Judy Collins
Winter Stories Tour
Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne, Dorset
Sunday 19th January 2020 5 p.m.
Judy Collins – vocal, 12 string guitar, piano
Russell Walden – piano, vocal
SETLIST
Maid of Constant Sorrow
Chelsea Morning
Where or When
Barbara Allen (extract)
John Riley (extract)
Both Sides Now
Anathea
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Highwayman
River
Leaving On A Jet Plane / Take Me Home Country Roads
INTERVAL
Since You Asked
My Father
Arizona
Send In The Clowns
encore
Amazing Grace
Electric sign – you can see “Plus support” if I’d been a few metres back you could have read “Jonas Fjeld”
This the third time I’ve seen Judy Collins at the Tivoli, Wimborne. The Tivoli is increasingly becoming the venue of choice (Robert Plant and Ronnie Wood last year). It’s a community run theatre, and has something decent on in music and /or theatre every week plus films. The secret is that while Wimborne is a small town, it’s about 8 miles from the centres of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch (much less from the outer suburbs), so serves a large conurbation.
This time I had a double reason for booking as this was supposed to be the Winter Stories tour with Jonas Fjeld. I love the Danko / Fjeld / Anderson albums, with Rick Danko of The Band and Eric Anderson, and so I would have booked to see either artiste on their own.
The lighted board outside still said SUPPORT: JONAS FJELD. Not so, and therefore this was NOT the Winter Stories tour as advertised. It was Judy Collins solo with just a couple of her older cover versions, River and Highwayman which happen to have been redone on Winter Stories with Jonas Fjeld. A couple of friends said they were going to skip the support, and I said “Don’t! Jonas Fjeld is brilliant.” That was good advice because Jonas Fjeld wasn’t there at all and it started with Judy right away. No notices in the lobby, no announcements from onstage. Half an hour in a couple arrived right by us … they had been skipping the support but ended up skipping a third of the main act. It was not the way to do it. I asked the sound guy at the interval. Jonas Fjeld’s wife was taken ill, and he couldn’t come on the tour. SO TELL PEOPLE. Major minus points for not doing so.
It must be the first 5 p.m. concert I’ve ever been to (well, apart from festivals). She’ll be eighty this year and the voice is all still there. She plays 12 string guitar with piano accompaniment. It’s enough
The stage BEFORE the show.
She started out with Maid of Constant Sorrow the title track from her 1961 debut album then into the first of three Joni Mitchell covers, Chelsea Morning. given that Joni is no longer performing, Judy Collins (and k.d. lang) carry the torch as being able to sing Joni’s songs.
Then she went into the autobiographical narrative section, one that works every time, We got a more or less full version of Where or When? by Rodgers and Hammerstein (with just piano) and this is the section where she sings a couple of lines or a verse from songs mid-narrative. Tonight there was a bit of Barbara Allen and John Riley (which is also from the Maid of Constant Sorrow album). I fancy we got just one line from The Pricklie Bush too … again first album.
The narrative section was pretty long … I realized we were 25 minutes in and we’d really only had three songs (there’s a clock on the wall next to the stage). Both Sides Now was the second Joni Mitchell cover, and a major hit for her in 1968. (By the way, the line If you can remember the sixties you weren’t there is one I’m fond of using myself, but even I have to admit it’s well past it’s BEST BEFORE date). I did note she made a reference here to 1967 and that Al Kooper connected her to Joni who gave her the song. She mentioned ‘listening to The Band with Al Kooper’ so she must mean 1968.
I didn’t instantly recognize Anathea, though I was aware it was similar to Bob Dylan’s Seven Curses. She recorded it in 1964 on Judy Collins #3 (which I haven’t heard in years) and it doesn’t often get a live airing.
The liner notes say:
Judy Collins: I think “Anathea” is an ingenious combination of traditional-sounding lyrics and melody. I am told that Lydia Wood was given the poem when she was in Paris a few years ago, and set the lovely melody to this story of cruel justice.
