Folk music legend Judy Collins is haunted by the Twin Cities

In her Minneapolis concert Thursday, she'll think about her late son, and she might sing "Ballad of George Floyd."

By Jon Bream Star Tribune

October 31, 2023 — 6:15am

Judy Collins is very plugged into the Twin Cities.

For her first Twin Cities appearance in five years, the folk-music legend wants to sing Don McLean's "Ballad of George Floyd."

"It's quite an amazing song. I don't know how quickly I can put it together but I'll try," said Collins, who will be performing Thursday at the Parkway Theater on Chicago Avenue, a mere 10 blocks from where Floyd was murdered in 2020. "The city, I hope, is recovering. I don't know how long that takes."

Collins is haunted every time she comes to Minnesota because her only child, Clark Taylor, lived in St. Paul and died by suicide there in 1992.

"Horrible" is how she feels when she returns. "But I have to go and be there. It never goes away. It never will. It can't," Collins said from her New York City home. "On the other side of that, his daughter is this fabulous woman. She's 34 and I've got two great grandchildren [in California] who are told about their grandfather. He's very much a part of our lives. That's very strong because we talk about him all the time. He stays with us."

His suicide prompted Collins, who has battled polio, tuberculosis, alcoholism and bulimia, to write "Sanity and Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival, and Strength" in 2003. She believes it's important to break the taboo and talk about depression.

"When Clark died, there were two books in stores and libraries: 'The Savage God' about Sylvia Plath's suicide — it doesn't tell you about any of the solutions — and 'My Son, My Son' by a woman [Iris Bolton] who ran a health center in Atlanta," Collins pointed out. "Now there are hundreds of books about suicide and mental health. Talking about it is Numero Uno.

"The question has come up since Clark's paternal grandfather also killed himself in the same way that Clark did," she continued. "Is it inherited? It isn't, but alcoholism and drug addiction certainly are in our DNA."

First album of original tunes

Collins, 84, is touring behind last year's "Spellbound," her first album of all original material among her 55 records.

Although she has penned tunes on her LPs over the years, she's never filled an entire album. This time, she was fueled by writing one poem a day in 2016, which her husband, designer Louis Nelson, dared her to do. That discipline inspired her lyric writing.

The songs are autobiographical, recalling times and incidents in Collins' life. "Hell on Wheels" revisits a driving accident she had as a wild child at age 17. "So Alive" celebrates her halcyon 1960s folk-music days in Greenwich Village and a relationship with singer David Blue.

After establishing herself interpreting songs by Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen in the '60s, Collins found her biggest success in 1975 with a tune from Stephen Sondheim's musical "A Little Night Music." A friend of Cohen sent over a copy of the Broadway soundtrack with "Send in the Clowns" circled on the cover.

"I called [director] Hal Prince — he was the only name on the album I recognized — and said, 'It's a great song.' He said, 'Yeah, 200 people have recorded it.' I said, 'I don't care. I record songs that are 1,000 years old.' I didn't know who Sondheim was. I didn't know the play."

The Friday before the scheduled Monday release of "Send in the Clowns," Elektra Records received a call from Frank Sinatra's office requesting a delay so Ol' Blue Eyes' version could be issued first. Elektra said no way.

"I didn't know that [back story] until a few years ago when Jac Holzman [Elektra's founder] told me," Collins shared. "Well, I thought that's a moment for a horse head to appear in your bed, whoever you might be."

She broke into a hearty laugh, which frequently punctuated her conversation.

Collins didn't see "A Little Night Music" until a Broadway revival about a dozen years ago starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.

"Everybody has a different idea about what it means," Collins said of her signature tune, which won the Grammy for song of the year in 1976. "I don't ever talk about what it means. Of course, the phrase comes from a habit in the theater where somebody should be chased off the stage and they say, 'send in the clowns' so the clowns will take their minds off the bad performance that preceded them."

Judy Blue Eyes

Besides her own hits, Collins may be best known for inspiring Stephen Stills to write "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," one of Crosby, Stills & Nash's most beloved pieces.

Collins and Stills, longtime friends and former lovers, released a duo album, "Everybody Knows," in 2017 and performed about 115 concerts together. At night's end, they sang "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" together.

"I love it. It's such a great song," Collins said. "He sang it to me in 1969 as he was contemplating recording it and he came to see me in California on my birthday. We both had a good cry over it. I said, 'It's a beautiful song, but it's not going to get me back.'

"I wouldn't say it's haunted me, but it's kept me company, that's for sure."

Retirement is not in Collins plans. She is working on a duets album, having already cut a later-period David Crosby song, "Radio," with Graham Nash, and she has a contract to publish some of her 365 poems.

"It's a wonderful life and I have a wonderful life," she said. "How can I retire? There is no performer royalty. That's where your retirement would be. Anyway, I've been lucky."