In My Life by Judy Collins

In My Life, Judy Collins's fifth album, came out on Elektra in 1966, and it's the sound of a folk singer throwing open the windows. Where her earlier records mostly stuck to plain folk settings, here arranger Joshua Rifkin wraps many of the songs in orchestral dress, and Collins, with Mark Abramson producing, reaches well beyond traditional material for songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Richard Fariña and a then little-known Leonard Cohen.

Her reading of Cohen's "Suzanne" is the recording credited with bringing his music to a wide audience, and "Hard Lovin' Loser" gave her the first charting single of her career. The album climbed to number 46 on Billboard's pop albums chart in 1967 and went gold in 1970, and AllMusic's William Ruhlmann later rated it among her best.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.