SINGER WRITING AUTOBIOGRAPHY : JUDY COLLINS LOOKS AT LIFE FROM ALL SIDES NOW

For a singer who is considered--and considers herself--primarily an interpreter of others’ songs, Judy Collins has been writing up a storm lately.

Not only has she composed more songs than ever in the last few years, Collins is also wrapping up work on her autobiography, which is targeted for fall publication.

Although only two of her own songs appear on her new “Trust Your Heart” album, scheduled for an April 13 release, the veteran folk-pop vocalist said that working on her autobiography for the last two years also has stimulated her songwriting.

“More and more in my life I find (writing) an outlet that is artistically very satisfying,” Collins, 47, said in a recent phone interview from her business office in New York City.

“When you write a book you learn to write. It’s like recording an album in lots of ways. Of course with a book, you work alone more than when you have all the people around in a recording studio. And you don’t get quite the same instant feedback.

“But when you have this material that is digested and thought about in the context of time that has a beginning, a middle and an end, it does take you through more of a psychic journey than I would have thought. It’s very revealing and very difficult. But writing is another hat for me and I get a tremendous amount out of it.”

After devoting the last four months to writing--”divine time with just the book and me at home, when I didn’t have to set foot on an airplane”--Collins has embarked on a new round of concerts that began Thursday in Tucson and brings her to the Universal Amphitheatre on Sunday.

Even though her own songs may show up in greater numbers on future albums, the angelic-voiced singer doesn’t feel artistically deprived by having spent most of her 25-year recording career covering songs by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Randy Newman, Leonard Cohen, Lennon-McCartney, Stephen Sondheim, Brecht-Weill and others.

“I don’t think it’s necessary for all singers to write all their own songs and very few people can pull it off,” she said. “Let’s be honest, a lot of people do it for the publishing (royalties). But an interpretive singer has a different set of requirements and rarely can you satisfy all of them with your own songs. A great singer is a great singer--Ella Fitzgerald doesn’t need to write her own songs.”

Collins’ new album will be released by Gold Coast Records, a recently formed folk label whose roster also includes Joan Baez and Peter Paul & Mary as well as the Washington Squares, an acoustic trio formed by ex-members of New York punk bands.

“Trust Your Heart” is her first U.S. release since the “Home Again” album in 1984, when she ended an association with Elektra Records that began in 1961.

“They just weren’t for me anymore after almost 25 years. That’s a long time,” Collins said. Gold Coast “is exciting for me because I’m one of their first artists and they are putting a lot of energy into this.”

The new album is actually a hybrid of three separate recording projects. That includes “Moonfall,” Rupert Holmes’ song from the Broadway musical “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”; several songs from “Amazing Grace,” an album released in 1986 in England, Canada and Australia but never in the U.S.; plus other songs newly recorded.

“I’m thrilled with it because it’s got a lot of beautiful songs,” she said. “I’ve finally recorded ‘When You Wish Upon a Star,’ which I’ve been performing for many years. And I had never recorded ‘The Rose,’ (Amanda McBroom’s theme from the film), although I’ve been singing it for a long time.

“There’s something extraordinary about being able to get a song that feels right for you and performing it enough to really learn its structure before recording it. The internal workings of our business so often require new material that it’s rare to get to do that.

“On the other hand,” she said without skipping a beat, “I’m also doing a new Amanda McBroom song, “Dreamin’,” that I think is just wonderful.”