Singer Judy Collins may be currently on a “farewell tour,” but the 87-year-old doesn’t seem inclined to actually go away anytime soon.
Collins, who is best known for her definitive covers of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” is doing a 50-date tour through next spring.
And, yes, while it’s being billed as a “farewell tour,” Collins is downplaying the notion that it means “goodbye,” instead preferring to describe it to JS as “a moment in time where we gather things together and let people see me with what I do with other guests.”
Some of the artists who will appear with Collins at specific dates include Richard Thompson, Bruce Cockburn, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Rosanne Cash, among others.
”So, it’s an opportunity for me to do some duets with people that I haven’t worked with before,” Collins said. “I love Richard Thompson, of course, I have worked with him before. And also, Mary, Rosanne, and Amanda.”
Collins prefers to call the tour “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes,” a reference to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the classic Crosby, Stills, and Nash song written for her by former beau Stephen Stills.
“I checked [out using the title] with Stills, and he said, ‘That’s all right, you can’t copyright a title anyway.’ So I’m hoping that Stephen also will come around.”
Their last duet together happened in 2025, and Collins was touched by Stills’ presence since she was still dealing with the 2024 death of her husband, Louis Nelson, designer of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
“That was very touching because my husband died at the end of 2024. And I’ve been close friends with Stephen for, well, I don’t know, maybe it’s 59 years or something.
“So, he came out, and he and I did ‘Helplessly Hoping’ together, and then he said to the audience, ‘She married the right man,’ because he and Louis were very good friends, so it was a moment that I will treasure all my life.”
Collins is just one of many music legends who are performing late into their careers, a list that includes Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.
“I’m sort of the Betty White of the folk music revival, anyway,” she laughed. “And [when I was growing up], there were always artists who stayed on track for years, for decades, and worked into their late 80s and their 90s, and were up for it, and excited, and I think the main thing is that we love to work.”
“People who work love to work. And as long as they can, they will, which I think is phenomenal,” she added.
So while the tour is being billed as a “farewell tour,” Collins seems committed to not going gently into that good night.
Besides performing, she’s working on a book called “The Voice: Singing Through the Storm,” as well as writing the music for a Broadway play, among other things.
“I’m working on a duets album also, that’s coming out,” she said. “I’m always working, because I love to work, and it makes me feel happy.”