The first Judy Collins concert I ever attended was in Seattle in the summer of 1968. I remember it only vaguely, given the effects of marijuana smoke and cheap wine at the time aggravated by the haze of more than 40 years. But I still hear her soprano voice in my mind's ear, so sweet, crystalline and pure. It was before she recorded her big hits "Both Sides Now" and "Send in the Clowns." She was singing a lot of Dylan then, as well as Leonard Cohen and an unknown songwriter named Randy Newman. She was gorgeous in voice, body and spirit. A true woman of her times. As I think about it now, I can see how we actually thought we were changing the world in the late 1960s. So naive.
This reverie comes about because last month we visited some old friends in Santa Fe and attended a Judy Collins concert at the beautifully restored Lensic Theater near the historic plaza. Of course, it was sold out. A few minutes after 8 p.m., she strode on stage, guitar in hand and with only her pianist to accompany her. Her silken hair is gray now but still very long. The voice is amazingly the same, with only a slight loss of upper range in tribute to advancing age. About half way through, she sang "Over The Rainbow," which I thought was an odd choice for a singer so bound to her own times. She reminded us that the song was written in 1939 for "The Wizard of Oz." And then came the killer: She told us she loves the song because she was born in 1939. That means Judy Collins turns 70 this year. Is that possible? She reminded us that if you remember the 1960s you weren't there. We laughed. Then, as we looked around the audience, we noticed how old everyone looked. Sure, we were mostly 60s people still dressed in jeans and flannel and camouflage jackets. But the hair, what there was of it, was so gray and Judy was one of the few who had kept her figure. Nonethless, we looked pretty damn good for our age, given how things turned out. And we take comfort that Judy's still singing about better worlds we can build. 
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