{"id":31869,"date":"2026-08-08T04:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31869"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:00:11","slug":"judy-collins-on-her-farewell-tour-and-being-the-betty-white-of-folk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31869","title":{"rendered":"Judy Collins on Her Farewell Tour and Being &#8216;the Betty White of Folk&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tHow sweet \u2014 or suite \u2014 it still is. <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/judy-collins\/\" id=\"auto-tag_judy-collins\" data-tag=\"judy-collins\">Judy Collins<\/a> is doing a valedictory lap or two around the country on what is billed as a farewell tour, even though, at 87, she\u2019s showing little in the way of weariness about maintaining a full concert schedule or lack of prowess in pulling these shows off. \u201cIt\u2019s time\u201d is the fullest explanation she\u2019ll give about why it might be time to think about slowing down her schedule. In the meantime, there is a long way to go on her \u201cSweet Judy Blue Eyes Farewell Tour 2026-2027,\u201d named for the song pal <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/stephen-stills\/\" id=\"auto-tag_stephen-stills\" data-tag=\"stephen-stills\">Stephen Stills<\/a> wrote to celebrate her almost six decades go.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIf she thought she\u2019d looked at clouds from multiple angles when she had a top 10 hit with the Joni Mitchell-penned \u201cBoth Sides, Now\u201d in 1968, imagine how many more cloud sightings she\u2019s had in her career since then. She changes her sets nightly, but ticketholders for the tour are likely to get a sampling of her most well-known recordings \u2014 which include covers of Stephen Sondheim\u2019s \u201cSend in the Clowns,\u201d Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cChelsea Morning\u201d and the hymn \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d \u2014 as well as her self-penned material, as highlighted in her most recent studio release, 2022\u2019s \u201cSpellbound.\u201d Whichever songs she picks, fans won\u2019t likely regret a chance to see her for what may or may not be a local last time. In L.A., she headlines the Ford on Friday night, joined by a fellow monster of folk-rock, Bruce Cockburn. (Openers on some of the other tour dates include such big-name acolytes as Richard Thompson, Amanda Shires, Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tVariety caught up with Collins via Zoom from her New York home as she prepared to fly out for the tour\u2019s west coast swing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>Your official farewell tour kicked off July 4, but looking back, you already had had a really busy year. It looks like you\u2019ve done over 35 shows so far in this calendar year, and you\u2019re just getting started.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tYeah, we usually do 100 a year, so that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>You haven\u2019t yet put an end date on your farewell tour. Does it really feel like this is farewell, or is there some ambiguity as far as how long you might keep going?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tNo, it <em>is<\/em> a farewell tour. You know, I\u2019ve been doing this for 67 years. I don\u2019t know if anybody took note of that. But I think I\u2019ve done a farewell tour later than most people do. I don\u2019t know anybody to compare it with. But I think a lot of bands and a lot of organizations and groups have done farewell tours, and I think it was appropriate for me to do mine now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>And why so? As you said, you\u2019re doing it further along in years than a lot of people who have officially done a last tour. But you have also \u00a0frequently talked about how you actually enjoy touring.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOh, I do. I love it. But I have a lot of other things in my life that I have to deal with, which is writing a couple of new books, and I have a commitment with a Broadway (producer) with a stage show that I\u2019ve written all the music for. So there are other things, of course, that have to be dealt with. And, it\u2019s time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>It feels like you are\u2026 I don\u2019t want to say wholly unique, but somewhat unique among performers, in loving being on the road so much. We talk to so many performers who say, \u201cI love the two hours on stage. It\u2019s the other 22 that I can\u2019t deal with.\u201d Yet you\u2019ve said you enjoy the part of touring that other people hate, which is transit of getting from one place to another.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tI love touring. I <em>love<\/em> it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>And this has something to do with first experiencing being on the road with your father?