Among the great women folk singers of the early to mid Sixties, Joan and Judy (Baez and Collins) come quickly to mind, but not Judy and Judy, the other two. Judy Roderick and Judy Henske were stinging and original in ways that didn’t slot in commercially at the time. They didn’t sound like angels, and they messed around in some scary blues country, and they didn’t land on Hootenanny, or not for long. Their opportunities were thus relatively small and their bodies of work slender; but (to sort of quote Spencer Tracy) what they produced was “cherce.”
Roderick came out of Colorado, played the major coffee houses, wowed the folk elite. (“Her phrasing, tone and above all her originality are unmatched,” said Dave Van Ronk.) She put out two albums, one for Columbia, one for Vanguard, before drifting to the margins. Her monument is the second, Woman Blue (1965), title cut here:
Tracing back to Blind Lemon Jefferson, this song (aka “I Know You Rider”) was picked up by a number of 60s artists (Grateful Dead, Hot Tuna et al) but Roderick’s version was the starkest and most influential. Her take on “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” comes straight from a cold street corner. And, unlike some of her peers, she knew how to work with a band:
Judy Henske was a more raucous performer than Roderick (“Take me down to the Tin Star/Lay my body on the bar”), but in a different mood the raw depth in her singing must have made the New Christy Minstrels scatter like pigeons. “Till the Real Thing Comes Along” has been covered with elegant skill by any number of singers over the years (“I’d work for you, slave for you/I’d work my body to the grave for you….”). Henske’s version is the only one I’ve ever heard where you instantly believe those words:
Till the Real Thing Comes Along
That’s from her High Flying Bird album (1964), varied and unclassifiable, which was exactly the problem. Known as “Queen of the Beatniks,” she was reportedly the inspiration for Annie Hall — she and Woody Allen were a duo for a while — but who knows? It fits her profile:
Thankfully, on the evidence of more recent work (Loose in the World, 2001), Henske went on to become a blowsy broad of the highest caliber.
For a choice slab of her early career, check out Rhino’s 2-CD retrospective, Big Judy.
