Recording her first album in 1961, she was one of the first of the major 1960s folksingers to receive the backing of a major record label (Elektra). Collins left Stills for actor Stacey Keach.Ĭollins not only inspired great music, she also had a great nose for it. We had had a hard, rough time and we continued to. “It didn’t work to get me back, and that was the whole point. “But it didn’t work, did it?” she adds, laughing heartily. I bring her back to that day in 1969 that Stills sang it to her in her hotel room. “I had never heard that song (performed live) in almost 45 years,” Collins says. I found Collins biding time in a hotel in Peru, waiting for Hurricane Sandy to lift, so that she could fly back to her home in New York and start a Canadian tour which comes to the Molson Canadian Studio Theatre at Hamilton Place on Saturday.Ĭollins says she just saw CSN perform Suite: Judy Blues less than two weeks ago in New York. This week, I had the opportunity of asking Judy Collins what it was like to have such an iconic song written for her and sung to her in such a manner. It was only their second live performance. Crosby, Stills and Nash opened their Woodstock set with it in August, 1969. The song became one of the greatest of its generation, the masterpiece of a master songsmith. Every line, every word was about Judy, no hidden meanings between the two of them. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was Still’s desperate appeal for it to continue.

As their two careers diverged, however, the relationship started to drift. The two had been involved in a heated romance ever since Stills had played guitar on her album Who Knows Where the Time Goes. It was the day Stephen Stills came to Judy Collins’ Los Angeles hotel room to sing her a new song he had just written for her, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. It has to be one of the most romantic real-life moments in the history of popular music - a moment of pure heart that stand out among the hedonism of the Woodstock era.

Judy collins sweet judy blue eyes