Judy Collins continues to be a Renaissance woman.
The legendary Grammy award winning singer and composer never stops creating and moving forward.
She’s performing to sold out audiences all the time, thrilling them with her rich voice on songs like “Send in the Clowns,” “Both Sides Now,” and “Amazing Grace.”
On Thursday night, Judy’s pal Paige Peterson welcomed a small group of friends to her new high up corner apartment on Central Park West to celebrate Collins’ new book of poetry called “Sometimes It’s Heaven: Poems of Love, Loss, and Redemption.”
Quite a little group showed up including pals Paul Shaffer, Marlo Thomas, Kathie Berlin, Susan Cheever, Lorraine Alterman Boyle, famed record producer Russ Titelman, producer Paula Silver, rock and roll impresario Danny Fields (he signed the Ramones, and the MC5 among others), our own Regina Weinreich, and more.
There’s nothing like watching Judy Collins — a master pianist with the most piercing blue eyes anywhere– improvise underscore music while performing her lyrical semi-autobiographical poems as the “Manhattanhenge” sun is setting! Even better, when Judy left the bench to lead the guests in “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” Paul Shaffer took over at the piano impromptu.
One of the evocative poems, called “Hockney in the Mountains,” could be turned into a song. Judy says some 30 of the 200 poems she wrote may be converted in that direction. I hope so!
The summer night was cold and we were giddy
Standing there looking out at Ajax when a heart-stopping, blood-curdling scream split the air and struck us, like knives to the heart
I said someone is having glorious sex
David said someone is being murdered We debated for a while and then had another drink in the resuming quiet of the mountain air
I stumbled back into the room Our host called the man at the front desk who said there was nothing they could do about noise in the mountains; everybody screams sometimes
