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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Hard Times for Lovers

album by Judy Collins

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ5655457 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hard Times for Lovers is the twelfth studio album by American singer and songwriter Judy Collins, released by Elektra Records in 1979.

It was Collins's first new recording since Bread and Roses, in 1976; it earned some extra publicity as a result of the back cover of the Francesco Scavullo-photographed sleeve art, depicting most of a nude Collins as seen from the back. The album was still something of a commercial disappointment, however, peaking at No. 54 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hard Times for Lovers” is album by Judy Collins. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hard, Times and Lovers, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1979, 1976—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1979-02. For this dossier, Hard, Times and Lovers is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “album by Judy Collins” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5655457. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979 and 1976.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hard Times for Lovers”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hard Times for Lovers primary sources, Hard Times for Lovers archive and Hard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hard Times for Lovers”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hard Times for Lovers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.