b. 1939 · American folk singer and Elektra recording artist
Collins was already an established Elektra artist with a national audience when she put the song at the head of side two of Wildflowers in October 1967, produced by Mark Abramson and running 3:14. Pulled as a single a year later, it reached number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 6 in Canada and number 3 on the Easy Listening chart, and won the Grammy for Best Folk Performance. For most listeners in 1968 the song simply was hers, which is why the release-order question matters: if the Van Ronk album is a 1968 record, Collins’ was the first commercially available version.