VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Judy Collins Reveals How She Got First #1 At 82 With ‘Winter Stories’

Judy Collins revealed how her collaboration with Jonas Fjeld and Chatham County Line came together for her album Winter Stories.

The 82-year-old singer said that the connection first began through her manager Katherine Lynn DePaul‘s husband in Norway.

“Her husband is a music manager in Norway and his name is Eivind Brydøy,” she told uInterview Founder Erik Meers. “And he’s introduced me, a number of years ago, to an artist in Norway named Jonas Fjeld. And Jonas is a hero there, he’s a big star in Norway. And so Katherine, first of all, she wanted me to record one of his songs a few years ago, which I did with him, something called “Angel,” and it was a beautiful song.”

In 2019, Collins said she agreed to her manager’s plan to work with Fjeld again: “She said ‘I think you should make an album with Jonas and with a bluegrass group.’ And I thought ‘Great! That sounds very good.’ And she said Jonas has worked a lot with this group in Raleigh, North Carolina called The Chatham County Line and they are sensational players and wonderful people. So we got together in early 2019, and we had to go down to Raleigh actually to do this. And we had a rehearsal and it was so good that we all jumped up and down and said, ‘Well yes. Let’s do the recording, but also let’s think about doing some concerts together. And so we made the album Winter Stories. It’s a combination of some of my songs, some of Chatham County’s songs and some of Jonas Fjelds’ songs.

“And actually it went, the minute it was released, it went to the first number one album that I’ve had on Billboard,” she said. “And Billboard called me and they said, ‘Oh we’re so excited! You’ve had your lifetime number one.’ And I said, ‘I’ll have more!'”