Available on limited edition vinyl and CD, Real Gone Music, presents, Judy Collins The 60’s Singles, a collection of songs that established her as one of the most important voices of a generation. Collins is a legendary songstress recognized internationally for her beautifully histrionic vocals and specialized interpretations of traditional and contemporary folk and rock standards.

Throughout the 1960’s Collins delivered the songs of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman and countless others to a wider audience providing accessible readings of idiosyncratic compositions through her thorough and talented reimaginings.

Thoughtfully curated by Real Gone and featuring unique edits and mixes, Judy Collins The 60’s Singles compiles the foundational songs of Collins 60 plus year career while tracing her musical evolution from traditional folk to contemporary rock and all the spaces in between.

The collection covers the years 1961-1969 and spotlights Collins sparkling soprano singing 14 sides of social consciousness, love and loss, while transcribing the words of the 1960’s strongest songsmiths.

Collins began her career as a concert prodigy and pianist but was attracted to the socially aware and dusty road tales of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Phil Ochs. She taught herself how to play the guitar and honed her craft in coffeehouses and clubs in Colorado before heading East to New York City.

While Collins released her first album, A Maid of Constant Sorrow in 1961 on Elektra Records, her debut single came in May 1964 with a definitive reading of Pete Seeger’s “Turn, Turn, Turn, (To Everything There Is a Season)” backed with Bob Dylan’s “Farewell.” The single was an influential two-sided folk masterpiece and announced Collins arrival with wonderfully rendered readings.

The next highlight of the set is Collins emotive reading of Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It with Mine,” a non-album single and a song Dylan never placed on a record. Performed replete with a slick folk-rock aesthetic, Collins nails it vocally while both Al Kooper and Michael Bloomfield provide their best Highway 61 instrumentation to the arrangement.

Collins quickly ascendant popularity is documented with the soaring soliquoy, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” a song that would define her for an epoch. The flip side was provided by another giant of female folk with Collins wrapping her voice around Sandy Denny’s vital “Who Knows Where the Time Goes.” The single acts as the apex of the set and a defining peak of Collins early career.

With the conclusion of the decade comes the hopeful country lilt of Ian Tyson’s “Someday Soon,” backed with Leonard Cohen’s “My Father.” Collins’ beau at the time, Stephen Stills provides tasteful guitar to both cuts. Next, is Collins careful reading of Joni Mitchell’s “Chelsea Morning,” which dawned as a single shortly after Mitchell’s own version was released. Collins epic reading of the song made it a standard while exposing Mitchell’s material to a wider span of listeners. “Pretty Polly,” plays a spooky contrast on the flip side as a long-recited murder ballad sung convincingly by Collins, and hailing back to her formative musical beginnings.

The collection then concludes as it began, bookended by an extended alternate version of “Turn, Turn, Turn, (To Everything there Is a Season).  As a whole, this assemblage is a successful and focused look at the early career of the muse of the New York Folk scene; and the fabulous female troubadour of the 1960’s. The collection draws an lacy arc through the songs that inspired, influenced, and informed a decade through Judy Collins memorable and soulful interpretations.