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Legendary singer-songwriter Judy Collins might be retiring from life on the road, but she does not plan to stop making music any time soon.
The 87-year-old folk icon is currently traveling on her Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: The Farewell Tour, which will go until May 2027. The tour brings about the end of nearly seven decades on the road as a full-time performer.
However, the Grammy-winning artist plans to keep recording and writing new music even after the tour concludes. She is also staying busy by working on music for a Broadway musical and writing a new book called Singing Through the Storm.
“The work never ends,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle, downplaying her retirement from touring.
As she still plays about 120 shows a year, Collins said in a statement: “Touring has been the great thread of my life. City to city, song to song, face to face. The audiences have carried me for decades, and I’ve never stopped being moved by what can happen in a room when we truly listen to one another.”
A noted anti-war activist, Collins is famous for ushering in the folk revival of the 1960s. She recorded beloved interpretations of songs like “Amazing Grace,” Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” and Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” which earned her the Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance in 1969.
Over the course of her decades-long career, she has released 55 albums, consisting of both original songs and covers, and earned seven Grammy nominations in addition to her win.
She also became known for her two-year relationship with Stephen Stills, which she wrote her song “Houses” about years later.
From Stills, the break-up inspired Crosby Stills and Nash’s classic hits “Helplessly Hoping” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” — the song she named her tour after, as well as her 2012 memoir.
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Collins recalled her reaction to Stills playing her the latter of the songs in an interview with the Guardian in 2017, saying: “Afterwards, we both cried – and then I said: ‘Oh, Stephen, it’s such a beautiful song. But it’s not winning me back.’
She went on to say at the time that she had never felt exposed by the song’s title inclusion of her name. “I’ve always understood that people have to write about their lives,” she said. “Most of all, I felt the song was flattering and heartbreaking – for both of us. Neither one of us walked away from that relationship relieved. We were feeling like, ‘Whoa, what happened?’”
Stills and Collins eventually became friends after their breakup and went on to release a joint album together in 2017, nearly 50 years after their romance.
Although Stills is not slated to play on the Sweet Judy Blue Eyes Farewell Tour, the lineup includes several special guests joining Collins on stage, including Rosanne Cash and Livingston Taylor.