It has been 57 years since Judy Collins’s recording of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” reached number 8 on the Billboard charts, the young Colorado native instantly winning over audiences with her beautiful soprano voice and soulful interpretation of the song gifted her by Canada’s own Joni.
Bookended by the two songs for which Judy Collins is best known – “Both Sides, Now” to open, “Send in the Clowns” (by Stephen Sondheim) for a closer – her recent sold-out performance at Hugh’s Room Toronto was a lovely trip down memory lane, allowing Collins, an ever-engaging raconteur, to weave together songs with stories and remembrances from across her legendary career.
Collins, slightly struggling from a recent cold (picked up, she was quick to tell us, not up here in the frigid Canadian north but on a tour date down south), was making her return appearance to Hugh’s, having previously graced the stage in a pre-lockdown 2019. Combining songs, poetry, and stories, she was joined by longstanding pianist/music director Russell Walden for an impressively lengthy solo set, much to the delight of her (largely, though not entirely) silver-haired audience. The 86-year-old Collins still knows how to pack in the seats, even if those seats aren’t quite on the scale of, say, the legendary Big Sur Folk Festival.
The audience – which included former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson alongside John Ralston Saul, both stalwarts of the Toronto arts scene – was in for a rather unexpected treat, Collins offering up plentiful stories and jokes in between the music and poetry. Collins remains as charismatic as ever, happily pausing for comic asides or amusing anecdotes ranging from her childhood through her years in the folk scene.
An expert name-dropper, Collins clearly revelled in talking about “Bob” and “Leonard” and “Joni”, mixing in some unexpected names (Lily Tomlin!) along with the rest. Some of her best stories involved meeting young, relatively unknown artists who would go on to greater things, including a thirteen-year-old kid named Arlo, and some guy named Henry Deutschendorf Jr. with a fondness for granny glasses.
And then there was the music, which doubled as a showcase for all the incredible singer-songwriters with whom Collins has been associated over the years. There were the Mitchell and Sondheim numbers to open/close the show, while other highlights included “Suzanne”, which Collins actually recorded before Cohen; an evocative cover of Joan Baez’s “Diamonds and Rust”; and a fantastic John Denver medley bringing together “Leaving on a Jet Plane” with “Take Me Home, Country Roads”.
Other, less familiar numbers included traditional folk tune “John Riley”, Collins’s own “When I Was a Girl in Colorado” and “Hell on Wheels”, and a handful of singalongs, which probably could have gone on a lot longer had Collins encouraged it. These included, rather movingly, the Pete Seeger twofer of “This Land is Your Land” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”.
Collins’s poetry output is the least well-known aspect of her oeuvre, but that’s only because it’s brand new, with her first-ever poetry collection, Sometimes It’s Heaven, releasing this year. The selection of poems she shared (with piano accompaniment, Collins at the keys) touched on a familiar set of topics for anyone who knows something of her life and views. Topics ranged from her friendship with Janis Joplin (“Southern Comfort”), the horrific events of the “Unite the Right” rally of August 2017 (“Charleston”), and her admiration for sitar master Ravi Shankar (“Ravi”). Presented as an interlude of sorts before returning for her final few songs, it was nice to hear Collins in a different mode (and probably also served as a well-deserved rest for her voice before “Send in the Clowns”).
It was, in a word, an enthralling evening. Between Neil Young’s and Bob Dylan’s appearances in Toronto in 2024, followed by a trio of Paul Simon concerts in Toronto just this month, it’s been a great year for legendary musicians appearing on Canadian stages. Here’s hoping Judy comes back soon.
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Visit the official Judy Collins website for all the latest, including tour dates, new albums, and her new poetry collection.
Hugh’s Room Live is located at 296 Broadview Avenue in Toronto. Upcoming performances include Ashley MacIsaac, Divine Brown, and a Tribute to Leonard Cohen.