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWhen I was a little girl, my father was a great entertainer, and it was through him I found my reason to have a career and be doing what I wanna do. He had a a radio career for 30 years, and he also toured at the end of the war. I first was on the road with him when I was a little girl. I was 3, and he was touring with National School Assemblies, and we were up in Butte, Montana when I had my first time on stage. He said, \u201cYou want to sing for these nice people?\u201d And I sang \u201cI\u2019ll Be Home for Christmas.\u201d It\u2019s the one I knew. It was April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tHe said, \u201cDo you want to sing for the people?\u201d And, \u201cdo you want \u00a0to ride in the car?\u201d I said, \u201cI want to do both.\u201d And I love traveling. I love living in New York, but I also get to travel all over. The other day we were with the High Kings, and we were in Duluth, and we had a big show at this huge, wonderful place in the woods [the\u00a0Big Top Chautauqua]. I was there with Don McLean years ago, and he called me up because he saw that I was gonna be there, and he was reminding me of our show at that wonderful venue. And we were driving in the most beautiful area in Wisconsin, near Lake Superior.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tI get to see all these places. And I get to ride in planes; I don\u2019t mind planes at all \u2014 I love planes. But also we get to drive, and I get to see every tree that\u2019s ever been considered to plant somewhere. I love it. Do I know what they all are? No, because I\u2019m not a botanist. But I love everything that grows. You know, Saturday night I got home, and I raced around and watered all my plants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>So your father was a role model for being in show business?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tI do a lot of things that he did. I tell a lot of jokes. I want to make people laugh. I grew up on the wonderful entertainers who always told jokes. You know, we were babies of that culture. And also, you know, I\u2019m the Betty White of the folk movement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>Like Betty White, just in terms of endurance and still being around and enjoying it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSure. I mean, she certainly kicked off pretty late. And I have a lot more steam\u2026 a lot more juice in my engine, I\u2019ll tell you that.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  size-large alignnone \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure  lrv-u-font-family-secondary u-color-medium-grey lrv-u-border-b-1 u-border-color-light-grey-tint-two u-margin-b-150 lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:824px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Judy-Collins-Photo-credit-Shervin-Lainez.jpg?w=824\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Judy-Collins-Photo-credit-Shervin-Lainez.jpg 4098w, https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Judy-Collins-Photo-credit-Shervin-Lainez.jpg?resize=121,150 121w, https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Judy-Collins-Photo-credit-Shervin-Lainez.jpg?resize=241,300 241w, https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Judy-Collins-Photo-credit-Shervin-Lainez.jpg?resize=1200,1500 1200w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"(min-width: 87.5rem) 1000px, (min-width: 78.75rem) 681px, (min-width: 48rem) 450px, (max-width: 48rem) 250px\" height=\"1024\" width=\"824\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-padding-t-1 lrv-u-padding-b-1\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-line-height-normal lrv-u-font-size-14 u-font-family-neue u-letter-spacing-007-rem u-margin-b-050\">Judy Collins<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"u-color-medium-grey u-font-family-neue-xxs\">Shervin Lainez<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>You\u2019re not bidding farewell because your voice is gone. Everyone still loves to hear you sing.\u00a0 Sometimes we have to wonder if a lot of it is just genetics \u2014 that Tony Bennett can sing well into his 90s, and you are doing great well into your 80s, but other people start having voice problems when they hit 70 or even 60.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tYeah. Well, the voice is a very tricky thing, and it\u2019s a superb instrument if you can keep it with you. If you can\u2019t\u2026 I\u2019ve had my issues with my voice, and I had incredible, unbelievable fortune.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tFirst of all, I was given a gift from two people in New York. One was the great teacher who taught me how to sing. By good fortune, I found Max Martley, who was an incredibly gifted teacher, and he taught a lot of people and taught me for 32 years, and I learned what to do. But also, I was an alcoholic. I <em>am<\/em> an alcoholic but I was drinking for about 20 years. And when I hit 1977, I suddenly couldn\u2019t sing anymore, and I canceled many shows. But then I was lucky because the doctor I was seeing, an ENT doctor named Donald Wiseman, was a genius. And there was no cure for what I had. I had a what\u2019s called hemangioma. People who drink for years get these on their faces, and I was a heavy drinker, but I didn\u2019t get mine on my face \u2014 I got it on my vocal cord. It would have stopped me completely forever, and there was no cure at the moment. So Don Wiseman kept at it. He kept saying, \u201cYou\u2019re not gonna be singing anyway, so let\u2019s try this.