Judy Collins is an American singer-songwriter and actress known as one of the leading exponents of folk music and popular music in general (pop, country music, rock and roll, music for theatre productions, etc.). She can sing in the soprano register and is also known for her political activism in the social field. As an actress, she has appeared in several films and TV series and has collaborated on soundtracks for the cinema. Collins was trained as a classical pianist, performing her first public concert with music by Mozart at the age of thirteen. However, what interested her from a very young age was folk music and in particular that of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Noticed while playing in clubs in Greenwich Village, she was signed to Warner Music Group in 1960. She recorded her first album - A Maid of Constant Sorrow - in 1961. Initially, he only played songs by other authors, such as Seeger (Turn! Turn! Turn!), but also Phil Ochs, Jacques Brel (Marieke) and Bob Dylan (Mr. Tambourine Man), or songs from the traditional repertoire. Having moved to Elektra Records, she was able to approach other authors from whose songs she derived cover later become famous, such as the Leonard Cohen of Bird on the Wire and the Joni Mitchell of Both Sides Now. Collins' first major commercial success - also appreciated for her simple beauty and soft blue eyes - was the 1967 album Wildflowerswhich included her first compositions as an author, the first of which was entitled Since You've Asked. The album - which reached number eight on the Billboard charts - included a song by Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Nowfor which Collins was honoured with a Grammy Award the following year. The album Who Knows Where the Time Goes?produced by Stephen Stills, then a member of the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. She is the Judy to which the song is dedicated Suite: Judy Blue Eyeswhich Stills composed for the supergroup's first album, Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the 1970s, Collins then consolidated his repertoire and his reputation as a folk artist who was able to successfully express himself in elitist genres such as gospel singing (Amazing Grace) and in their own compositions, such as My Fathercontained in Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, o Born to the Breedrecorded for the album Judith of 1975, which contains inter alia Send In the Clownspart of the musical comedy A Little Night Music produced on Broadway, and which earned her an additional Grammy award. The compilation So Early in the Spring - The First 15 Years , distributed in 1977, is a collection of its main interpretations. Since 1980, Collins has authored autobiographical books and novels and, still active, continues to make records and give concerts. A committed artist, author of famous duets with singers such as Kris Kristofferson (Me and Bobby McGee) and Leonard Cohen (Suzanne), she became a UNICEF representative and is an activist fighting for the abolition of the use of land and naval mines. The death by suicide of her son Clark Taylor, after a period of depression due to drug addiction, led her to conduct suicide prevention campaigns.