Judy Collins

Aussie and I saw Judy Collins at the Kerrville Folk Festival a few years ago. Her voice is still amazing! She sang Someday Soon, Both Sides Now, Amazing Grace and lots of other songs, accompanying herself on guitar and piano. (That's Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary accompanying Judy in the photo.) She's appearing now in Australia on the east coast. Here is a poignant excerpt from an interview she did for Australian Broadcasting, the ABC.
MARK BANNERMAN: The 1960s were kind to Judy Collins, the next two decades would show her that other side of life. First there was the battle with alcoholism. What drew you into that?

JUDY COLLINS: I was born with the Irish virus. That's easy. I came by it honestly through centuries and centuries of ancestors, I am sure. I even know some of them - who some of them were.

MARK BANNERMAN: Was it tough to give it up?

JUDY COLLINS: I had a very dark about four years where I was drinking around the clock. I thought, well, it is all over. What will I do if I can't sing. So I started to think about what will I do if I can't sing? Then I thought I don't have a choice. I think I 'm going to have to give it up and I went into treatment.

MARK BANNERMAN: Alcoholism may have been hard to deal with, but the death of her son by suicide was much tougher again. You said something that in a sense is very brave, that you said "That decision ultimately to commit suicide must be respected".

JUDY COLLINS: Oh, absolutely. If you don't have that right, then you don't have any rights. A human being.

MARK BANNERMAN: You really feel that?

JUDY COLLINS: Oh, absolutely.

MARK BANNERMAN: Despite the pain it's brought you?

JUDY COLLINS: Well, if you've had a suicide in your life, then you have no right to take your life because you know too much.

MARK BANNERMAN: A decade on, though, Judy Collins, it seems, is back, aligned with old friends she's found a new lease on life. And all of it because of live music.

JUDY COLLINS: It's a shared understanding of the meaning of art and the meaning of music in people's lives and live music in people's lives is deeply important. It's deeply healing and it's deeply spiritual.