Review of Stephen Stills & Judy Collins Concert

Pre-concert pic with the homies (the lecher is my bandmate, Steve).

On Monday evening I had the privilege of attending a Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) & Judy Collins concert. I am friends with Stephen’s daughter, Jen (the blonde), who called me up out of the blue to invite me to the show. I conveniently live one block from the music venue so it is an easy commute and I already had a parking pass.

I had been having a very up and down day with various dramas related to my health and the pre-production of my musical but I was able to rally and and make a fun evening of it.

Even though I was a child of the 80's, folk music of the 60’s and 70’s had a huge impact on me growing up. As a teenager I obsessed over songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. I was a big fan of CSNY and I had come across some beautiful recordings of Judy Collins but I never got into her as deeply as I did other artists because I saw that she didn’t really write her own songs, and songwriting was my number one passion. I loved her version of Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” and Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.”

Judy’s voice these days is incredible and I have to say has held strong over all these years. Judy brought grace to the stage and her face was fully relaxed, free of tension and full of joy for the entirety of her performance. She was remarkably stunning for a woman of her years and she truly captivated the audience with an accapella version of a song I’m assuming is called “My Name is Maria” (it was never introduced and I couldn’t find it online) about a Mexican woman who worked hard to come to America only to get deported again. The performance, though not the finale, brought the audience to their feet.

I also was particularly moved by the duet's acoustic version of Bob Dylan’s “Girl From North Country.” I cried. I really did.

Stephen brought a lot of energy and charm to the stage but at times his performance was a little rough around the edges. From what I gathered from his daughter, he’s going deaf, has tinnitus and arthritis and we caught glimpses of his struggles on and off through the evening.

I really appreciated hearing all the anecdotes and stories of old that they both had to share. I was particularly intrigued by how Stephen and Judy met at the Whiskey A Go Go at Eric Clapton’s new band: Cream’s debut concert and the story of how he came to write “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” inspired by the love affair that sparked between the pair.

I loved hearing about how Judy got a phone call from a friend who put Joni Mitchell on the phone and Judy heard “Both Sides Now” for the first time. Being a HUGE Leonard Cohen fan, I was thrilled to hear about how the two of them met through a mutual friend who said something along the lines of “it’s a shame that Leonard Cohen will never go anywhere being that his music is so obscure.” When they finally met in person, he played her the “obscure” song “Suzanne.”

All in all, I had a wonderful evening. Stephen and Judy left very quickly after their performance so I didn’t get an opportunity to meet either of them. Judy will be back in the Pacific NW in October and perhaps I will get a chance to meet her then.

After the show, we all went back and sang songs in my kitchen until the wee hours of the morning. It was a good night.