Review by Ron Fassler . . .
I was an adolescent-teenager in the 1960s and 70s when Judy Collins was among the most prolific and influential singer-songwriters of her generation. I actively listened to the radio back then—yes, radio—and her songs of protest, be they pro-environment or anti-war, elevated my soul alongside those of Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and a host of other poet-activists. Well, here it is 2025 and now I’m a senior citizen and Judy Collins—at age eighty-five—is still performing. And on Saturday night, the sold-out crowd at the Town Hall sat still for three intermissionless hours as her friends paid her musical tributes in a wealth of memorable performances.
In an orthodox disrupter, the show opened with Collins herself performing a twenty-minute set. Dressed a purple-sequined dress she was ready, willing and able to entertain with her disarming patter and pervasive charm; her talents undiminished over time. She is still hitting those high soprano notes! In addition to classic folk compositions of her own creation like “Mountain Girl,” she sang Dylan’s “Masters of War” and Bob Gibson’s “John Riley.”
Then Sophie B. Hawkins, an American songwriter and social and political activist, took to the stage to serve as host, introducing a dozen or so singers. Confessing she’d never hosted anything before proved an issue in terms of her free-wheeling approach. She didn’t seem terribly prepared while reading overly-packed introductions filled with superlatives. Did this audience really need to hear about Rickie Lee Jones’s accomplishments before she came out? Let Rickie sing! (her rendition of “Mr. Tambourine Man” was a stunner). Late in the evening, when Collins came back out to perform additional solo material, it was a welcome relief from Hawkins’ high-pitched enthusiasm, which had grown sadly tiresome by that point.
All of the participants had some connection to Collins, either as old friends and comrades in arms, or as favorite singers and instrumentalists. The old guard was represented by Stephen Stills, Paula Cole, and Beth Nielsen Chapman alongside relative newcomers like a pair of sisters—Oakland Rain—who are currently on tour with Collins. Their rendition of the songwriter’s autobiographical song, “When I Was a Girl in Colorado” was touching and quite beautiful. Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz, a longtime admirer and friend, joined Collins in a duet of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that sported some major soprano work from Collins that blended effortlessly with Schwartz’s well-done harmonies. She told him that she recently returned to see Wicked on Broadway, his long-running hit, and how it’s still in wonderful shape. She also added, “I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I intend to.”
Martha Redbone was magnificent in an acapella version of the haunting and powerful “Dreamers,” which Collins wrote in 2018 in the voice of an undocumented immigrant woman singing of her young daughter’s plight in devastating fashion:
This land was made by dreamers
and children of those dreamers.
we came here for democracy and hope,
now all we have is hope.
My name it is Maria,
my daughter is a dreamer,
she says that she is worried
that she will have to leave.
Ari Hest was a great guitar and vocal accompanist with Collins on Chris Waters and Holly Dunn’s “Strangers Again,” and “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” a duet Collins performed with the honey-voiced Brit Richard Thompson, was another highlight. In full protest mode, Justin Vivian Bond gave full-throated power to one of Richard Peaslee’s songs from Marat/Sade, which won the Tony Award for Best Play in its memorable Peter Brook production that was performed on Broadway by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1965. I did this play in high school—if you can believe that—and damn if the words didn’t all came back to me in a flash!
All in all, an outstanding evening’s entertainment made all the more glorious since Judy Collins is still doing what she’s been doing professionally for close to 70 years (she was a child prodigy, in case you didn’t know). When she stood quietly and sang Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” the single largest selling recording of any song of this master composer, it was a case of master meeting master. It demanded and got the standing ovation it deserved.
Judy Collins & Friends: 85 Years of Music & Protest was at the Town Hall, 123 W 43rd Street, NYC. For information of future programming, please visit https://www.thetownhall.org.
Photos by Sachyn Mital.
Headline photo: Stephen Stills and Judy Collins.
