Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

I love Prince's version of "A Case of You" - it sounds as if it was tossed off in half an hour to meet a deadline, he ditches large parts of it, yet it's still fantastic. Also Joni's cover of her own "Tealeaf Prophecy" on the Herbie Hancock album is currently my favourite track of hers.

relatively new to joni (within past 10 yrs or so) and always struggled to enjoy Heijera

a couple of weeks ago i watched the Jaco doc on Hulu. I didnt know anything about him other than he played on Heijera & was Kind of A Big Deal

i had never really listened to any jazz fusion or anything so the sounds he was throwing out felt somehow distracting, i didnt really much dig fretless bass sound? i guess i just struggled to take it all in, everything she’s doing & everything he’s doing, along with everything else & it all seemed like a sound-jumble

anyway after receiving the necessary ... um... contextualization from the Jaco doc, which i loved - i went back to Heijera & i genuinely enjoyed it for the first time ever! i found it really beautiful & quite groovy (is that ok to say?)

i think it was the line Joni says in the doc (paraphrasing) that it was like they were painting together & complimenting each other’s brush strokes - that was my lighbulb and i was like O_O “ohhhhhhh i get it now!”

i said to Mr Veg that i felt very grown-up lol

One of the things that makes the album work so well is that Jaco only plays on four of nine tracks. He's actually used sparingly but perfectly - it's hard to imagine him on Amelia or Song for Sharon, for instance.

Right? "Song for Sharon" needs the space.

Tempted to say you were righter the first time, VG, but yeah okay I can Music Appreciation Class tolerate him when applied sparingly.

I love Prince's version of "A Case of You"

Same here. I generally prefer Joni's versions of her own songs, especially on Blue, but "A Case of You" is a big exception. (And that's no knock on Joni's recording, it's just that Prince's version is so f-ing amazing.)

from that Guardian interview, with her new cat:

https://i.imgur.com/AntGG0n.jpg

I read that as "from that Guardian interview with her new cat"

also: <3 <3 <3

From the new box set, Joni's live performance of "Urge for Going from 1965(!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ474qQoRIw

An interview with the producer who compiled the Archives set with Joni. He touches on future plans, and I thought this part was cute:

"We did a Rhino festival [The Troubadours of Folk Festival in June 1993] at UCLA that was incredible. Joni did a solo set. She wasn’t really playing live at that time, and it was magical and so human. She was forgetting lines of the songs and she looked out at the audience and someone would yell out the line to her and she’d laugh and sing it. It was really endearing. And then I later found out that the two people in the front row that were screaming the lyrics back at her were Wendy and Lisa"

Really enjoying this box--hope it portends fascinating future volumes. I'm definitely a bigger fan of 'Blue' and after, but I have a real soft spot for the earlier stuff, as my mother (who fancied herself a singer-songwriter) sang me songs of the pre-'Blue' era as lullabies.

I had “The Circle Game” as a regular camp song

CC Who are you listening to? Any of the newer artists who’ve been influenced by you, like Harry Styles or Billie Eilish?

JM I have music. I don’t listen to too much contemporary music. Babyface I’m listening to – that’s about it. Babyface and Leela James.

Wasn't she tight with Prince? I wish he turned her on to better stuff than Babyface.

wat

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ea/f2/bb/eaf2bba60ba0050bf9f6a076289aa891.jpg

My guitar teacher, who has not been tuned in to pop music since the early '80s, really, is obsessed with Babyface's songwriting.

I've lately been (re)discovering Taming the Tiger - which I'd writtten off when I first heard it ~15 years ago as a teen getting into Joni Mitchell because at the time I hated the VG-8 guitar synth sound. I seem to have found a new appreciation for it with age, though. Some very good songs and the sound has aged surprisingly well. There's also a great episode of the Late Era podcast about it:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0sdgc1v4HdBmleGloPihsx?si=-dpGf7jqR6uUfpQz82tC8Q

(Overall I do enjoy her 90s output, though, this was the last one to click for me.)

I would say the best songs on Taming the Tiger ("Man From Mars", "Stay in Touch", "Facelift") are her greatest work post 1977. Turbulent Indigo's mood was so bitter and hostile that it ruined the songs, I think she does better with some optimism in her outlook. With Shine, I felt she was actually starting to lose her grasp on how to create and perform music.

Joni and her dulcimer in the hills of Laurel Canyon in 1970.

Captured by Henry Diltz. pic.twitter.com/IyjLbjXl3S

— Joni Mitchell (@jonimitchell) March 11, 2021

I heard the song "Free Man in Paris" for the first time today

That song evokes being a kid in the back seat going over a quick hill, a rolling feeling in my bottom and tummy. I delighted in it.

just getting around to the Early Years set that came out last year — really good! The folkie stuff is more interesting than you might think and her development from there is kind of astonishing. of course, vol. 2, if it happens, will be even more mind-blowing.

I'm definitely most looking forward to when/if the series gets to '74-77.

I hope Vol. 1 of the archives was a "success" (whatever that means in the post-buying, stream-everything-for-free era). Really, really want to hear further volumes...

same

I don't think Joni or anyone involved with the first set mentioned "copyright protection," but from a strict business standpoint, that would be reason enough to continue.

The fact that she has been so stingy about unreleased material made this box special, nobody could say "oh, I have those already as bonus tracks".

