Released to coincide with her first British dates in almost 20 years, The Essential Judy Collins is most certainly not what it claims to be. The concentration on her easy-listening side gives us "Send In The Clowns", "Amazing Grace", "Bridge Over Troubled Water"and "Morning Has Broken". There's nothing from her Greenwich Village folk albums and none of her early Dylan cover versions. Collins was the first person to record Leonard Cohen's songs, but the fact goes unrecognised. Ian Tyson's "Someday Soon", Robin Williamson's "First Boy I Loved"and "In My Life"should all be here, too. None of these are random omissions. They're part of a deliberate effort to present a very narrow-minded, MOR view of Collins'art. Seek out instead the US double CD anthology, Forever.
Released to coincide with her first British dates in almost 20 years, The Essential Judy Collins is most certainly not what it claims to be. The concentration on her easy-listening side gives us “Send In The Clowns”, “Amazing Grace”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”and “Morning Has Broken”. There’s nothing from her Greenwich Village folk albums and none of her early Dylan cover versions. Collins was the first person to record Leonard Cohen’s songs, but the fact goes unrecognised. Ian Tyson’s “Someday Soon”, Robin Williamson’s “First Boy I Loved”and “In My Life”should all be here, too.
None of these are random omissions. They’re part of a deliberate effort to present a very narrow-minded, MOR view of Collins’art. Seek out instead the US double CD anthology, Forever.
