Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

But she does it better, in part because she's got the music, not just the page.

I like “A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof / Like a dragonfly on a tomb,” but the rest seems a bit too much of a “Little Boxes”–style suburbia critique? I should go listen to the whole song...

Yes the judicious music helps judgmental words: more nuances/gradients of tone.

But yeah the words start at the top

(and not just the roof)

It's a very nice song (or some other, less inadequate, adjective)

I'm listening to "Hejira" now, and I'm really into it! Her phrasing is incredible.

I've had only minor exposure to Mitchell in the past (her discography is somewhat intimidating), but I'm clearly going to have to spend some time with this, and see where it leads me.

At the risk of hyperbole, from Ladies of the Canyon to Mingus is one straight run of greatness, she barely puts a foot wrong.

No, you're dead right there.

Joni sighting:

A reunion for Joni and JT

Mark Shanahan
James Taylor was a long way from his home in the Berkshires this weekend, playing two shows at the venerable Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. And there was something for everyone, from a rousing version of “Mockingbird” — on which opener Sheryl Crow performed the part sung by Carly Simon on the original 1974 recording — to classics such as “Sweet Baby James,” “Fire and Rain,” “You’ve Got a Friend,” “You Can Close Your Eyes,” and even “Something in the Way She Moves,” which JT played for Paul McCartney and George Harrison in 1968 before signing with Apple Records.

But the most precious moment took place off-stage: Singer Joni Mitchell, who’s become something of a recluse of late, made a rare public appearance to say hello to her old friend and onetime lover. The pair shared a tender embrace backstage, and despite reports of health problems in recent years, Mitchell looked terrific with her hair fixed in an exquisite fishtail braid.

have to say just looking at a list of James Taylor's hits make me realize how much I hate the sound of his records

James Taylor sucks as much as Joan Baez

hmm but neither of them suck?

I hate them both tbh, their voices are super-grating to my ears

I can def see how Baez' voice can seem grating but I can also hear how it's pretty perfect

anyway I only really listen to the songs from Sweet Baby James (except the embarrasing I'm a Steam Train song) and Carolina in My Mind, and with Baez I'm all about Diamonds and Rust

her autobio was p cool too

Larry Klein can go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

Does it get better after Night Ride Home or should I call it a day?

y'all suck

what happened

Does it get better after Night Ride Home or should I call it a day?

― Category: Animist Rock (Matt #2), Tuesday, 12 June 2018 6:27 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It doesn't get better but I wouldn't go so far as saying you should call it a day.

Turbulent Indigo has its moments. No one much likes "Sex Kills" but I do.

"Sex Kills" is fine but the main issue with Turbulent Indigo is realising that Joni clearly thought the best song on Night Ride Home was "The Windfall (Everything for Nothing)".

I have to see this new film about her performance at the Isle of Wight festival 1970 where she calmed down a crowd of 600,000 people:
https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2018/09/12/646751133/they-fed-me-to-the-beast-joni-mitchell-at-the-isle-of-wight-festival

Ooh nice. P sure I saw some of the footage of that in the Isle of Wight doc. Her pleas to the crowd are very moving and touching and the whole thing puts the woodstock generation in a very different light than woodstock (granted it's in a different country).

Isn't that the same festival where Leonard Cohen went on at 2am on the last night, and also calmed the crowd?
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/leonard_cohen_brings_a_mob_back_from_the_brink_with_a_spellbinding_set_at_the_1970_isle_of_wight_festival.html

Cogent thoughts about JM's take on life x music interacting w author's take on the two-night musical birthday party & benefit for The Music Center---not usually into Powers' writing these days, but damn (maybe I better check out her new book)https://www.npr.org/2018/11/09/666148055/joni-mitchell-at-75-trouble-is-still-her-muse

Oof, the people at the very top of the thread arguing whether Joni Mitchell was "hot" or not. I guess 2001 was a long time ago...

Just came on here to express my love for Hejira. "Amelia" has been playing here on a loop for the past few days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeaO5UZ5OcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxMwGTQ1bzU

Don't know if it's been posted already but this is a great recap of the genesis of 'Mingus'

That reminds me, while watching Pen15, I thought, "Hm, Maya's dad is supposed to be a drummer who makes his living...in a touring Steely Dan cover band? Something about that sounds off." Then I looked it up and hey! Her dad is Peter Erskine!

