I’ve been a fan of Judy Collins since the late sixties , and for long after she was either fashionable or profitable.
This was always a fairly solo occupation as the bold Judy was never quite hip enough for my friends. I often therefore nurtured her in solitude.
I have strong memories of wallowing in self pity, in a Dublin bed-sitter, listening as she sang Thats no way to say good bye and especially her own Song for Martin
How could I resist lines like :

“Marty I know it gets lonely out there
Coyotes crying in midnight
In the cold desert air”

Shit I could hear the coyotes, even on Waterloo Road!

Anyways when I met Sile in the early seventies I managed to convert her to Judy and we sent Caitriona to sleep sinigng Don’t Cry for me Argentina and Born to the Breed:

” I was only nineteen on the morning you were born
With your hair fine and red
And your eyes like my own”

Even Caitriona remembers these songs and requested a Collins CD to sing to her own Fionn when he was born.

Well at last I can emerge from the Collins Closet.
She has become cool.

A group of musicians including a large number I have never heard of (the ultimate guarantee of Cool) has issued a CD of her own compositions.
Now I can sing along (word perfect) with Rufus Wainwright as he sings Albatross, with Chrissy Hynde singing My Father

” My Father always promised us
That we would live in France”

( Foe christ’s sake could the woman read my mind!)

Two people sing one of my favourite songs of her’s ;
Since You Asked . Both are iconic stars from the past.
Joan Baez has now dropped a register and has never sounded better.
But it is Leonard Cohen who accords Judy the highest complement.
Cohen who is recognised as the poet of the pop world does her lyrics the accolade of speaking rather than singing them;

What I’ll give you since you asked
Is all my time together,
……………….
This is what I ask you for,
Nothing more.

This is pure, unmitigated indulgent nostalgia.
I love it.
All you Closet Collins Fans can now also indulge.
Just google Born to the Breed, a Tribute to Judy Collins.