Entertainment

JUDY BLUE EYES THE BEATLES

THE art of Judy Collins isn’t easy to explain.

The 69-year-old singer is one of contemporary music’s living legends. She’s a national treasure whose soprano remains shockingly pure, and her own songwriting stays poignant – but her ability to croon other people’s music is where she really excels.

When Paul McCartney advised listeners in “Hey, Jude” to “Take a sad song and make it better,” he could have been talking about this extraordinary diva’s interpretive gift.

Collins – who recorded her first Beatles song, “In My Life,” back in 1967 – returned to the Fab Four songbook on her latest album, “Judy Collins Sings Lennon & McCartney,” which will be the core of her Town Hall recital Friday.

“I’m very fond of Paul, he’s become a friend over the years, and I was pals with Linda. I adored them both,” says Collins.

“A couple of years ago I went to see Paul play at Madison Square Garden, and for the first time since The Beatles’ breakup he was doing the old songs again and people were going nuts. After hearing him sing those songs, I left the Garden thinking, ‘I’ve got to try and do [those tunes] because they’re too good not to do.'”

Call it the “Yesterday” trap; even the best artist can sound cheesy covering The Beatles. But Collins manages to dodge that completely. According to her, there’s no special trick to keeping the music credible and relevant; all you have to do is record only the songs you truly love – “That’s how I bring a song to life,” Collins says.

And as she learned the songs, her appreciation for The Beatles grew.

“I’m extremely faithful to the songwriter, so I study their songs extensively before I’d even think of recording them,” she says.

“The Beatles’ songs are all short, compact works. I never realized how odd they are – not bad odd, but unexpected in the way they’re put together.”

She says this odd quality is apparent in “Norwegian Wood,” one of this week’s featured MPFrees at nypost.com. Collins says she was challenged by The Beatles, adding, “There were things that I wasn’t prepared for.”

She’s also in awe of the universality of the boys from Liverpool.

“These songs are not only great to play live; no matter where you are, everybody knows and loves them,” says the singer, who just returned from a tour of the Pacific Rim nations, including Korea and Japan. “It’s really remarkable.”

While the music of Lennon and McCartney will be the heart of her Town Hall program, fans will be relieved that she also plans to cherry-pick from her 50 other albums. She’ll dust off classics such as “Amazing Grace,” “Both Sides Now” and “Send In the Clowns,” as well as more recent hits like “Wings and an Angel.”

Tickets for Judy Collins are $35 and $40 and available at ticketmaster.com or the Town Hall box office at 123 W. 43rd St.

dan.aquilante@nypost.com