The year was 1965 and I was twelve years old. I wanted to learn to play the guitar, so my parents got me a golden-bodied acoustic and signed me up for lessons at Tom Pickett’s Guitar Gallery on East Kirkwood Avenue.

In the Hoosier town of Bloomington it was not a happening scene yet in 1965. A leather vest here, some long-haired guys there, but not so much love and peace and psychedelia. But Kirkwood was right down the street from the Indiana University campus and in the next few years as I was folksinging more and more, barefooted beings called hippies began to frequent the avenue in fringe, brightly colored clothes, and beaded headbands, smelling of incense and patchouli oil. Many of them also had guitars, slung over their backs like apparel.

My long-haired (and very exotic, I thought) teacher started me out with D and A7, and at first I had to work hard just to simply strum and smoothly change back and forth between these two chords. I was heartened to learn that a person could play hundreds of songs just with two chords. The first song I learned was “Good News”:

Good news, chariot’s a’comin’
Good news, chariot’s a’comin’
Good news, chariot’s a’comin’
And I don't want it to leave a me behind.

I picked up other songs along the same lines like “Hush Little Baby.” Soon I had graduated to 3(!) chords, adding G. I learned how to read tablature, and then I learned the magic of minor chords with Dm and Am. With just these chords and another progression: G-Em-C-D, thousands of songs could be played. Eventually I learned bar chords, and then almost anything (theoretically) was possible.

I began to play and sing everywhere I got the chance – for my friends and family, in Dunn Meadow next to IU, in talent shows, even once on a local TV station at a very early hour one morning. My father loved to harmonize on some songs like “Tell Me Why” and “Kumbuya.” By then I had learned a lot of anti-war songs as the draft and the raging Vietnam War started to take more of my friends. “Strangest Dream” was one of these:

Last night I had the strangest dream
I'd ever dreamed before.
I dreamed that all the world had agreed
To put an end to war.

I also sang “Simple Song of Freedom.”

Come and sing a simple song of freedom.
Sing it like it’s never been sung before.
Let it fill the air, tell people everywhere
We the people here don’t want a war.

And of course, “We Shall Overcome.” Not to mention Dylan’s “The Times They Are a’ Changin.’” The guitar teacher mischievously taught me that one at a very young age, perhaps hoping to introduce a mild insurrection in my distinctly unrebellious young life – but my parents never seemed to object, perhaps because I was an incredibly well-behaved little thing until I diverged from their plan in my twenties and started living with Mark (shacking up, as my Dad called it). They were worried about our level of commitment to each other. Thirty-five years later Mark and I are still together, so there you have it.

I learned lots of folk songs, playing and singing for hours a day sitting on the edge of the bed in my room, probably driving my entire family crazy. Folk songs were a great form of expression for me and are to this day. I loved the lyrics and had a knack for memorizing them – learning whole sets of songs made famous by Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan. It was one of the most exciting and inspiring periods of learning and growth in my life and I’ll never forget it.

Judy

I used to sing a lot. Folk songs. I would sit on the grass at Indiana University’s Dunn Meadow in Bloomington, Indiana and sing song after song with my guitar, usually with a pretty good audience.

I still sing, but mostly in my head. I still know most of the words to many, many songs, and they arise in my consciousness as a kind of running commentary on my life. Thus, as I walk up to the side door to enter my place of work on a Monday morning, I might have Janis Joplin’s tune going in my head:

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all have Porsches,
I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

Why that one? Who knows, it just seems right.

Two Sundays ago, at the suggestion of my daughter Cait, I got to see the incomparable Judy Collins in concert at the Paramount Theater in Denver.

I loved it. She had a piano player as backup but did several songs by herself, either with the guitar or playing the piano. Her voice is still clear, strong and beautiful.

She sang a few old-timey folk songs including “John Riley” – the one where the young woman has patiently waited seven years for her true love to come home, explaining to the stranger in the garden that she remains faithful, and he reveals that he is himself her long lost John Riley (happy ending, although the woman is far more patient than I think I would be in similar circumstances).

She sang several others that I love, including “Amazing Grace,” her bittersweet rendition of “Send in the Clowns,” and songs about Colorado including “Someday Soon.” She won applause by mentioning that her 91-year-old mother was in the audience, and told stories about her father Jack and growing up in Denver surrounded by musicians.

She sang Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and told the story of how she had first heard the song--a friend (Graham Nash?) had called her at 3 a.m. from New York City insisting she listen to a singer he had discovered.

She spoke with great affection of the first time she met Leonard Cohen, how attractive he was, how grateful she was that she never fell in love with him as friends had. She told him he could not sing, but that she would be recording his songs the next morning. She stepped over to a special smaller sparking keyboard, and I thought for a minute she was going to sing “Famous Blue Raincoat,” but instead she sang one I of Leonard’s haven’t heard much but would like to learn: “A Thousand Kisses Deep”:

And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go
A thousand kisses deep.

She also sang an absolutely heart-breaking version of a song dedicated to her song Clark, who committed suicide in 1992 at age 33, called “Wings of Angels.” She has written a book about this called “Sanity and Grace: A Journal of Suicide, Survival and Strength.”

Wings of angels tears of saints
Prayers and promises won't bring you back
Come to me in dreams again
Wings of angels tears of saints

We also heard “City of New Orleans,” “Open The Door,” “Since You’ve Asked,” and many more. It was a great evening and I was glad Cait shared it with me.

Inspired, I played my guitar with Mark the other night and sang again for several hours, one of my trustiest songbooks (“Rise Up Singing”) open before me. It felt really good but my fingers are sore. They’ll toughen up if I keep it up.