Album: Judy Collins, Bohemian (Wildflower)

Inspired by memories of '60s southern California, Judy Collins'sBohemian is aglow with fond reveries of a time of infinite possibility: even Woody Guthrie's dustbowl hymn "Pastures Of Plenty" receives a luminous interpretation from which all the dust has been hoovered away.

Her pristine contralto is perfect for material like Joni Mitchell's "Cactus Tree" and Jimmy Webb's Californication eulogy, "Campo De Encino", but is less suited to Jacques Brel's "The Desperate Ones", where the desperation has been smoothed to resignation. But the surprise here is that, for someone best known as an interpreter rather than a songwriter, the strongest performances are of Collins's own material: the Paul Bowlesian Saharan romance fantasy "Morocco", the fulsome song of loss "Wings Of Angels", and especially the tribute to her mother's gentle fading, "In The Twilight", enough to prompt floods of tears from the hardest of hearts. 

Download this: In The Twilight; Morocco; Wings Of Angels; Pastures Of Plenty