Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

sweet, sweet failure analysis

An early show, listed as Nov. '66 at the Second Fret in Philly, though someone quoted toward the end of the post says it's from 1967, that she did play there the previous year, but in a duo with her husband, Chuck Mitchell. Could be, since the post also links to an interview from the 1966 gig, where Chuck does a lot of the talking. Anyway, this show is all her, and she does some songs that wouldn't show up on her albums for years--- decades, in some cases:
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1884

In case the tracks go away, here's the original annotations (also transcribed in the Big O post, if this isn't legible enough):

http://www.bigozine2.com/MP3AA/MP314/JMsfret/JMsfretBk.jpg

http://www.bigozine2.com/MP3AA/MP314/JMsfret/JMsfret2.jpg

thank you dow!

Welcolme, stevie. Before she plays "Urge for Going," she says that George Hamilton IV's version is "Number 13 with a bullet," so might be early '67 already, since that's when he got it into the Country Top 10. What a guitarist she is! I suspect the way she rang the changes "influenced" some other songwriters as much as anything else she did.

eh, "welcome," jeez.

her tunings are in any alt-tuning bible by name; she's one of the great acoustic guitarists of the rock era

I like the story from "hotel california" w/Clapton watching her play some tunes at mama cass's house and staring at her hands trying to figure out how the hell she was doing what she was doing.

aero otm

Read this earlier this year - its really excellent
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Girls-Like-Us-Mitchell-Generation/dp/0091899249/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406619092&sr=1-11&keywords=joni+mitchell

Yeah just to second that recommendation, good book

Thirded

Gosh Miles of Aisles is great -- love hearing the band from that era jam out

i've been listening to this really great album recently it's called blue

i didn't know night ride home before everybody got effusive about it, in this thread or a different thread, i don't know. & wow! i listen to it a lot lately. the windfall.

*puts on night ride home again*

"The Windfall" makes me feel a bit uncomfortable actually.

How so, Tim? I haven't heard it. This evening I came across an old tape of acoustic demos for The Hissing of Summer Lawns. She's still working out how to articulate all these dense lines, but I got some of the nuances of her social critiques, which aren't too aloof--she gets pulled into the promenades of "On France They Kiss On Main Street," "Dream Land," "The Boho Dance"---but on first listen, the simple male mind is most smitten by the most simplistic song, "Shades of Scarlett Conquering": sympathetically rendered scenes from the love life of a drama queen, fucked up by the movies--very cinematic, so maybe she just saw the wrong movies. Reminds me of that elegantly deterministic property, "Paul's Case," by Willa Cather. Sound's rough-edged, but no Tom Scott sax on these, yay.

It's only six songs from the finished album, which I haven't heard in ages.

elegantly anti-commodity-fetish property or progressive morality machine, something like that.

Like Mitchell was one of those who though a range of California-associated perspectives (did she date Jerry Brown? Think that was Ronstadt)

"The Windfall" is a blunt character assassination of a former house maid who had sued Joni. Even if the portrayal is accurate the whole exercise reveals a tremendous lack of tact.

Less important, but it's also the only tune that really jars with the compelling seer-crone-priestess vibe she sets up on the album's best songs.

Yes Miles is awesome!

Used to love Miles of Aisles back in the day, and it does have some of her greatest "swoops" and guitar-playing, but even if I like live albums more than he does, Xgau's right that the "jams" as it were are a bit woolly and the song selection does go on a bit.

on first listen night ride home sounds pretty nice! interesting to think about what if this had been the album she had made after hejira instead of don juan's reckless daughter.

my taste for stuff like this (night ride home) sometimes makes me think that i should listen more closely to ani difranco. i've heard plenty of ani's stuff -- my wife is a fan -- but i've never really sat down with it except for in college when i reviewed ani's up up up up up up for dom passantino's alma mater's student newspaper. and i have to say, at the time, i was kind of surprised at how much i was into it.

though this also reminds me, interestingly, of late bobby mcferrin.

Up × 6 isn't even a particularly good Ani album.

But you're right, there's a side of Ani that is very similar to Night Ride Home.

