With her winter concert tour having recently been launched and a new album, Broadway musical and several books in the works, it seems clear that self-described “happy workaholic” Judy Collins has absolutely no intention of slowing down at the age of 85. But don’t take our word for it.

“I’m never retiring!” declared the constantly active singer, songwriter, activist, author, podcast host, Wildflower Records label co-founder and mental health advocate. “Not if I can help it.”

Collins’ overflowing schedule and constant touring — except for March, she has performed concerts every month this year — leave no doubt she relishes being out on the road. The fact that artists half her age or younger often complain about the rigors of touring don’t faze this Seattle-born troubadour, who will perform at The Magnolia in El Cajon on Feb. 12. It’s a make-up date for her Thursday. “Holidays & Hits” tour date at the same venue, which was pushed back Friday afternoon because of a family emergency.

She credits her zeal for being constantly on the move to her late dad, Chuck Collins. He was a blind radio host who often went from city to city to perform as a singer and pianist.

“I grew up in the backseat of a Buick when my father was traveling in the northwest, and it seems to be where I belong. I love being in a new place. I love being in a hotel room,” she said, speaking from a late November tour stop in Spokane.

Accordingly, Collins’ seven-decade music career and her drive to continue working long past an age when many people retire is a source of purpose and pride for her.

“I have to prove the point — somebody has to prove the point — and I guess it’s me,” she said. “I’m sort of like the Betty White of the folk-music era!”

White was 99 when she died in 2021. Her TV acting career lasted a remarkable 73 years, which means Collins has another 8 years to go to match it.

But were she to move to a tropical island next month and become a hermit, Collins’ legacy would speak for itself.

Her 1961 debut album, “A Maid of Constant Sorrow,” came out after only 13 months after Joan Baez’s first album was released. The two, along with fellow troubadour Odetta, helped create a vital template for folk singers in the 1960s and well beyond.

Collins also was instrumental in exposing the work of Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Randy Newman to a broader audience. She recorded songs by all three when they were toiling in obscurity, and she championed their music — and that of other gifted but then little-known young talents — on her albums and at her concerts and TV appearances.

Symphony debut at 13

A classically trained pianist, Collins made her debut as a soloist with the Denver Symphony when she was just 13. She soon switched to folk music because it offered more artistic freedom, launching her professional career at the age of 20.

Collins earned success quickly, thanks to her soaring soprano voice and her tireless work ethic. Equally pivotal was her ability to make any song her own, be it Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and “Chelsea Morning,” Cohen’s Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire,” or Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns.”

The title of her 2011 memoir, “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music,” was inspired by “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the classic 1969 song by Crosby, Stills & Nash. It was written by her then-boyfriend, Stephen Stills, in the hope of salvaging their star-crossed love affair.

“The song was so beautiful. But it was also clear that our relationship was not going to work,” she recalled in a 2017 San Diego Union-Tribune interview that previewed her joint concert tour that year with Stills.

For her recently concluded “Holidays & Hits” tour, Collins performed with different musical configurations in different cities, the better to keep her music fresh for her and audiences alike.

“It all happens when it happens,” she said told the San Diego Union-Tribune in an interview on Monday, four days before the announcement that her concert here was being postponed. “It’s a holiday show, so that means I’ll be doing some of those wonderful old songs that we don’t hear until Christmas.”

Collins spoke to the Union-Tribune for nearly an hour. The conversation has been lightly edited for space and clarity.

Q: Your first Christmas-themed album came out in 1993, 32 years after your debut album, and you have since made two more Christmas albums. What prompted you to make “Come Rejoice: A Judy Collins Christmas” in 1993?

A: It was because I had written songs for it. That’s the trick. You have to be able to write some songs that are appropriate, and I was able to do that. I love Christmas and I’m inspired by the classic songs. I like to think about those early times in my life when I was young and going home to celebrate Christmas with my family.

Q: How easy or difficult is it to inject fresh vigor and meaning into songs that are so often sung by so many people on stages and in countless homes?

A: The whole point about being a singer is to make it sound like you’ve never heard it before. That’s what the pleasure is and what the challenge is. You do it because you love it and because it holds so many special memories that you filter into the song. That can have a valuable resonance for young performers, to learn that (weathered songs) don’t need to be boring.

Q: Your singing and piano playing on your 2022 album, “Spellbound,” both sound terrific, and its the first album to exclusively feature songs you wrote yourself. Do you have the same practice regimen you’ve always had? Or has it changed over the years, and if so, how?

A: I have a certain amount of exercises I do, so that I can stay in the moment and have the flexibility in my hands. You have to do that. Last night, I was playing a Chopin piece because I haven’t played it in a long time. Doing piano exercises allows me to sit down and come up with new melodies. I’ve just written a whole bunch of new songs for a Broadway musical; they invited me to write 14 new songs. I said: ‘Sure!’ So, I sat down and wrote them.