\u201d And it was a process that he did on the vocal cord, and it was removed. I don\u2019t know how miracles happen \u2014 I mean, I\u2019m not supposed to be in charge of those \u2014 but I got one. And from then on, \u00a0I went straight back to a clean vocal cord that has been working perfectly ever since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAnd of course, I know what to do. I mean, I know from Max that I have to remember clarity and phrasing \u2014 two things that are my watch words. And so it\u2019s not a mystery really, but it is in terms of technique, because I know exactly what to do, and I also have this clean vocal cord to work with. So I think that what I was given was a gift from the higher power, from whatever, and of course, I immediately\u2026 Well, within the next few months, I also stopped drinking, and I\u2019ve been sober for 48 years, which doesn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>So you got a second chance at life, or your career, in the \u201970s\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWell, I got another life because I not only stopped drinking, but also, about four days before I went into treatment, I met the man that I was to be living with and married to [Louis Nelson]. We were together for 46 years, and I lost him. Well, I didn\u2019t \u201close\u201d him. He died at the end of 2024. So I have gone through this widowhood and the difficulties that come with it. It\u2019s painful, it\u2019s heartbreaking, it\u2019s everything you could think of. But on the other hand, I had all those years. He was an amazing man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>He did not have to live in your shadow, with such prominent accomplishments.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAmong other things, he designed the [mural for the] Korean War Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and that\u2019s been very much a part of our lives, too. All of the wonderful people that he was working with, and our trips to D.C., and our engagement with the generals, and all the Koreans, and the people who made it such an extraordinary gift not just to the Koreans, but to us, the Americans. So he was splendid and brilliant and wonderful and all of those things. And I lucked out, that I got to spend all those years with him. For an old hippie like me, I think it\u2019s pretty good luck.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>Quite a confluence of events, between meeting him and getting your voice repaired\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAnd getting sober. It happened all at the same time, which I think is extraordinary. And I know people that have lost their voices in similar situations to mine. So it <em>is<\/em> the luck of the draw \u2014 I love that old song.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>The title of this tour is \u201cSweet Judy Blue Eyes,\u201d a la the Crosby, Stills and Nash song inspired by you, but spelled without the \u201csuite\u201d pun. I think I faintly recall that you might have been mildly embarrassed by Stephen Stills\u2019 song when it came out. But you embraced it enough to make it a tour title this time around.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOh, I wasn\u2019t embarrassed. I mean, that was the greatest compliment he could have given me, and we have been friends ever since. We\u2019ve been friends for close to 60 years, and we still talk, and we still get together. We did a fabulous tour in 2017 and \u201918, where we did 115 shows in a year and a half. We just had a ball. We were on the stage for two hours a night together. Each of us had one song that we sang (solo), but everything else was together. He is one of the great guitarists of all time, and playing in that environment with him was such a privilege. I don\u2019t know that he\u2019ll go out again. I don\u2019t know. I see him from time to time. I saw him a couple weeks ago in L.A., and we had a wonderful morning together with his wonderful wife, Kristen, and we always have a lot to say to each other. He came out in March of last year, after Lewis had died, and was on a show that I did at the Town Hall here with a lot of other artists who sang songs either that I\u2019d recorded or that I\u2019d written. And at the end, he came on. We did \u201cHelplessly Hoping,\u201d and then he said, \u201cShe married the right guy.\u201d Because he and Lewis were good friends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>You change your setlist around a lot, from night to night. But people are generally likely to hear at least one song from your last album, \u201cSpellbound,\u201d which was the first album where you wrote every song on it. So it\u2019s a lot of repertoire to draw upon.