Judy Collins
This 19th album by Our Lady of the Azure Eyes is her solidest collection in years, mostly because her affecting soprano has so much body. She's always been a shrewd selector (and generator) of material, but this mix seems just right. It's Gonna Be One of Those Nights and Great Expectations are tender up-tempo songs written by Texas-born Hugh Prestwood. She renders a poignant version of Memory, from the British musical Cats. Most of the rest of the songs are Collins confessionals. Mama Mama is about a worn-out mother, The Rest of Your Life concerns a parent letting go of a child (Judy, 42, has a 22-year-old son), and Granddaddy is about hers. In her own Angel on My Side, she sings: "Where the devil led me I would go/ I had sold my soul for pleasure, thinking it would last/ All my hopes had vanished in the past/ ...God only knows how I made it back home." If indeed she took a round trip to some Stygian river, it's nice to have her back.
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