Judy Collins: ‘When I found folk music, I also found drinking’

The 82-year-old US folk singer talks through her teenage years, from mental health struggles to wondrous romance in the Rocky mountains

I'd been playing the piano since I was five, and by the time I was 15 I was memorising Rachmaninov concertos. But Barbara Allen, recorded by Jo Stafford, turned me towards the music that was becoming the rebirth of folk music in the US. I knew Stafford's voice very well - her My Funny Valentine was one of our favourites. She was such a magnificent singer, and her version of Barbara Allen was just stunning. That and The Gypsy Rover were songs that plunged me into a new life. I often say, though, that I was born knowing the lyrics to Danny Boy because my father sang all kinds of things - I would have heard that in the womb.