Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

Arcade Fire? Kinda boring, but maybe with the right material---? that's one of the best things that can happen on tribs: when somebody you've written off rises to the occasion, finally not culturally deprived by their own songs.

Re-unite Northern Lights!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_Are_Not_Enough

Sarah McLachlan has already recorded covers of "Blue" and "River".

https://i.imgur.com/409bJBn.jpg

Please tell me there was a Randy Bachman stamp.

Hah! Anybody ever see that SNL sketch, Amerida, a parody of Amerika where it's the Canadians who takeover America? "Stay tuned for Late Night with Gordon Lightfoot..."

“Oh, just relax and have a nice cold Labatts.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Garden?wprov=sfla1

Canadian Joni tribute album.

Cameron Crowe was interviewed by Rolling Stone about Joni Mitchell and this was very sweet:

“Joni has a childlike appreciation of what’s going on right now,” says writer/director Cameron Crowe, who first interviewed Mitchell for Rolling Stone in 1979, and has spent time with her recently. “She’s having the experience that few people have that came that close to dying – she actually can see what it would have been like for people to have lost her, and see them express how much she means to them. And it’s enormously moving to her.”

Man, what kind of children has Cameron Crowe been hanging around with.

Just saw this from Keith Strickland in the NY Times' new interview with the B-52s:

[Ricky Wilson] removed the G string from his guitar, which eliminates some of the midrange frequencies, and he played with only five strings. That happened by accident. When I played the guitar, if I broke a string, I wouldn’t change it — I’d just retune the other strings to an open tuning. I liked how it sounded.

One day, Ricky was annoyed because I hadn’t changed a broken string on the guitar. I said, “You should play it like that.” He scoffed it off. But the next time I went to his house, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, playing and laughing. He said, “I’ve just written the most stupid guitar riff you’ve ever heard.” And it was the “Rock Lobster” riff, played on five strings in an open tuning.

He and I were aware of open tunings because we were both big fans of Joni Mitchell, who used them a lot. People always say, “Really? You like Joni?” because our music is nothing like hers. Some of the chords she used were so beautiful, and they sound unresolved. Open tunings offer different color palettes or voicings that might be physically impossible to play in standard tuning.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/arts/music/b-52s-final-tour.html

ha that's awesome, also the G string is a notorious misbehaver re: tuning so fuck it anyway

love the moment in the Rolling Thunder doc when she's playing Coyote (linked recently itt) and Dylan & McGuinn are trying (semi-successfully) to follow her and she kinda scornfully says "it's in G" as an aside while playing

the most electric moment in that film!

b-52's story yet another example of: everybody digs joni. can't argue with that.

the G string is a notorious misbehaver

this is fake news — the g string is a physics-defying psychopath and IT MUST BE STOPPED

also i love the (apocryphal?) anecdote how some of joni's most unique tunings came about out of some form of necessity, i.e. saying "fuck this, i don't care if it's *wrong* it's the only way my song sounds good"

fools, use a wound G instead of the plain abomination

oh friend,

i play flatwounds. i am not a not smart feller.

flats with a wound G, perfect!

sigh.

also i love the (apocryphal?) anecdote how some of joni's most unique tunings came about out of some form of necessity, i.e. saying "fuck this, i don't care if it's *wrong* it's the only way my song sounds good"

I read somewhere this was partly because of lingering after-effects of childhood polio (stretching issues for the fingers I guess), dunno if that's true though.

It's in the 2017 bio.

So if he removed the G string, he's playing with just a gap in the middle of the neck?

https://alchetron.com/cdn/ricky-wilson-american-musician-0bc2aa19-3bc2-46e0-be3d-ba593427425-resize-750.jpeg
fucking legend

there are apocryphal stories that nobody could tune his guitars but him, but I'm not sure how that could be true

Ha! That's so punk...

Has anyone ever described Bob Dylan as "childlike"?

"childish" probably

Infantile

children can be haggard grouches too

xxxp. yes, many times.

always mystified by the math of put Bob down to boost Joni.

It's just weird. I don't think Cameron Crowe would ever describe Dylan, Cohen, et al. as "childlike."

math of put Bob down to boost Joni

Not at all my intent. The use of the adjective just caught my attention. I think it's odd to describe probably the best songwriter of her generation as "childlike." It sounds patronizing (and sexist).

tbf, I hear childlike a lot for other artists, and it's usually framed in a complimentary way, or at least it seemed that way to me.

absolutely. a rare gift when you seen and accomplished all that she has.

Infantile

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, August 11, 2022 9:19 AM bookmarkflaglink

Underrated. Loved "Union Sundown".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q2jiRUVLgI

Dig the lines on her face in self-portrait---as I said way upthread, when I first heard her first album, thee foreboding recall of "I Had A King," there was a sense of an Older Woman (in her 20s!), who had been through things, had carried some of it with her, all the way back to "Sisotobell Lane," and what sounded like memories from childhood, not forgotten in the city (didn't know about her being unwed teen mother, giving baby up for adoption, but that would have fit)

xp Alfred that would be the Yaffe book - is it good?

re childishness,

Just when I think he's foolish and childish and I want him to be manly
I catch my fool and my child needing love and understanding

What a strange strange boy

It sure is. As journalism it's impeccable.

thanks! I'll check it out

Please tell me there was a Randy Bachman stamp.

There was a Guess Who stamp:
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/canada-post-rocks-out-new-stamps-featuring-canadian-bands-512290871.html

We had the Rush and Leonard Cohen ones.

Fuckin pentagrams on the postage stamps!

I guess the Guess Who only got a logo on theirs too because how could you fit both Randy AND Burton on to one postage stamp?

https://i.imgur.com/q6CciS7.gif

With the Roxy tour and Miles comeback box, we've been discussing their 80s---here's one for JM's: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/27/joni-mitchells-80s-how-the-canadian-songwriter-became-a-fearless-futurist-auteur

There's an alternate-history Joni timeline where she ended up duetting with Joe Cocker on Up Where We Belong, so we should be thankful for what we got in the 80s.

Funny how the Guardian article inadvertently reproduces the assumption that Turbulent Indigo was her 'return to form' even in the act of critiquing that notion. 'Night Ride Home' is like 'hey, I'm right here.'

Yeah. could have used an editor's queries here and there---mainly though, did seem timely, what with the 80s of Roxy and Miles being discussed on here, and the new Miles box.

(And I've never having heard most of her 80s albs, am curious now--what's good, bad?)

I also don't think anybody would say that Joni Mitchell "towered over" the 60s.

The better songs on those 80s records took a long time to reveal themselves. I heard them at the time they came out but, even more than her 70s music, it's probably hard for a teenage boy to understand what she's getting at.

(And I've never having heard most of her 80s albs, am curious now--what's good, bad?)

Here's a list I made on another thread:

Post-1980 POX, chronological order:

Chinese Café
You Dream Flat Tires
Good Friends
Impossible Dreamer
My Secret Place
The Beat of Black Wings
Passion Play
Man From Mars
Stay In Touch
Facelift

Nothing from Turbulent Indigo (too chilly) or Shine (uninspired).

What's bad from this era are a lot of finger-pointing songs about societal ills and the media. She'd written songs like this throughout her career, but at this point they became scolding and self-righteous.