Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Zusatztext a fascinating and even harrowing musical and personal reflection. --Kirkus Collin's improbable and utterly charming tale of assuming iconic status as a popular music star from the early 1960's onward also proves a tremendously valuable chronicle of the early folk music scene[A] forthright! radiant work. Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review) Informationen zum Autor Judy Collins Klappentext A vivid, highly evocative memoir of one of the reigning icons of folk music, highlighting the decade of the '60s, when hits like "Both Sides Now" catapulted her to international fame. Sweet Judy Blue Eyes is the deeply personal, honest, and revealing memoir of folk legend and relentlessly creative spirit Judy Collins. In it, she talks about her alcoholism, her lasting love affair with Stephen Stills, her friendships with Joan Baez, Richard and Mimi Fariña, David Crosby, and Leonard Cohen and, above all, the music that helped define a decade and a generation's sound track. Sweet Judy Blue Eyes invites the reader into the parties that peppered Laurel Canyon and into the recording studio so we see how cuts evolved take after take, while it sets an array of amazing musical talent against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent decades of twentieth-century America. Beautifully written, richly textured, and sharply insightful, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes is an unforgettable chronicle of the folk renaissance in America.Chapter One Ruby-Throated Sparrow I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are. --Stephen Stills, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes Nineteen sixty-eight, the year I met and fell in love with Stephen Stills, was a leap year. In the Chinese calendar, it was the year of the monkey, a year destined to explode with creativity, social upheaval, and tragedy. The U.S. involvement in Vietnam had escalated into all-out warfare and was tearing the country apart. Martin Luther King Jr., in whom we invested so much hope, had been murdered in Memphis on April 4. The day after King's assassination, Robert F. Kennedy made one of the last speeches of his life at a political gathering in Indianapolis originally intended as a rally for his run for president, reminding the weeping audience of black and white mourners that he, too, had lost a brother to a white man with a gun and urging them, as the Greeks had put it, to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Many young people were marching against the war, and music captured our conflicting feelings of disenchantment and romantic idealism, from the traditional folk songs of the Weavers, Wasn't That a Time and Rock Island Line, to the powerful laments of singer-songwriters, Dylan singing A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Phil Ochs singing I Ain't Marching Anymore, and Joan Baez singing Silver Dagger in her haunting soprano. This incredible music was everywhere, playing on Top 40 and FM radio mixed in with the Beatles' Lovely Rita and Eleanor Rigby, the Byrds sparkling with Jim McGuinn's twelve-string guitar on Mr. Tambourine Man, and the Mamas and the Papas urging us to leave cold New York and dream of sunny California. I'd be safe and warm, if I was in L.A., they sang, their heartbreaking harmonies draping the airwaves with longing. There was the angst-filled psychedelia of the Doors with Jim Morrison begging us to light his fire, and Grace Slick, singing with Jefferson Airplane, her seductive voice drifting on the silky sound of her band: One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. All these songs were hitting the radio waves side by side with the reports of casualties in Indochina. The intermix of news flashes and this wistful and sometimes furious music made the atmosphere of the times seem almost otherworldly. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue cascaded across the country as Dylan put his lyrics to our tears and ou...

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Judy Collins

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A vivid, highly evocative memoir of one of the reigning icons of folk music, highlighting the decade of the '60s, when hits like "Both Sides Now" catapulted her to international fame.

Sweet Judy Blue Eyes is the deeply personal, honest, and revealing memoir of folk legend and relentlessly creative spirit Judy Collins. In it, she talks about her alcoholism, her lasting love affair with Stephen Stills, her friendships with Joan Baez, Richard and Mimi Fariña, David Crosby, and Leonard Cohen and, above all, the music that helped define a decade and a generation's sound track.

Sweet Judy Blue Eyes invites the reader into the parties that peppered Laurel Canyon and into the recording studio so we see how cuts evolved take after take, while it sets an array of amazing musical talent against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent decades of twentieth-century America.

Beautifully written, richly textured, and sharply insightful, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes is an unforgettable chronicle of the folk renaissance in America.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter One

Ruby-Throated Sparrow

I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are. --Stephen Stills, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”

Nineteen sixty-eight, the year I met and fell in love with Stephen Stills, was a leap year. In the Chinese calendar, it was the year of the monkey, a year destined to explode with creativity, social upheaval, and tragedy. The U.S. involvement in Vietnam had escalated into all-out warfare and was tearing the country apart. Martin Luther King Jr., in whom we invested so much hope, had been murdered in Memphis on April 4. The day after King’s assassination, Robert F. Kennedy made one of the last speeches of his life at a political gathering in Indianapolis originally intended as a rally for his run for president, reminding the weeping audience of black and white mourners that he, too, had lost a brother to a white man with a gun and urging them, as the Greeks had put it, to “tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”

Many young people were marching against the war, and music captured our conflicting feelings of disenchantment and romantic idealism, from the traditional folk songs of the Weavers, “Wasn’t That a Time” and “Rock Island Line,” to the powerful laments of singer-songwriters, Dylan singing “A Hard Rain’s A‑Gonna Fall,” Phil Ochs singing “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” and Joan Baez singing “Silver Dagger” in her haunting soprano. This incredible music was everywhere, playing on Top 40 and FM radio mixed in with the Beatles’ “Lovely Rita” and “Eleanor Rigby,” the Byrds sparkling with Jim McGuinn’s twelve-string guitar on “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and the Mamas and the Papas urging us to leave cold New York and dream of sunny California. “I’d be safe and warm, if I was in L.A.,” they sang, their heartbreaking harmonies draping the airwaves with longing. There was the angst-filled psychedelia of the Doors with Jim Morrison begging us to light his fire, and Grace Slick, singing with Jefferson Airplane, her seductive voice drifting on the silky sound of her band: “One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small.” All these songs were hitting the radio waves side by side with the reports of casualties in Indochina.

The intermix of news flashes and this wistful and sometimes furious music made the atmosphere of the times seem almost otherworldly. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” cascaded across the country as Dylan put his lyrics to our tears and our rage.

It was a time of undeniable destructiveness as the war raged and the young trashed their bodies and their lives with the drugs many of us thought were so cool. I remember singing in the dusk of summer, the audience primed with wine, organic cheese, and fruit for a long night of music. I put fresh flowers in my hair and through the lace of m…