| SWEET JUDY BLUE EYES My Life in Music Judy Collins New York: Crown Archetype, October 2011 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-307-71734-4 | ||||
| ISBN 0-307-71734-8 | 354pp. | HC/BWI | $26.00 | |
I believe I can summarize this memoir in one (tongue-in-cheek) sentence:
Ho-hum... Here's another tale of a hugely talented woman who overcomes great difficulties while thrilling millions with her superb vocal performances.
Now, let me pull my tongue out of my cheek and do a proper review.
I was born in 1946, but I consider myself a child of the 60s. It was a time in America when cultures clashed, society's traditional values were being challenged, and the air was filled with an electric feeling that the arc of history might soon bend in a new direction. It was also the time when I first heard the singing of Judy Collins. Her voice captivated me with its clarity and the conviction of its message in protest songs like "Masters of War" — and, truth to tell, the blue eyes looking out from the cover of her third album did their part. But her protests against war and injustice fitted the spirit of those turbulent times, while "Amazing Grace" and many of her other songs were a balm against the bitterness of a country tearing itself apart over the Vietnam war, the struggle for civil rights, and other woes. Those times and that music still resonate with me. Let me try to quote a passage from the liner notes of one album from memory; It's not likely to be accurate; those albums are long gone. But it gets the gist.
"And once, on Martha's Vineyard in the early spring, when none but geese and herons made the trip, she sat beside a cabin on the Chilmark Pond and sang so all of us surrendered our concern for city things, and came to feel that food and shelter and friendship were the only worthwhile things."
I collected her albums during high school and managed to take in a live performance at the Gristmill Playhouse in far northern New Jersey.1 There she appeared with the Irish Rovers and The Bourbon Boys, who were Kingston Trio imitators.2 She sang a parody of "Silver Dagger," amusing me and startling me at the same time: This was tampering with a traditional ballad! Later I came to know the variety of her artistry and the wider scope of her concerns. But times change and life moves on. The folk-music scene faded, replaced by soul and disco, punk rock and reggae, heavy metal and grunge and rap. I fell out of touch with Judy and the rest of the names that meant so much back then; fell out of touch with music itself. So it was a nostalgic pleasure to spot this book on the library's new acquisitions shelf. Judy Collins is now 70 — an age that brings an echo of a Paul Simon lyric from "Old Friends." No doubt both our bridges have seen a lot of water pass under them.
The roster of folk-music performing greats from the 1960s has only one king: Pete Seeger. The queen would arguably be Joan Baez (and she refers to herself this way, with wry self-deprecation, in her memoir And a Voice To Sing With.) But I think Judy Collins, during those years, gave her some stiff competition. Joan had the better voice, and probably stayed truer to the ideals she espoused. But both were captivating performers, both stood up for human rights, and, in the crass criterion of music-biz preeminence, both sold many of those precious plastic platters.
So I will grant the top spot to Joan, and I greatly admire her music. But I still like Judy a little bit better.
This is her third memoir.3 It is an honest account of her life up through 1978, when she met her husband of 33 years, Louis Nelson. Her career to that point was one of remarkable and well-deserved success — but also one beset by inner demons, the worst being alcoholism; a genetic susceptibility to the disease runs in her family. There were other burdens: the premature death of her father from an undiagnosed aneurism; the suicide of her son; hemangioma on her vocal cords. She overcame the last, thanks to help from friends and experts, and endured the others thanks to her own inner strength. Now sober, she has returned to touring, recording and songwriting. As shown by a discography at the back of the book, her albums now number 38 — and, based on the fact that the book has 39 chapters, I expect another (slim though that basis may be.)
"My life has taken me from innocence to rage and back again. Those precious early years seem oddly clearer to me now, at seventy. The people I knew and loved and the drama of that diamond-bright time move closer as they slip farther away. – Page 2 |
This memoir is a hodge-podge of memories: of Judy's family life; of touring and partying with folk-music greats; of political events and her part in them; of stage plays and songwriting and filmmaking — and of the darker side of things as well. It is basically a stream-of-consciousness narrative — well-edited, but there are details missing.4 She might say to that, borrowing Richard Benjamin's line from Goodbye, Columbus: "I'm a liver, not a planner."5, 6 Filled with names and events, and honest about alcoholism and the complications flowing from impulsive romances though it is, I suspect this account will not fully satisfy her most ardent fans. But since I am not among them I consider it more than I have a right to expect. It was a chance to look back through the window of remembered time, to see her working with Fanny Lou Hamer in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer, or testifying for the Chicago Eight7 — a side of her life of which I was unaware. It's also well written, and admirably free of grammatical errors. The discography is an added bonus, as are the 45 black and white photos. The book has no Table of Contents, but it does have an index, a rare feature in books like this (although it indexes mostly the names of people and songs, and omits a few.) I therefore give it full marks and rate it a keeper.
This is a very self-indulgent review. As fans will, whether current or lapsed, I tend to feel the admired celebrity is a friend, with all that implies. I don't know if she will ever see this, but if she does I hope my observations here will not offend; they are well-meant. I did avoid one faux-pas: Learning her age brought to mind "Old Friends", a Paul Simon tune. I had thought to quote a few lines from it at the end of the review. That would have been a mistake, because Judy Collins won't be sitting idly on a park bench any time soon. Like the title character of Sturgeon's "Granny Won't Knit," she's going to remain active; and like Yahna in Wallace West's The Bird of Time, she's going to soar.
So perhaps the best way to close is not with lines from Paul Simon but with some from Pete Seeger.8
"Old devil time, I'm gonna fool you now!
Old devil time, you'd like to bring me down!
When I'm feeling low, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!"
– "OLD DEVIL TIME"
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