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tYeah. I like to keep it fresh, for me, but also for the audience, to reach into songs that I haven\u2019t done for a while. And I have a lot. You know, I didn\u2019t start writing songs until I met Leonard Cohen in 1966. And of course, I recorded \u201cSuzanne\u201d immediately. Then he said to me, \u201cI don\u2019t know why you\u2019re not writing your own songs.\u201d So I started. I wrote a song called \u201cSince You Asked,\u201d and I\u2019ve been writing ever since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tA couple years ago I came out with a poetry book called \u201cSometimes It\u2019s Heaven.\u201d And the reason was that my husband had dared me to write every day, in 2017. I had said, \u201cWell, now it\u2019s a new year. I\u2019ll start a new notebook\u2026\u201d And he said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you write 365 songs or pieces of songs, and then you\u2019ll have a whole book of poetry,\u201d which I did. It came out a year and a half ago. And I harvested all of \u201cSpellbound\u201d from all of that writing. I should have called it \u201c365 Days,\u201d but I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>You must imagine Leonard Cohen would have been proud?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOh, yes. Oh, he would be so happy. You know, he was sort of like having an angel on your side. We were friends for a long time. He used to call me and read me verses of \u201cHallelujah\u201d \u2014 he wrote about 40 \u2014 and he would say, \u201cDo you like it?\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, it\u2019s not me that is gonna have to like it. You\u2019re gonna have to like it.\u201d He finally narrowed it down, but it wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>Is there any song you\u2019re most proud of adding to our musical vocabulary?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWell, I\u2019ve written a lot of songs that people seem to like to sing. I just found out that one of the young rock and rollers in the \u201980s recorded \u201cMy Father.\u201d I went to the doctor this morning, and my doctor\u2019s nurse is a fiend about collecting and listening to rock bands, and she found this rock band \u2014. I don\u2019t remember the name \u2014 who recorded \u201cMy Father\u201d in the \u201980s, and I was so happy to hear about that. [The version of \u201cMy Father\u201d referred to was likely This Mortal Coil\u2019s.]<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>Sometimes you\u2019ve done Dylan\u2019s \u201cMasters of War\u201d in concert, although not lately. which You\u2019ve said you\u2019re a big fan of Heather Cox Richardson and people like that. Do you feel political at this moment in time?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOh, gosh. I don\u2019t know what to do about it all the time, but I do. And yeah, Heather Cox Richardson is my favorite. I met her with Lewis, my husband, and they just went nuts. We went out to a big event with my brother Mike, who died five days after Lewis did. My brother had had a terrible, cancer of the mouth for five years. It\u2019s a horrible disease. But we happened to have met Heather Cox Richardson in Illinois somewhere, and it was a good meeting and such a good time that we had with her. So, yeah, I think she\u2019s wonderful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tI told her, \u201cI\u2019m trying to be a Lincoln Republican\u201d \u2014 trying to follow her, course. You know, I think we all do what we can. I have something in my hip pocket, though, that I do almost every night. I have had two dozen roses in a vase under the piano for decades now. They never go anywhere; they just sit there. And starting this past Jan. 1, I was in England, there they were, the flowers. So when we finished singing \u201cAmazing Grace,\u201d I took the flowers out of the vase, and I started singing \u201cWhere Have All the Flowers Gone?\u201d and I distributed the flowers to the audience. It has continued to be a very wonderful moment. And it is my political statement of the night, and it works wonders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>Going back to this being a farewell tour, you mentioned at some point that there may be some kind of \u201cencore\u201d shows after the tour ends\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWell, I don\u2019t know about that. I just know that I\u2019m on a farewell tour, and I like being here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<strong>And billing it as such helps people to know, \u201cOK, take advantage of this while you can.<\/strong>\u201c<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWell, that\u2019s true. Always take advantage of things that are going out of style.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How sweet \u2014 or suite \u2014 it still is. Judy Collins is doing a valedictory lap or two around the country on what is billed as a farewell tour, even though, at 87, she\u2019s showing little in the way of weariness about maintaining a full concert schedule or lack of prowess in pulling these shows&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/JudyCollinsphoto_05af31-e1786140716851.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}