Judy Collins

Born in Seattle in 1939 and raised in Denver, Judy Collins traded classical piano for acoustic guitar in her teens and, as a young adult, moved to New York's Greenwich Village, where she became one of the leading folk singers of the 1960s. Sticking to the traditional folk canon on A Maid of Constant Sorrow, her 1961 debut, Collins acquired a reputation for singing other people's songs very well. She helped launch Leonard Cohen's career with "Suzanne" in 1966, made Joni Mitchell famous by recording "Both Sides Now" in 1967, and gave boyfriend Stephen Stills the inspiration for his 1969 Crosby, Stills & Nash hit "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes". Collins expanded her repertoire to include pop, rock, standards and show tunes, winning a Grammy and hitting the Top 40 twice with her 1975 interpretation of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns", from her platinum-selling Judith. Collins chronicled her struggles with alcoholism, depression and eating disorders in memoirs while engaging in social activism that focused on abortion rights and suicide prevention. Encouraged early on by Cohen to write her own songs, Collins released her first album of entirely original material, Spellbound, in 2022.