BobDylanroots.com suggest that Dylan may have heard Judy Collins doing it in 1963, before she ever recorded it.
Mention of Jimmy Webb introduced his The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress which led straight into Highwayman. That was the first song we heard from Winter Stories then. The classic (not the first) version of Webb’s song was by “The Highwaymen” (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson) which worked so well because the lyrics are four incarnations. It was a US #1 in 1985. So when I got back to write the review,. I was expecting swapped verses on Winter Stories … no, it’s just Judy Collins on lead vocal on the album. So it worked without Jonas Fjeld. On the album, there is excellent vocal support at the end … but not lead.
River was the third Joni Mitchell cover and was the other song from Winter Stories. The song is fabulous … I love it by k.d.lang in particular. Listening to the version on Winter Stories as I write this, it’s also one without Jonas Fjeld’s voice (though the double bass is lovely). Presumably that’s why it was chosen.
The last song was a John Denver medley … starting and ending with Leaving On A Jet Plane and with a singalong Take Me Home Country Roads as the main centre. When we were doing covers of songs for our ELT / ESL textbooks, we did Leaving On A Jet Plane. My publisher already had a cover in the can which they suggested we could use, which covered John Denver’s original. I declined and insisted on a new cover recording following the Peter, Paul and Mary version … the double bass was essential for me. Still, great song.
The interval came here. After the interval, Judy appeared in a red lamé / sequin jacket which she said was a birthday present from Joan Baez .It took me right back to 1963, when Tony Blackburn was the support act to Zoot Money at Bournemouth Pavilion. Tony wore a gold lamé jacket in one set, and a turquoise lamé jacket in the second set.
She came out on her own this time and took her seat at the piano, and the second half was short, and focussed on her own songs. It started with the first song she wrote, at the urging of Leonard Cohen Since You Asked. It was on Wildflowers in 1967.
Then she played My Father from the same era … 1968 and Who Knows Where The Time Goes … I was thinking, she really was an incredible talent spotter. Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Sandy Denny, Stephen Stills (who also played on the original album).
She told us about getting TB in 1962 which lead into Arizona. It’s from 2017. Has she recorded it? A 2017 interview says it was for her “next album.” We’ve had a few since then.
Her MD / pianist Russell Walden re-appeared for Send In The Clowns … her double hit in 1975 and 1977. She did an advert for CDs for Winter Stories and asked Russell Walden what they’d performed from it … he confirmed, just the two. When we got out they hadn’t anything at all on the concessions table, so maybe she should have done it at the interval. I’d bought one as we went in, and had held back till the concert hoping it would be cheaper than amazon’s £15.07. It was … by 7p, at £15. I don’t understand that … The Manfreds did the same. You’re not paying Amazon or HMV between 30% and 50% after all. The sensible policy is to sell for a straight tenner and sell a lot. At £15, people always say, ‘Hmm, I’ll check amazon when I get home.’ She announced that Winter Stories had been #1 on Billboard after her NYC shows. It was her first number one on Billboard, and she said (and it was somewhat condescending I thought) that it was nice for Jonas Fjeld and backing band Chatham County Line, but it didn’t mean much to her. I checked which chart, and it was The Bluegrass Chart. According to Billboard’s site that means 1000 albums in the week. I see why it doesn’t mean much to her … it’s hardly The Hot 100.
However, I highly recommend the album. I would love to have seen the New York shows with Fjeld and the Chatham County Line. The backing vocals add so much. The songs like Frozen North where Jonas Fleld takes lead vocal and she supports are stunning. A woman from Colorado and a guy from Norway … no wonder we get songs about mountains and snow.
The encore was Amazing Grace – one I’ve missed on her previous shows as it is her greatest hit. Well, I guess it was Sunday evening. And we were all done at ten to seven.
A great evening. She remains brilliant. You won’t feel short-changed by Jonas Fleld’s absence, but I would have loved to see him.
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