Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

oh my God, the "Just Like This Train." so nice to see the playing & the guitar foregrounded, for the music to be centered.

It's something to see Wynonna just show up next to Joni Mitchell, as if it wasn't something you'd expect to see on the unexpected famous people together thread. Maybe it's the Emmylou, Linda, Nicolette connection, but it's something with those Laurel Canyon folks. Like, here's James Taylor and I dunno, Alan Jackson together. Not a care in the world.

There was an account of one of those Joni Jams in LA Times last year that kind of explains how they came to be and how they rekindled her interest in music in recent years:

It is a Saturday night in late May, and Joni Mitchell finds a seat in her living room, a high-ceilinged space with a pool table, an array of guitars, a grand piano and a generous collection of her paintings. Her face is filled with promise and a touch of mischief. Tonight is the latest edition of “Joni’s Jam,” the first since the world opened up a bit.

In 2018, in town for a show, singer-songwriter Eric Andersen had visited Mitchell’s Bel-Air home with his band. The house was quiet then. It was just a few years after the sudden brain aneurysm that stilled Mitchell’s voice and brought her the medical verdict that she’d likely never walk again. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that. After being diagnosed with polio at age 9, she declared she’d walk again. Sixty-one years later, at a similar crossroads, she vowed the same thing. Often asked if she’d sing again though, Mitchell’s response was usually less promising. A smile, a small shake of the head.

“Oh, that’s gone,” she’d say, meaning her voice.

But Andersen played live music in her living room that night, and while Mitchell’s voice was absent, it was the sound of musicians and the camaraderie that this self-professed “rowdy” missed. Not long after that, at a dinner with a friend, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, Mitchell suggested she help round up some musicians for a more regular jam session. “Joni’s Jam” would occur from time to time, always with a small group of musician friends like Chaka Khan or Herbie Hancock and maybe some of the “young’uns” who’d wanted to blend in and meet her, like Harry Styles. Joni’s only motto: “Park your pistols at the door.” That meant no phones or video and only one photo — a group shot at the end of the night.

“All right, here we go,” announces Carlile, here for tonight’s jam. She’s flanked by her guitar-and-bass accompanists Tim and Phil Hanseroth. Also present: Elton John, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig from Lucius, singer-songwriter Charlie Puth, musician-bandleader Rick Whitfield and pianist Ben Lusher, along with spouses and Laessig’s newborn baby, Oscar. Carlile kicks off the evening with her version of “Carey,” the signature song from Mitchell’s most beloved album, “Blue.”

Six feet away is the artist-composer herself. As Carlile jauntily offers the song with true fan fervor, a warm and familiar voice joins in when the chorus arrives.

“Oh, you’re a mean old daddy,” sings Joni Mitchell, “but I like you … fine.”

There are whoops and hollers, and nearby on the sofa with husband David Furnish, John shares a look of joyful surprise with the others. That voice. She’s singing again. Soon after, John joins Puth for a stirring version of his own “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” Lucius sings a new song, and Carlile does the same, along with her show-stopper “The Joke.” Near the end of the evening, John serenades Mitchell with a burnished, world-wise version of “Moon River.” “I just want to say,” he’d announced earlier, “this is such a gift to see you doing so well. And to be here, and to tell you how much we love you. … We just love you.”

A goosebumps evening to be sure, but it’s the rousing version of Mitchell singing “Blue’s” “All I Want” with Carlile that might linger longest. “I am on a lonely road, and I am traveling, traveling, traveling.” She wrote the song long ago, but she doesn’t sound lonely tonight.

A couple of nights later, over a rustic dinner featuring Mitchell’s own “Saskatoon stew,” she is still glowing from the event that filled her living room with song. Or perhaps it is the robust physical therapy and swimming session she’s just come from.

“It was a fun evening,” says Mitchell. “I wasn’t sure I would be able to sing. I have no soprano left, just a low alto,” she explains. “The spirit moved me. I forgave myself for my lack of talent.” She laughs. “I’m still playing little clubs.”

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-06-20/joni-mitchell-cameron-crowe-50th-anniversary-blue

That's wonderful, thanks!

xpost Wynonna's been into this frequently electric blues-folk-rockish thang for quite a while, for inst with her band The Big Noise and otherwise---here's her 2020 quarantine EP (my comments on the Scene ballot: my fave is "Ramble On Rose"---would like to hear her do an alb of Dead, or at least "Ripple" and "New Speedway Boogie," both of which would fit rat in here: https://wynonna.bandcamp.com/album/recollections

Recollections, the captivating new EP from Wynonna, marks both a literal and a figurative homecoming for the GRAMMY-winning songstress who recorded much of the collection while quarantining on her Tennessee farm in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Forced off the road for the first time in years, she found herself reconnecting with her roots as she sang once again for the sheer joy of it, performing a series of loose and lively covers with her husband, former Highway 101 drummer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Cactus Moser.