So I work in a WeWork facility. There’s music playing constantly in the common areas. A few days ago it must have been singer-songwriter day. Carey came on at one point. I don’t think it’s possible to concentrate on work while Joni is singing. Too good to fade into the background.

nice tribute video where musicians, producers and actors choose their fave joni lines:
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/773069289/we-live-in-the-time-of-joni-mitchell-brandi-carlile-turns-blue-into-repertoire?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=music

Er....

https://www.rockers.de/cover/1024/156762a.jpg

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37781800

The singer Joni Mitchell startled her friends by appearing at a Halloween party 40 years ago disguised as a black man in pimp-like garb. It would be unacceptable today but times were different then, her friends argue. Others disagree. Whichever view you take, her black alter ego was a reflection of her intense identification with black music, writes Kris Griffiths.

It's Halloween 1976, and eminent session bassist Leland Sklar is throwing a fancy dress party at his Los Angeles home for fellow musicians and record industry types, including producer Peter Asher and drummer Russ Kunkel, who would later appear in This Is Spinal Tap.

However there's one lone guest loitering in the background, whom no-one seems to know, everyone thinking he's someone else's friend - a svelte black man in a zoot suit with matching chapeau, meticulous afro, wide moustache and big, dark shades.

While everyone has brought wives and partners, this pimp-like character has slunk in unaccompanied without introducing himself, and appears content to observe proceedings quietly from the corner after helping himself to the buffet.

Rock photographer Henry Diltz, more used to shooting the likes of Hendrix and Zappa, inadvertently captures the besuited wallflower on film, while snapping his own gypsy-costumed wife. The gatecrasher looks startled in the light of his flash.

Not long afterwards the host, Sklar - still oblivious to this guest's identity despite asking around - finally approaches and asks if he's at the right party.

Only then, does the interloper remove his sunglasses and wig, revealing his true identity: It's Joni Mitchell, world-famous folk music star, a week away from her 33rd birthday.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/135F7/production/_92115397_jonipartyhigher-res-2.jpg

Maybe it's a Canadian thing.

i heard about this a couple of months ago and thought "what? she's not in blackface on that cover" then i read a bit further and looked again and oh jeez Joni really?

Well, I'll be damned

The album jacket is a photomontage and includes three photographs of Mitchell. In the foreground she is in blackface as her "reputed alter ego, a black hipster named Art Nouveau."

So the little kid is her too?

Won't even ask about the naked person.

"a reflection of her intense identification with black music" yeah I'm sure many white minstrel performers felt the same way

I missed this at the time but it's somehow both disappointing and unsurprising, has she said anything about it?

The Making of the Don Juan's Reckless Daughter Cover
by Angela LaGreca
Rock Photo
June 1985

"In the song, Don Juan is really the art of the tongue, it's rapping - coffee house poet talk," says Joni who dressed up as a black guy for the LP's cover and sleeve. That's her too, underneath the Indian garb. The shooting sessions were upbeat, with Joni trying on different dresses and dancing around while Norman Seeff clicked away. When he asked for another change of clothes, he hardly recognized the black character that strutted from the dressing room five minutes later. "At that point, I realized I really enjoy character acting," she says.

Working again with the Camera Lucida (Lucy) machine, Joni arranged the photos agreed upon from the sessions: she blew up the shot of her as the black guy and put it in the foreground; she liked the spirit of the shot with the top hat because it symbolized what she felt was the 'magic' on the album; and she included the shot of a kid who'd been in a session for a previous album. "He was shy and had never danced before, that's why he's looking at his feet," she says. But to her, the elements were not "homogenized" enough to be the final cover shot.

When she noticed a postcard of a nude with a Mickey Mouse hat and balloons on a bulletin board she felt it was "the element that was like the cherry on the pudding that makes the whole thing come together." She worked it onto the dress, partly obscuring the pubic area and figure of Mickey Mouse (for legal reasons), I added the birds, and then had an airbrusher smooth over the edges of all the photos. She then selected the background colors from the options presented by Glen Christensen, who, she says, has a "wonderful knowledge of inks."

According to Joni, most reviews of the album missed its point: "Basically it has to do with turning your back on America and heading into the Third World...at the time Muslims were messing around in Washington, there were radical tensions. I was disillusioned. The songs on the album have a lot of ethnic references and there's a certain sentimentality for the North American Indian."

I thought everyone knew about this, certainly Joni Mitchell fans should have known, I just assumed they were too embarrassed to talk about it.

#cancelled

Can we just cancel side 3 of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter? Takes it down to a good single album without either the filler tracks or Jaco Pastorius on bongos.

But but but..."Dreamland"!

ew

I'd keep:

Talk to Me
the title track
Jericho
maaaaybe Paprika Plains

I keep hoping "The Silky Veins of Ardor" will transform into an arrangement as mysterious and sinuous as its title, but I'll keep it.

I have to say Hejira -> Don Juan is a drop in quality as sudden as Sabotage -> Technical Ecstasy, but at least you have cocaine to blame for that one. Maybe this too, I dunno.