LEGENDARY folk singer Judy Collins is heading for Malvern later this month. 

The epithet ‘legend’ is accorded to myriad artists who haven’t earned it, but not so Judy Collins - singer, songwriter, filmmaker, record label head, musical mentor, author and activist – who, after a career spanning more than five decades, has recently released Strangers Again, her first studio album since 2011.

The collection release, which features guest appearances by Willie Nelson, Jackson Browne, Michael McDonald, Don McLean and Glen Hansard, is a perfect synthesis of Collins’ doctrine in its acknowledgement of the old and assimilation of the new.

She pays homage to those “men who have carved out the melodies and the memories of the decades, past and present, with their beautiful and soul voices, interpretations and songwriting”, whether revisiting Stephen Sondheim’s standard ‘Send In The Clowns’ – which she first recorded in 1975 – or embracing a recent composition like ‘From Grace’ from the pen of Thomas Dybdahl.

Collins’ voice is still a compelling instrument of grace and beauty after all this time. But then, even at 76, she remains a committed performer, playing more than 100 shows a year and this UK tour will see her in Malvern on October 24.