RED BANK: SEND IN THE COLLINS
Grammy-winning Renaissance woman Judy Collins returns to Two River Theater in a Friday concert presented by MusicWorks.
She’s made her mark in so many places over the course of some 50 years — as a novelist, children’s book publisher, record label exec, Oscar-nominated filmmaker and spokesperson for mental health/ suicide prevention issues — that to brand her a “singer-songwriter” is akin to calling Superstorm Sandy a “post-tropical cyclone.”
While her own compositions have included a tribute to her father and a one to Che Guevara, it’s as an interpreter (more like owner) of other people’s songs — be it Joni (“Both Sides Now”), Dylan (“Mr. Tambourine Man”), Leonard (“Bird on a Wire”), Lennon-McCartney (“In My Life”), Sondheim (“Send In the Clowns”) or Sunday school (“Amazing Grace”) — that Judy Collins has staked her place in the Village coffeehouses and canyon patios of pop music heaven.
Graced with a voice that hasn’t faltered at the age of 75 — and with an activist edge that hasn’t dulled since her association with Abby Hoffman and the Yippies — Collins returns to the main auditorium of Two River Theater this Friday, July 18, for the latest in what’s shaping up to be a string of regular visits to Red Bank.
