fender guitar, joined Collins for “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”, which Collins recorded in 1968. Thompson himself recorded it as the lead guitarist for Fairport Convention in 1969, with its composer and singer Sandy Denny.

“Send in the Clowns” (Stephen Sondheim) was one of her biggest hits. She recorded in 1975, two years after Sinatra first made the song famous. Fifty years later, Collins, up at the mic without an instrument, performed this to a simple piano accompaniment with an understanding and emotional maturity that took it light years from the original recording. (Though she did not mention this, the Stephen Sondheim Theater is directly opposite The Town Hall.)

Collins called her longtime friend and one-time lover Stephen Stills to the stage. Stills, who has 95 percent hearing loss, was wheezy, but his mere presence garnered a standing ovation. With both Stills and Collins on guitar, and with additional vocal assistance from guitarist Thad Debrock, the three performed Stills’ "Helplessly Hoping,” written about Collins, and a huge hit for Crosby, Stills and Nash.

The star led the audience in an a capella singalong of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

It seemed improbable that “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" - the Crosby, Stills and Nash song Stills wrote for her - didn’t make the set list, but the entire ensemble returned to the stage for part of this song for a grand finale. The finale seemed a little under rehearsed, with Stills suffering some confusion, but the audience helped out on the famous singsong riff.

The audience serenaded Collins with “Happy Birthday.” Those ticketholders lucky enough to have acquired VIP wristbands stayed behind for a reception with the performers.

Judy Collins and Stephen Schwartz Photo: Sachyn Mital

Justin Vivian Bond Photo: Sachyn Mital

Molly Jong-Fast Photo: Sachyn Mital

Martha Redbone Photo: Sachyn Mital

Paula Cole Photo: Sachyn Mital

Sophie B. Hawkins Photo: Sachyn Mital

Judy Collins and Richard Thompson Photo: Sachyn Mital

Judy Collins and Stephen Stills Photo: Sachyn Mital

Judy Collins and Stephen Stills Photo: Sachyn Mital