Judy Collins Still Sparkles

The Sweet Judy Blue Eyes tour — a nod to Stephen Stills’s iconic 1969 Crosby, Stills & Nash ode to his onetime lady love — returns to the Lobero on September 27 as part of an expansive tour across North America giving audiences “one last chance” to experience the iconic Judy Collins’s silvery voice and storytelling prowess live in person. 

I had the pleasure of speaking to her by Zoom in advance of her Santa Barbara show, and I’m happy to report that even at age 87, Judy Collins’s bright blue eyes and blazing humor are both as fiery as ever. 

So, you’re on the road or you’re starting on the road for this tour?

Oh, I’m always on the road. … I work all the time, so it’s just that sometimes it’s bigger, like the big tour coming up…. But it’s always 100 shows a year.

Wow, that’s amazing. 

It is amazing. I’m amazed at it myself.

So, what keeps you motivated? You’re definitely at a time where many of your peers are not touring anymore.

Well, I love it, and I make a living, and I get to keep my skills up in order to keep everything sharp and on the edge. You know, I just practiced the piano a little while ago, and then between interviews, I went and worked on my current book that I’m writing, because I seem to always be writing a book. … It’s called The Voice, and the subtitle is “Singing Through the Storm.”

Is it a memoir?

Oh, yeah, it’s everything, and it’s also, I say at the beginning, this should be a crime story. I mean, it’s hard, you know, living up to your potential.

Well, yes, absolutely. 

I mean, it’s funny in a way, but I love it. I love it. I think it’s because I was raised in a family where I was on the road with my father when I was a little girl. He had a 30-year career in the radio, singing on the radio, and he was undaunted.

You’ve got to be very disciplined. I mean, even just thinking about writing, singing, and practicing the piano is a lot, right?

Yes. I have a sign on my mirror in the bedroom that says “Do it now.”

So, do you think this is really a farewell tour?

I think it’s a partner of so many of the farewell tours that I have experienced in my life. It’s always refreshing because it kind of lifts everybody up, and they all want to come to the show, including me.

When you’re singing songs that you wrote or that you started performing decades ago, does it feel the same, or does it feel different to do those songs now?

Oh yeah, it’s different because you’re putting them up against, for instance, the album that I did in 2022, called Spellbound. It’s an album that had all my own songs on it, and that was the first time I’ve done that. Ever since Leonard Cohen said to me in 1966, “I don’t know why you’re not writing songs,” and I had never written any songs. I’d written a lot of prose. I’d written in high school. I’d written after I got into the swing of things with my career [and being] on the road all the time, but I had never written a song. So, the minute I was sitting in my old apartment talking to him about this, I got up and I went into the other room and sat down at my Steinway and wrote, “What I’ll give you since you’ve asked is all my time together. So, it feels like today.”

[Judy sang these lyrics to me from her 1967 song “Since You’ve Asked.”]

It’s like I just sang it and I wrote it a few years ago, but it’s always brand-new. That’s the thing about songs — the minute you sing them; they’re brand-new for the moment.

These songs, they’re so evocative of so many different things in your life.

Right, music does that anyway, and so you’ve got your own guide to the past and the future, and you’re doing the thing in the moment, which is wonderful.

In terms of having written some of your own material, is that something you feel like you’re going to continue with?

Oh God, yes. You know, I started, as I said, when Leonard asked me, and then I just went right on writing. I’ve never stopped writing, and thank God because of my beloved husband, who died in December of 2024. So, it’s very recent. So, I’m trying to get over it, get through it any day of the year, and he said to me, in 2017, he said, “I think you should write every day for a year. You should write a song or a poem or some sort of a little exploit on where you have been. What have I been doing today? You should write that every day for 365 days. Then you’ll have a book of poetry at the end of the year.” And I do now. I’ve just finished last year.

Oh, wow!

It’s called Sometimes It’s Heaven. All those poems were published last year, but after 2017 when he told me to do that, I did it, and then I harvested a dozen songs on one of the last of my albums. It’s called Spellbound, and it has a dozen of my songs. It’s the first time that I’ve done an album of all my own songs.

That’s wonderful. Folk music, obviously, was where you first made a name for yourself, but you’ve gone into all kinds of different genres. Do you still think of yourself as a folk singer? 

No, not really. Yet I love great songs … I mean, I’ll sing “Laura is the face in the misty light” [from the 1940s jazz standard “Laura”] every once in a while, but I’ll also sing “Oh Danny Boy.” Now that’s a folk song. That’s an old song, but it’s also a very contemporary pop song. Everybody knows it. When I’m singing, I do a concert, I organize the series of songs, but I always have the audience sing. And one of the things that I sing is “Danny Boy.” Everybody knows “Danny Boy,” and then I’ll sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” Everybody knows “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.”

So, it’s interesting how those classic songs intermix with the folk music that somehow became standard.

This has been wonderful. Is there anything else you want to make sure people in Santa Barbara know about the show?

Oh, come to the show. It’ll be fun. I also tell jokes. You’ll miss them if you don’t come, and you can hopefully remember some to tell your friends.

See Judy Collins’s Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: Farewell Tour on Sunday, September 27, at 7 p.m. at the Lobero Theatre (33 E. Canon Perdido St.) See lobero.org/events/judy-collins-the-farewell-tour.