Saturday Classics – 28012023

This weeks choice is a classic to me at least, it was part of our wedding ceremony.

Judy Collins has inspired audiences with sublime vocals, boldly vulnerable songwriting. The award-winning singer-songwriter is esteemed for her imaginative interpretations of traditional and contemporary folk standards and her own poetically poignant original compositions.

Judy Collins’ first few albums consisted entirely of traditional tunes and contemporary folk songs. By 1966’s In My Life, she was branching out, bringing attention to songs written by The Beatles, Donovan and Leonard Cohen.With her 1967 album Wildflowers, Collins started laying down her own compositions. “Since You’ve Asked” was the first song she recorded that she wrote herself.

Judy Collins explained the story of the song to Mojo magazine.”When Leonard (Cohen) asked me why I didn’t write songs, I kind of didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know how you even started writing a song. So I called Bruce Langhorne, who played guitar and tambourine on Carolyn Hester records and Bob Dylan records and was living up in White Plains (north of the Bronx) and I said, ‘Can I come and see you?’ I had all these notebooks of depression and darkness and desperation, really random, nothing finished. I’d been writing my dreams down for years because I’d been in therapy already, three years I guess.He read my dreary little notebook and said, ‘OK, you’re going to go home and you’re going to write five songs about a relationship, the beginning, the middle and so on end-to-end.’ I said, ‘Oh good, that’s simple.’ ‘Since You’ve Asked’ was the first. It took me about 40 minutes.”

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