By Ashley Lodato
Winthrop resident Carolyn Sullivan can finally say she’s looked at clouds from both sides now, after attending her first Judy Collins concert in 1967 in Oakland, California, and then her second just last week, in Seattle.
Carolyn says that during her teenage years and early 20s, Judy Collins was one of her heroes. “I sang many of her songs while I played guitar,” says Carolyn. “And then at 19, I attended a concert with my stepbrother Chris, who knew Judy. He took me backstage after the show. I was totally in awe.”
That concert is a bittersweet memory for Carolyn, because it was the last time she saw Chris; he died suddenly two weeks later.
Fast-forward 50 years. Carolyn and Tom Sullivan are celebrating their 36th anniversary and Terry Shaffer (who officiated at the Sullivans’ wedding) and his wife, Karen, are marking their 46th year of marriage. The four get tickets to a Judy Collins concert at the intimate Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, where, as Carolyn says, there isn’t a bad seat in the house. “It was practically like being in someone’s living room,” she says.
When the four arrived at Dimitriou’s, the bouncer took one look at them and said “Send in the clowns!” Just kidding. You know I had to work that song title in somehow, don’t you?
Here’s what really happened: Upon arriving at the venue, Carolyn pulled out an old Judy Collins songbook she had brought with her and requested that someone take it back to Judy and ask her to sign it. With the book, Carolyn attached a note explaining about her stepbrother Chris. The book was whisked away.
The concert, says Carolyn, was “incredible, personal, and poignant.” Judy came out and although she had slipped in the shower and broken her elbow the previous night, she sang and told stories and shared anecdotes. She sang one particularly memorable song that she had written recently, about an undocumented mother named Maria who tearfully says goodbye to the country she came to 30 years before seeking democracy and hope.
The concert seemed to fly by — one of those situations where everyone asks “Who knows where the time goes?” Judy’s encore song was “In My Life,” by the Beatles, which Carolyn says was simply lovely. And fittingly, just before the end of the song a waitress showed up at the Sullivan-Shaffer table and handed Carolyn her songbook, now autographed in honor of Carolyn’s stepbrother, Chris. Ah, amazing grace.