The series will continue, at least according to this:
Joni Mitchell gave a rare interview on Saturday evening at Clive Davis’ virtual Grammy party, where she spoke to the industry mogul about her early career, songwriting, and her legacy.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/joni-mitchell-clive-davis-grammy-party-interview-1170210/

Concurrent with the Archives series that was launched back in September, Rhino's going to remaster Joni's catalog on digital and vinyl, beginning with the first four which is being sold as a set (The Reprise Albums (1968-1971)). They just hit stores, and the biggest change is Joni's debut, Song To A Seagull. She never liked the way it sounded so she's gone back and remixed it, but unfortunately it sounds like complete shit. There's not enough details to confirm the reasons for doing what was done, but it's known that the recording has always been burdened by too much ambience and tape hiss due to the way it was recorded. It's likely that was one of the main things they addressed with the remix because they filtered the shit out of the recording, wiping out every bit of information contained in the higher frequencies. Many have compared it to a poorly compressed mp3 or an ancient Real Audio stream. It's a disappointment any way you cut it. The other three sound all right though - they were simply remastered.

Vinyl copies are having some pressing problems as well. Hoffman forums is all aflutter.

Really too bad about the first album's remix---I carried on upthread about my first encounter w that as a kiddo, and the big open overcast sky of the sound was as suitable for eventually swallowing "Marcie's sorrow" as it was for filtering the intimate details of "Sisotowbell Lane" and the pitches and rolls of "The Dawntreader." Seemed perfect for the shadings of her voice, her guitar, and just a few other sounds now and then. Don't if that might come across on YouTube, but I think if you like her early work at all, it's worth a look at auction and secondhand sites.

Don't *know* if

It's not for everybody---xgau dismissed it in passing early on, as much as he praised most of her 70s albums, and Jessica Hopper did the same while reviewing an import set of JM albums in Pitchfork. But it's one of the few albums by anybody that still plays itself in my head, without warning---others: Highway 61 Revisited, John Wesley Harding, What We Did on Our Holidays--my head has its standards.

i love song to a seagull! idk what version of it i know, but the only copy i've ever had is a second hand one picked up during my time working at a used record shop — presumably it's an original from 1968 or a 70s reissue. and i 100% agree with you dow: the production has always made it stick out in a very unique way. i'm not the biggest fan of sparse joni —much prefer the mid 70's stuff— but have always had a soft spot for the first album because of the stark production.

I like the first album a lot. Ladies of the Canyon is the early album that frustrates me. For Free is meh and Willy is BLECK. It’s got some good jams tho.

Don't much care for "Woodstock" either.

A lot of the "standards" from that early period aren't as memorable as the deeper tracks, and of course of number of them predate the first album.

(Yeah, prob gonna have to get thee box) xpost I was stuck by the apprehensiveness of her version, esp, "We are stardust, we are golden"---going up, giving herself to just that one word, that one high---back down to "and we've got to, get ourselves, back to the garden..." still apprehensive, not quite resolute, like, what the hell will this entail, if it's even possible, in a meaningful way? Especially after Crosby-Nash sickening granola bliss on those very lines.

(Likewise effect of hearing her "Clouds" after Judy Collins' hit, which was okay, but certainly seemed detached, a little wry, and that's about it, by comparison.)

Collins seemed...older, maybe world-weary, JM still in the thick of it.

I somehow missed hearing Woodstock until this past year, when Joni finally clicked with me. I expected to dislike it, assuming that it would be fuzzy wuzzy hippy blergh, but the apprehensive quality of her recording makes it work. Big Yellow Taxi was also new to me. The production makes it work. I feel like I shouldn’t like it, but it’s so damn good. Even her goofy laugh at the end.

I install art at a big museum, and we just had a big David Hockney exhibition. Someone from his studio assisted us and we bonded over Joni. I asked about the photo of Joni and Hockney that was making the rounds and he said that she was a regular at his gallery. Hockney is apparently a massive stoner and I imagine them getting stoned to the bone together.

"Woodstock" is not something that comes to mind when I think of my very favorite Joni Mitchell songs, but I like it, both her version and the one cut by CS&N. (I don't think Déjà Vu is a great album, but it's still their best one and "Woodstock" is one of the more enjoyable cuts.) It's a time capsule, but even as I remain skeptical about the significance and mythology that's been marketed on Woodstock, I never had a problem with the song. It's a good and honest take of what it meant to Joni, and it manages to get the tone right without sounding obnoxious or risible. Her low-key arrangement doesn't make it as radio-friendly as CS&N's version, but it does a better job of drawing me in.

Curious that her song about getting "back to the garden" is, I believe, her only song featuring solo electric piano.

i feel like "Woodstock" is not about how awesome Woodstock was, maybe i have misunderstood

it seems like a combination of celebration and apprehension. As I understand it, she wasn't there, but was responding to news about it, and actually recorded the song while the festival was happening.

A lot of the skepticism in Woodstock comes through in the performance imo, which is why it sounds like an anthem in CSNY's hands and much less so in hers.

You get a hint of it in the "child of god" who opens the song saying
"Think I'll join a rock and roll band
I'll camp out on the land
I'll try and set my soul free."

But if not for those words the rest of it could be read as a pretty straightforward celebration of the hippie ethos, especially if you weren't otherwise familiar with Joni Mitchell.

yeah i'm not thinking just in terms of lyric but in the notes she chooses, the mood of the song, but then also the lyric filtered thru those decisions

also maybe hearing it thru decades of "hippie dream goes sour" songs/writing/movies etc