The gritty "King Bee," a half-century-old blues tune Wynonna and Moser have been performing live together for years, gets an extra boost of swagger from the couple's palpable chemistry, with Wynonna bouncing swampy, distorted harmonica riffs off of her husband's searing slide guitar. " 'King Bee' reminds me of why I love the blues so much," Wynonna said.

"I've learned a lot being at home these last few months," Wynonna reflects. "When there's no touring, no concerts, no band, no lights, no action, all that's left is you and the song. All that's left is your gift."

'Recollections' EP

1. I Hear You Knocking (Fats Domino)

2. King Bee (Slim Harpo)

3. Feeling Good (Nina Simone)

4. Angel From Montgomery (John Prine)

5. Ramble On Rose (Grateful Dead)

Brandi Carlile talks about the first time she was invited to Joni's house in her book from a year or two back. The gatherings existed well before Carlile was invited to them but she sure seems to have become passionate about them! btw if you're a fan of Brandi Carlile the audio version of her book is quite good.

She did an episode of "Song Exploder" recently where she talked about making her song "You and Me and the Rock." She acknowledges an enormous debt to Joni. The song in particular was inspired by "All I Want."

So I see the song through, and I just took the unmixed version of that song
straight to Joni's house, have a glass of wine, and play her the song. And I told
her everything that I've said today. You know, she nodded, but she didn't offer
any commentary. And she said, “Alright, well, let's hear it then.” And so, we go
into the living room, and I put it on, and she's leaned forward in her chair with
her wine in her hand. And she’s kind of grooving to it a little bit, and I'm
watching, and I'm just thinking like, “Oh my God, what's she going to say? This
thing's going to end, and she's going to look at me, and she's going to say, you
know, “You're too old to do this. You need to carve out your own path,” or
something that would, you know, destabilize me.” And the song ends,
(Music fades)
Brandi: and she looks up at me, and she smiles, and she goes, “Sounds like a hit
(laughter)

https://songexploder.net/brandi-carlile

http://songexploder.net/transcripts/brandi-carlile-transcript.pdf

"You and Me ON the Rock." D'oh.

yeah, that particular song is quite Joni-ish

"You're too old to do this" = lol

Brandi is pretty awesome. Good example of someone whose music is good (not life-changing) to begin with, but it's elevated by everything else about her - her shows, her personality, her activism, stuff like this...

i'm probably underselling her best work there, fwiw ... i can imagine "The Joke" has probably changed some lives.

I just love the image. She plays her song for her hero, is nervous as hell, thinking she's going to be judged harshly by this musical legend, and her verdict is, "Sounds like a hit."

Brandi is pretty awesome. Good example of someone whose music is good (not life-changing) to begin with, but it's elevated by everything else about her - her shows, her personality, her activism, stuff like this...

― alpine static, Tuesday, July 26, 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Agree.

yeah i think anything she was doing onstage w Joni was borne of being supportive, being a fan, loving the music & idk maybe just reassuring Joni like hey we got u

like she’s not a showboater & she wouldn’t ever deliberately upstage anyone so however self-serving it may have looked at first glance is def not what was going on

In the first few posts on this thread, it's odd how some people are dismissive of JM. I find that strange, and maybe it would be less likely to happen now.

idk that she was really out of fashion then or anything but her stock has certainly gone way up in the last two decades

I think the opening dismissive posts are a combination of nascent poptimism going in for a bit of the old epater les rockistes, plus some common or garden misogyny.

In that context I'm relatively glad to see this (hadn't noticed it before):

'My Old Man' (Blue) astonishes me. I used to hear it as a kid, and rediscovering it recently made me shiver with - with memory, nostalgia, something recovered, I suppose; but also with what felt like its innate qualities, the extraordinary intuitive suppleness of the melody, her delivery of it, the plangency of the piano chords. The one thing that let me down was reading the lyrics (I'd not really made them out from listening), which didn't measure up to the sheer emotional charge of the pure aural experience at all.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, April 18, 2001

Never could understand nascent, or other, poptimism, really.

I'm really happy for Joni's reappraisal, but I always thought she had a devoted and formidable support base. I got the impression it was more like the world at large was kind of blowing her off, and it wasn't until she disappeared for a while that people finally woke up. It's similar to Bowie, like when people realized she was having health problems and that maybe they may not see her anymore, much less sing anymore, you suddenly had more high profile movies and TV shows featuring her music and more high profile covers, and from there the momentum kept building. Long overdue, I'm glad she was able to recover and see all this for herself.

From reading threads from the early days of this board, it seems there was much more of a tendency for everyone to comment on everything, whether they liked it (or understood it) or not. Getting everybody's opinion on everything was more of a priority.

I think it has a lot to do with her becoming big in the early 70s rather than early 80s and therefore she was basically asking to be taken down

A lot of insecurity and hot takes around 60s/early 70s classic rock canon

Good observation by poster Halfway there but you!

