Judy Collins

Five CD box set containing a quintet of original albums from the Folk/Pop vocalist: Fifth Album, In My Life, Judith, Who Knows Where The Time Goes and Wildflowers.

Judy Collins, along with Eric Andersen, Tom Rush and Arlo Guthrie, recorded this CD from a live performance of The Judy Collins Wildflower Festival on June 30, 2002. Of the fifteen cuts here, Ms. Collins sings six solos; Tom Rush does two as does Eric Andersen; and Arlo Guthrie sings one and does a poem that he has written. The last three cuts, "City of New Orleans", "Thirsty Boots", and "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" are sung by everyone with different singers doing the verses. Tom Rush's version of "The Remember Song" is a nice, light number about all the things he as a middle-aged man forgets. (Sounds eerily familiar.)

Judy Collins offers up a beautiful compilation of songs she's released on her own Wildflower label over the past decade, sampling from the wonderful Wildflower CDs The Essential Judy Collins, Judy Collins Wildflower Festival, Voices, Shameless, Judy Collins Sings Lennon and McCartney, Paradise, Bohemian, Live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Christmas With Judy Collins, and Live in Ireland. The set includes her lilting defining version of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now", only this version more closely resembles the 1968 version.

Building on her well-represented holiday catalog, Christmas with Judy Collins is essentially a reissue of the folk artist's 2000 release All on a Wintry Night, padded with two additional songs. All 14 tracks from Wintry Night are featured here in their original sequence with the addition of a new single, the western-tinged "Angels in the Snow" leading off the album, and a stirring, largely a cappella version of "Amazing Grace" closing it out. Fans of Collins' rich, warm voice will enjoy some of the more stripped-down arrangements, which feature her singing to a simple piano accompaniment on lesser-known carols like "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Cherry Tree Carol." On the other hand, the dated synthesizer sounds on tracks like "Come Rejoice" and "Good King Wenceslas" sound rather homogenous and the spoken intro over the faux-strings of "Away in a Manger" is far too heavy-handed to take seriously. Fortunately, the bulk of the album's 16 tracks favor the more minimalist arrangements keeping Collins' lovely voice at the forefront without much distraction.

2017 release. Together at last! Two folk legends of Laurel Canyon's countercultural music scene join forces on this gorgeous album of all new recordings! Features captivating versions of classic tunes by fellow folk icons Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen plus a few of their own compositions!

For her first five albums, Judy Collins' work resided in the world of traditional folk music, even when she covered contemporary compositions by the likes of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, et. al. Then she began delving into what was essentially art song aimed at a popular audience, with ever more elaborate accompaniments and arrangements, and her audience grew accordingly, until her hit rendition of "Both Sides Now" – one of the more straightforward pop moments on the elaborately produced Wildflowers album – made her a familiar name to AM radio listeners. Her label, Elektra Records, was happy enough about this, but apparently didn't want her early work to be forgotten amid the flurry of activity surrounding her new music.