It’s been nearly six decades since Leonard Cohen challenged Judy Collins to start writing her own songs. Now, at 82, the folk singer is finally delivering “Spellbound,” her first album of entirely original material. “I can’t tell you why it took me so long,” Collins said. “Probably because I didn’t have a pandemic to keep me at home.”
Slowing down has never come naturally to Collins. She has released more than 25 albums since emerging as a pre-eminent voice of the Greenwich Village folk scene with her beautiful cover versions of friends’ songs, including Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” in 1968. “Spellbound” (out Feb. 25) finds Collins reminiscing about old lovers, her Colorado childhood and, yes, that iconic era. The bygone romance on “So Alive” unfolds between downtown landmarks like the Bitter End and Jackson Square, summoned up in Collins’s signature crystalline soprano.
“As an artist, you’re always in the midst of memory,” she said via phone from her Upper West Side apartment, which she shares with her husband, Louis Nelson, and their three Persian cats. “The older brain is capable of a lot of things. For instance, handling grief and creativity at the same time. That was a hard mountain to climb when I was younger. I don’t really find it hard anymore.”
In 2016, Collins and the folk-pop musician Ari Hest were nominated for a Grammy for their album “Silver Skies Blue,” and Hest joins her here for “Hell on Wheels,” a rowdy rock track about a nearly tragic joy ride taken by an inebriated teenage Collins. “I became a wild child at 17,” she said. “That kicked off my drinking history.” Collins got sober in 1978, which she partially credits for her abundant energy: She devotes a third of her year to performing live, tries to walk 10,000 steps per day and just last year launched an Audible podcast, “Since You’ve Asked.” “I haven’t reached my peak yet,” she said, “but it’s coming.”
Collins pulled out her journal to discuss the cultural inspirations and pastimes that have sustained her long career. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
1. “Yellowstone”
My sister says, “Oh, it’s just a soap opera.” It is, but it’s very amusing. It’s set in Montana, so it gave me a chance to spend some time in the mountains during the pandemic. The mountains do it for me. And I love a mystery, so I want to know who did what. And I love Kevin Costner. He has made some awfully good movies. We watched “Dances With Wolves” again recently. He’s always done a good job in terms of Western history.
2. Deng Ming-Dao’s “365 Tao: Daily Meditations”
Carol, one of my best friends growing up in Denver, sent me “365 Tao,” and it is a resource that I treasure. It’s my Zen connection. Every day for about half an hour in the morning I try to read Thomas Merton, Emmet Fox, Marcus Aurelius and “365 Tao.” It has wonderful quotations. I’ve read it for years. Maybe I don’t have a good memory, but it always seems new.
3. Flying
I love to fly. It doesn’t matter where I’m going. I went through a period in the ’60s and I was terrified. I was traveling with my old friend Eric Weissberg, the great banjo player from “Deliverance.” I bet I was jumping into his lap. He was like a pilot. He said, “Let me explain to you what happens when an airplane takes off, what happens in the air and what happens when the plane lands.” And my fear disappeared. Every day I pray for all the pilots, the mechanics, air traffic control, the people who throw the bags around, the people who drive me to the airports. Anyone who whines and complains — well, I have to knock wood when I say this. I do fly first class.
4. Jimmy Webb
The songs of Jimmy Webb drive me nuts. They’re so wonderful and I love singing them. Jimmy always says, “You take my hardest songs.” I recorded “Paul Gauguin in the South Seas” and it taught me more about singing than I had learned since I studied it. It’s like climbing without a rope. What Jimmy Webb does in “Gauguin” is the musical version of “Free Solo.”
5. Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie is third in line behind Shakespeare and the Bible. I just finished 40 of her audiobooks, all of them read by the great Hugh Fraser. She was dynamic, she was particular, she was elegant. She described the buildings and the water and what was served at tea. I mean, sometimes she could go on and on until you got tangled in the web of language and scenario. She was a relentless writer. She was 80 when she wrote her last book.
6. Audiobook Readers
We have very strong opinions in my family about a lot of things: politics, literature and always the voice. I need to have a good reader or I can’t listen to an audiobook. Peter Grainger is a favorite writer of mine, and he has Gildart Jackson, who may be the best reader that I’ve ever heard, second only to Hugh Fraser. And I love listening to Robert Caro read his books. They are phenomenal. I remember his voice on television when he was talking about Robert Moses and what he did to the public landscape by tearing down communities to build the freeways. His books about Lyndon Johnson are read by another reader whom I cannot bear. But I can hear them in my own voice, so that’s fine.
7. Monty Python
Monty Python were the first group of comedians that I got in touch with when I was in England in the ’60s, and they always had a way with humor. Nothing we can do quite matches it. There was the show “Beyond the Fringe” and then they made a movie, “Behind the Fridge,” and nobody else seems to have seen it. It was Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. They were hysterical. The humor is quite priceless. You see a reflection of it in “Downton Abbey.”
8. Shawn Colvin
I’m very picky about my singers, and I am crazy about Shawn Colvin. I’ve actually written a song about her, which I didn’t put on this album. I played it for her, though. She’s the best. She and I played together in the mid-’90s. The brilliant album that she made with John Leventhal, “Steady On,” is mysterious and extraordinary. We did an artist weekend for three days in Greece in 2016 and we had the best time. That’s where I basically fell in love with her singing, her writing, her spirit.
9. PBS
We watch the “PBS NewsHour” and “Masterpiece,” anything. “Professor T” is a Belgian series, which is now on PBS. It was our lunchtime television watching. It’s very offbeat. That’s a fabulous show. I love “Endeavour.” And “Inspector Morse” and “Inspector Lewis.” Inspector Lewis is not as brilliant as Morse, but, you know, he’s good.
10. Cats
I’ve always had cats. My first cat was named Fluffy. She gave birth on my bed one morning. “Mommy!” I screamed. “Fluffy fell apart!” Now I have three cats. They’re all Persian longhairs. Rachmaninoff is a devotee of my husband. He follows him everywhere he goes. Coco Chanel is always busy. She purrs and purrs and wants to be petted. Tom Wolfe is so exquisitely beautiful and he knows it, so he poses a lot. He claimed the Christmas tree this year, because he knew that people would come and take his picture