Q: What about your vocal regimen?

A: It’s very hard to be a singer. You must have the good fortune, as I have had, to have a great voice teacher. And you have to strive to be on the level of people who sang all their lives, like Pavarotti and Frank Sinatra. Frank was a drinker. When I went to see him perform at the end of his career, he’d be fine at the beginning of the show. Then, he’d drink during the show and his voice would crack. I don’t drink anymore, thank god. But if you have a great teacher and decide to follow the regimen. you do it — no matter what — in sun or rain, when you’re well and when you’re sick. Being a singer, there are certain kinds of demands that go with it. I’m writing a new book called “Singing,” and I’m having a very happy time doing it.

Q: On your “Spellbound” album, the lyrics to your song “So Alive” reference your drinking whiskey. And your song, “Hell on Wheels,” is a gripping, true-life story about how your drinking and driving as a teenager almost resulted in a fatal car accident. You stopped drinking in 1988. Do you think you’d be here now if you hadn’t gotten sober?

A: No. I would be dead. There’s absolutely no question about it. I would have been dead a long time ago.

Q: What was your wake-up call?

A: I was dying. I was dying. I was coming apart at the seams. I had no choice; I literally didn’t. I mean, I did (have a choice). Sometimes, I’d think: “I don’t know how it ever happened that I’m still here.” I’m lucky. Many people are not here anymore.

Q: How cathartic was it for you to write and sing “Hell on Wheels?”

A: Well, it took me years. And the person I finally worked with on the song, Ari Hest, helped me. I said: “I can’t figure this out; I don’t know what I’m doing here. So, he pulled it out of me and helped. He was very encouraging and it was wonderful. I’m going back into the studio soon to make a new album, and Ari will be working with me. I’m doing a couple of his new songs, which are fabulous, so that’s exciting. I’ve already recorded a great (2014) David Crosby song with Graham Nash, called “Radio.”

Q: In the wake of the November election…

A: Oh. let’s not talk about that.

Q: My question is about music, not politics. Given the state of the world at large, does music mean more — or something different — to you than it did a decade or 60 years ago?

A: Music means everything to me, not just now, but always. It’s always part of the fabric of recovery, always, no matter what’s going on. And, honest to god, this whole situation now is not so terrible. I mean, it scares the sh-t out of me. But in the light of history, we got through the dark ages…

Q: You took part in the 1968 Yippie press conference in New York at which Abbie Hoffmann, Jerry Rubin and other members of the Chicago 7 announced their plans to stage a mass protest at that summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago. What are your memories of the Yippies and of testifying at the Chicago 7 trial?

A: When I stood up there in court and began to sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, and the clerk came and put his hand over my mouth, I thought time had stopped in that moment. Of course, it didn’t, but I was in shock. I thought (my testimony) ended right there. But it didn’t and I can see in the trial transcripts how long it went on. It was quite a devastating experience. I remember there were a lot of discussions, apologies, a kind of a mass movement in the court room. It was a conversation about my singing and my life. The various people on the prosecution side were talking, and it went on for quite a long time.

What was shocking to me, decades later, was that (film director and screenwriter) Aaron Sorkin did not put that episode in the court hearing in his 2020 move, “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” I think that was a real loss for that story. I was the only woman in the room and I was singing. It was a moment of real drama and it would have been a wonderful moment for a young actress to have portrayed that.

Q: Judge Julius Hoffman presided over the Chicago 7 trial, and he was the one who ordered the clerk to stop you from singing during your testimony. Did you ever send him one of your albums?

A: Ah, no. I didn’t have time for that. He was a smart man; he could have found one himself.

Q: Do you ever think about President Nixon?

A: Never. I was on his “Enemies List,” and I was proud to be on it.

Q: You and I have done a number of interviews over the years. In 2001, when you were 61, you told me: “I always intended to be around as long as possible. I knew I wouldn’t get good enough to do what I’d intended to until I’d been around long enough and done enough things creatively. I’m in this for the long haul.”

A: Oh, yeah! I’m in it for the long haul. And it’s really a challenging and wonderful position to be in, because I’m not too famous. That would be trouble! But I don’t have that kind of trouble and am glad I don’t. I gave myself stability. I have work. I have dreams. I have possibilities and Ii work on them. That’s a real privilege to have. I keep strong. I eat well, I exercise and do my 10,000 steps a day. You keep working and having ideas and looking forward. You keep getting up in the morning with bright eyes and new things to do. If you stop doing that, you stop living and stop having a vital life. And I want, most of all, to have a vital life, to have fun and move forward.

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Judy Collins ‘Holiday & Hits’

When: Feb. 12 (replaces her originally scheduled Thursday, Dec. 5, concert here)

Where: The Magnolia Performing Arts Center, 210 East Main St., El Cajon

Tickets: $38.50-$94.40

Online: livenation.com

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