Judy Collins via her Facebook page
Judy Collins has selected a number of songs that remain dear to her heart for a new collection of recordings, White Bird – Anthology of Favorites. The album, to be released on in a deluxe digipak CD and on limited edition white vinyl, arrived May 7, 2021, from Wildflower Records. It includes such favorites as “Both Sides Now,” “Diamonds & Rust” with Joan Baez, “Send in the Clowns,” and “Chelsea Morning.” Listen to “White Bird” below.
Collins, who turned 82 on May 1, can still remember exactly where she was the first time she heard many of them. She shares this story about one of her best-known, most beloved songs. “It was 1967 when I received a phone call at three in the morning from Al Kooper, the founder of Blood Sweat & Tears,” she says. “He said he followed this girl home from a bar where she had told him she was a songwriter. She played him some of her songs and after she played him one particular song, he picked up the phone and called me. He put the girl on the phone and Joni Mitchell sang me her great song ‘Both Sides Now.’”
Or this story about another young songwriter. “In 1966 I was getting ready to make my album, In My Life. Someone sent me a song called ‘I Think It’s Going to Rain Today’ by Randy Newman. I never heard of this guy but loved the song. Randy had not started thinking of himself as a singer-songwriter but after I recorded this song, he put out his own version and became the gold standard. He has told me I started his career but I’m sure he would’ve done it without me.”
Listen to Collins sing “Diamonds and Rust” with its songwriter, Joan Baez
Collins was the muse that led Stephen Stills to write the Crosby, Stills & Nash classic “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” The pair’s musical romance was rekindled decades later in 2015 for a recording of Tom Paxton’s “The Last Thing on My Mind.” Collins says, “I would run into Tom on the street in Greenwich Village in the early ‘60s and he would say I just wrote this song would you like to sing it. It became a favorite song of mine and also of Stephen’s. So, 40 years after our love affair, and a couple of years before our extraordinary reunion of concerts, Stephen and I recorded the song together. So thanks to Tom Paxton and thanks to you, Stephen. It’s been a long and rewarding love affair and friendship.”
Related: Our review of a 2017 Collins and Stills concert
A gem from 1969 by San Francisco hippie rock group It’s A Beautiful Day gives Collins’s collection its name, “White Bird.”
Listen to Collins’ recording of “White Bird”
White Bird – Anthology of Favorites Track Listing
1. White Bird
2. Chelsea Morning
3. Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)
4. Pack Up Your Sorrows
5. When I Go feat. Willie Nelson
6. I Think It’s Going to Rain Today
7. Last Thing On My Mind feat. Stephen Stills
8. Blackbird
9. Both Sides Now
10. Diamonds & Rust feat. Joan Baez
11. Send in the Clowns
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Jump into a conversationThe mono single mix of “Both Sides Now” has yet to be released on CD.