Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music [Hardcover]

Judy Collins (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 18, 2011

A vivid, highly evocative memoir of one of the reigning icons of folk music, highlighting the decade of the ’60s, when hits like “Both Sides Now” catapulted her to international fame.
 
Sweet Judy Blue Eyes is the deeply personal, honest, and revealing memoir of folk legend and relentlessly creative spirit Judy Collins. In it, she talks about her alcoholism, her lasting love affair with Stephen Stills, her friendships with Joan Baez, Richard and Mimi Fariña, David Crosby, and Leonard Cohen and, above all, the music that helped define a decade and a generation’s sound track. 
    
Sweet Judy Blue Eyes invites the reader into the parties that peppered Laurel Canyon and into the recording studio so we see how cuts evolved take after take, while it sets an array of amazing musical talent against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent decades of twentieth-century America.
    
Beautifully written, richly textured, and sharply insightful, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes is an unforgettable chronicle of the folk renaissance in America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“…a fascinating and even harrowing musical and personal reflection.” --Kirkus

“Collin’s improbable and utterly charming tale of assuming iconic status as a popular music star from the early 1960’s onward also proves a tremendously valuable chronicle of the early folk music scene…[A] forthright, radiant work.” –Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)

About the Author

JUDY COLLINS has recorded more than forty albums over her illustrious career. With several top-ten hits, Grammy nominations, and gold- and platinum-selling albums to her credit, she has also written several books and has her own music label, Wildflower Records.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Crown Archetype (October 18, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307717348
• ISBN-13: 978-0307717344
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Folk & Traditional

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Judy's Suite October 24, 2011

By wogan TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

`Sweet Judy Blue Eyes' begins with a candid and lyrical introduction/prelude. She leads us into her life and music. The only thing missing is a soundtrack for all the songs that flow through her days. She begins with 1968 and `Both Sides Now' and her journey to California to make her 8th album, where she meets Stephen Stills. The events and those she encounters are all described. It is a trip of remembrance for her and those of us that lived through those times... the music that filled our lives and surrounded all the events. It can also be a lesson for those younger who missed it all.

Judy is honest and forthcoming about herself and her encounters. She describes a meeting with Janis Joplin and how she was as close to the edge as Janis was. She regresses to 1954 to tell us of her upbringing, her family and her blind father, who fought his own demons of alcohol addiction - how the sounds of `The Gypsy Rover' changed her life. She is brutally honest; in the account of her life, relating her migraines and depressions, her suicide attempt when she was very young, her relationship with her father and mother, her loves, her problems with alcohol and the suicide of her son. What is confirmed is how music changes lives, hers and ours, despite troubles and sorrows, joys and loves. The story ends with the gift of her final love, Louis Nelson.

What comes through is the story of a much adored survivor and the music of her life and all of us who had a love affair with those sounds. This is a book for lovers of folk, of music, of honest biographies, but most of all Judy Collins herself.

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "I Still Believe That Music Can Change The World" October 25, 2011

By H. F. Corbin TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

First, there are those riveting blue eyes on the cover, surely as famous as those of Paul Newman. The photograph is by Francesco Scavullo and similar to one that appeared on the album "Judith." Then the title SWEET JUDY BLUE EYES, a play on the words of the song Stephen Stills wrote for her, draws you in; and you are by that time taking the book to the counter to purchase. For the next several hours you are reminded of all the things you have always loved about this great performer, her superb talent, her sense of style, her grace, her commitment to civil rights, peace and diversity. But there are surprises. Judy Collins is totally candid about her struggle for many years with alcoholism and other very personal aspects of her life including several affairs-- she names names-- before she met Louis Nelson, her partner now of over thirty-three years, and got sober.

What is so refreshing about this book is that Ms. Collins, even when she is being so brutally honest about her own shortcomings, is always gentle with most of the many people she has known in her long career spanning over fifty years. On Joan Baez, that other great female folk singer and her contemporary: "I never felt that competitiveness was helpful or warranted. . . But if she was Ceres. . . I was Diana. . . And the forest is a big, thriving place, chock-full of gods and goddesses." While she does not understand what happened to her friendship with Joni Mitchell, who of course wrote "Both Sides Now," one of Ms. Collins' biggest hits, she nevertheless, "can say thank you. She [Mitchell] gave me a beautiful song, and sometimes that is all one can expect--or, should I say, more than anyone has any right to expect." Bob Dylan, after his early success, "Sometimes. . . seemed to take up all the air in the room," but he is "of course, a genius." Leonard Cohen, whose music Collins first sang in the U. S., is a person she is grateful she did not fall in love with the way she fell in love with his songs. "I adored Leonard, but thankfully it wasn't the kind of passion that got me into trouble. Instead, his songs would let me fly."

Ms. Collins is not so kind to her several therapists-- nor should she be-- many of whom gave her bad advice while being well paid. Her long-time therapist Ralph Klein, for instance, told her that when they got to the bottom of her emotion problems, that her drinking would become "manageable." He even suggested it might stop. "I realize today he had not one single clue about alcoholism. I did not drink because of my problems. I had problems because I drank."

Ms. Collins' descriptions of her bigger-than-life father, for whom she wrote the beautiful song "My Father," will break your heart. Totally blind since the age of five but fiercely independent-- he never needed the assistance of a dog or cane-- Chuck Collins was also an alcoholic but both loving and lovable when sober. She says of their relationship: "I think I have been trying all my life to get my father to see me." Ms. Collins, however, got her passion for liberal politics and her belief that music can change the world from her father, certainly a rare gift for any child to receive.

It is always a delight to witness Judy Collins' way with words. Her mother Marjorie had big eyes "in which I used to say I saw pieces of fruitcake." Josh White she describes this way: "He seemed to carry the sun around with him, and if you were anywhere near him you felt that warmth." Eric Weisberg "has a smile that is usually slow in coming but is worth waiting for."

Finally, in addition to the four and twenty other reasons to love Judy Collins, add one more when you learn that she keeps the ashes of her seven "beloved" cats on the window sill of her New York apartment.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A story of demons and angels, darkness and light October 29, 2011

By Book Lover

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

My responses to this book have been as contradictory and tangled as the image of the author that emerges from it. I have long been a huge fan of the music of Judy Collins, both her own songs and those she has chosen to make her own, and have read her two previous memoirs, Trust Your Heart and Singing Lessons. Singing Lessons remains my favorite, because it...well, sings, and the voice is congruent with all of her songs that I love.

About halfway into Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, I was somewhat bored and annoyed, feeling it was largely a retread of ground well-covered in the first two books, but somehow had lost their heart in an over-abundance of detail. I could not hear her voice. But by book's end I'd become more appreciative of the detail, because as they say, that's where the devil resides. It is by the piling up of these details that the darkness and weight of Collins' demons are truly felt. And with that, the consistent clarity, light, and transcendent quality of "a Judy Collins song" becomes all the more remarkable.

If anything, the book well illustrates the contradictions and complexities residing in us all, the angels and demons, darkness and light. Most people would probably prefer to not expose their darker side to public scrutiny, but maybe that willingness is one of the qualities that distinguishes a true artist.