Having been part of it all, I can confirm that this was somewhat the case.

This is probably buried somewhere in WXRT's archives, but I remember some '00s episode of Sound Opinions where Jim DeRogatis mentioned that Joni would pop up in so many interviews with everyone from Prince to some death metal guitarist or a DJ or whatever, everything you can imagine, and they would mention Joni as one of their very biggest inspirations. Like she appealed to so many very different people in a big way.

Yep. I'm always amused by how many white people are surprised by the devotion of her Black fans.

a smarter person than myself said something very cliche about music being a universal language for all people.

also can confirm: several years working in music retail (corporate + independent) made it very clear that joni has cred with every niche and subscene in existence. and with good reason.

See Greg Tate, "How Black Is Joni Mitchell?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPHl6PcutH4

Hejira destroying me again this morning, as it always does. For some reason the vocal on "Amelia" is very present, the tiny falterings and phrasings are so moving.

just a false alarm

hejira on my personal goat shortlist

Between the start of ILM and now, I've had own turnaround on Joni. I probably never said anything dismissive about her here or elsewhere, but I just didn't get it. One day a few years ago, I decided to try out the Dog Eat Dog album to see what she was up to in the 80s and GODDAM it finally clicked. Went back and could appreciate all the prior work like I never had before. Probably not how most people come around, but it worked out that way for me.

same

ewhen i turned the corner on her (5+ years ago now, what is time idk) even ghe. I still didnt get Heijera at all - last year i watched a Jaco documentary & was like WAIT omgomg i get it now

when I started collecting records I borrowed my mom's crate of old records, maybe 30-40 albums, collected haphazardly in the 70s

among them was Hejira, and it looked to me like a minor album, I hadn't heard of it before, it was probably nothing special, but oh well it was the only Joni album I had, put it on and I was just floored, had never heard anything like it

all time favorite

New 72-75 box set coming out

I didn't get into Heijera right away, partly because I knew "Coyote" from The Last Waltz - in retrospect that wasn't a great way to discover the song. The album really feels best appreciated as an album rather than broken down by track.

Jaco is really great on it. It was an inspired choice to have him on there, and he's also good on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (which is flawed but IMHO could've been a fairly solid single LP if they dropped some of the tracks). I actually prefer hearing Jaco on Joni's albums rather than the Weather Report records that made his name. (I love Mysterious Traveller and some of the earlier stuff, but as their music gradually transformed into Heavy Weather, my interest declined with it.)

Jaco makes those songs but yeah the only other stuff of his I can get behind is Metheny’s Bright Sized Life (recommended for Hejira fans)

Jaco's debut solo album is really nice too, features Herbie Hancock on most of the tracks.

Jaco is a great foil, for sure, and the record sounds amazing, but Joni’s brilliance has always been the topline melody and phrasing which skitter and slide over the music.

Oh God, yes, her phrasing.

Just the way she says "Behind the popular soooongg" gives me chills.

*the way she sings

jaco is good as fuck

if anyone wants peak joni`n`jaco, mingus is pretty alright.

I've been obsessing over "Car on a Hill" for some time now.

Joni talked in the Jaco documentary i watched (the Robert Trujillo one that came out a couple years ago) about how working with Jaco was like they were painting on a canvas together, they were each painting with different color, diff brushstrokes but ultimately creating the same thing together

i may be misremembering & horribly paraphrasing as its been a while since i watched but just that idea of him as a brushstroke was the spark for me that helped me “get it” bc before that i was very stuck on not liking the ~sound~ of his bass & v new to his kind of music & free jazz etc etc so i wasn’t really hearing him terms of the whole song until she said that? then i was like WHOA ok YES
idk hard to explain

There are very, very few instruments I can’t stand the sound of, and the electric fretless bass guitar is one of them. But Hejira is one of my all-time favorite records, at least in part due to Jaco’s playing. I don’t like him on anything else he’s played on. Shrug emoji.

^^ Same.

And after listening to Hejira the first or fourth time, I resigned myself to being all wrong about Jaco. Went back and listened to some of his other stuff. Relieved to find that nope, it's just him with Joni that I can take for more than five minutes.

Even for a fretless bass Jaco's tone is very specific, I think it's the bridge pickup of a Fender Jazz turned all the way up and the neck pickup turned all the way down. Not my favorite tone, but hey, he owned it.

Just to underline Jaco's singularity, imagine Pino Palladino in his stead.

Same here on the fretless bass. What is it about that sound that sucks so bad? I put off listening to Hejira for a while because I expected it to bother me but it fits with the music just right.

Lou Reed's later stuff has a lot of problems, but Fernando Saunders makes it unlistenable.

It sounds like liquid.

it sounds like this

https://tenor.com/qkcC.gif

ugh

it sounds like this
https://c.tenor.com/xvtjWxR-looAAAAS/when-harry-met-sally-billy-crystal.gif

Fretless bass is great you are all heathens