In particular Reckoning, the second disc of Revelling/Reckoning from 2001. This is the title track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvyHD9gJOO4

Box set---which she curated--get tired of this term nowadays, but if anybody does it, you know she does

http://wp-images.emusic.com/assets/2014/10/joni-mitchell.jpg

http://www.wonderingsound.com/news/joni-mitchell-discusses-handpicked-love-many-faces-box-set/

just a new attempt to monetize her catalogue, she puts some of her heart into it but that doesn't make it any less redundant

"What do you mean my royalty checks are getting smaller? How many records am I selling? What?! When did that happen? No one is buying my records anymore? Wait, so you're saying no one is selling any records anymore? Not even Jackson Browne? Wow. What's that? You think I should tour? Yawn, next. Is there some other way to get a paycheck that doesn't involve making new music, or playing live? A boxed set? Cool, let me spend two years on it. Hey, can we get it in that Pono that Neil keeps talking about?"

Mingus 2: Better Git It In Your Pono

wonder how much vertigo you experience in the transition between "car on a hill" and dancin' clown"

"Curated" compilations are p much always useless but I'm in favor of Joni Mitchell making money, even lots of it

i think about joni mitchell a lot. i hope she's feeling okay. i hope one day she feels okay enough to do another tour so i get a chance to see her live. but if not - she should just live + be well.

I hope she's reading this thread, smoking.

yeah I also feel a kind of sympathy/empathy for Joni Mitchell that I don't so much for most famous musicians. Maybe because she seems to give so much of herself to her audience and seems to be so pained, IDK.

Joni Mitchell has revealed some of the details surrounding her four-disc box set Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, a Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced. Originally meant as a tidy best-of compilation, the project took a couple years to complete, as the singer-songwriter tried to construct a clear narrative through handpicked selections from her 17 albums.

i know this is obvious, but it is completely absurd that it would take anyone 2 years to come up with a playlist for a four-disc box set. for her own music! jesus christ joni, just clear out a couple afternoons on your calendar and focus, it doesn't have to be so hard

how involved was she in the sequencing for hits? i've always felt like it's an exceptionally great greatest hits compilation. i'm curious to see how she sequences her career now - which of the early tracks she feels warmest about today. idk. i wouldn't buy the boxset tho esp since i already have every lp so who needs it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2738088/The-secret-torment-Joni-Mitchell-Unflinching-memoir-reveals-reclusive-70s-icon-battles-disease-makes-skin-crawl-haunted-stalkers-heartache-giving-daughter-adoption.html

Morgellons!

i know this is obvious, but it is completely absurd that it would take anyone 2 years to come up with a playlist for a four-disc box set. for her own music! jesus christ joni, just clear out a couple afternoons on your calendar and focus, it doesn't have to be so hard

― Karl Malone

idk have you seen the XTC poll?

maybe joni created a poll for her own songs, submitted a new entry every day for two years, checked in recently to view the results— and blam! box set.

"What do you mean my royalty checks are getting smaller? How many records am I selling? What?! When did that happen? No one is buying my records anymore? Wait, so you're saying no one is selling any records anymore? Not even Jackson Browne? Wow. What's that? You think I should tour? Yawn, next. Is there some other way to get a paycheck that doesn't involve making new music, or playing live? A boxed set? Cool, let me spend two years on it. Hey, can we get it in that Pono that Neil keeps talking about?"

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 6:53 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i do wonder about these geezers who could depend on reliable royalty checks for a few decades and then, fairly suddenly, it all dries up.

like carole king. no doubt she raked in millions every year from publishing royalties alone ("you make me feel like a natural woman" / "you've got a friend" /etc.), and i'm betting the checks have been a lot smaller lately.

on the other hand, maybe michael bay decides to include "porpoise song" in transformers 79 and it's payday again

You know Carole King just had a hit musical based on her life and songs, right?

that's true... maybe she wasn't a good example.

let's take this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Bell

i imagine his royalties from back catalog sales of philly soul have diminished in the past 15 years.

or someone like, uh, neil diamond.

you know what i mean.

never mind.