Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

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.

today I learned Joni tunes to 446 Hz because of her Irish heritage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbr78krY9hI

I don't mind scolding and self-righteous when (a) the arrangements and singing are compelling ("Fiction," "Sex Kills," "Dog Eat Dog") (b) I agree with the targets of her scolding and self-righteousness.

xp: corrs unplugged - that youtube is showing as "not available" for me. what's the title?

Oh, regional thing I imagine. That's "Just Like This Train (Live 1995)" from the new (?) Stars to Read live album (which is a nice listen)

I just heard "Paprika Plains" for the first time in quite a while. What an epic tune.

Nazareth's "This Flight Tonight" is really something:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylW6sC6NNhY

Not to go all Steve Hoffman forum but the recent remasters of the first batch of her Asylum albums sound really great, especially The Hissing of Summer Lawns, they breathe new life into the records I've known for so long (and I usually don't pay attention to this stuff). Can't wait for the reissues of freshened up Hejira / DJRD / Mingus / Shadows & Light; hopefully the second part will be released sooner than later.

I really like the remastered Hissing, but I'm so used to the way the (up until now) existing version sounded, very soft like on cassette found in a dusty old car, that it's a little destabilizing to listen to.

I do enjoy hearing those extra details (not to get Hoffman either) things like the edits in and out of Centrepiece being more noticeable now are gonna take a bit of getting used to.

fremer didn't love the remastering (not to get all steve hoffman forum).

https://trackingangle.com/music/joni-mitchell-locked-in-asylum-box

The HDCDs which became the standard issues in about 2005 all sound good to me, but I can’t speak for vinyl issues.

I don't think anyone will mistake this for the Hoffman forum until some right wing nut jumps in and attacks her for some moronic reason. (ex: "Joni Mitchell hates freedom of speech, too?")

The HDCDs came out in the '90s. I was used to those versions and always thought they sounded excellent, but was unusually bowled over by the new vinyl Hissing. (The CD set of the Asylum albums reportedly duplicates a track on Court and Spark due to an indexing error.)

Yeah, Same Situation is repeated, I wonder if they've sorted that yet.

couldn’t have happened to a more fitting song

I finally listened to Dog Eat Dog a fortnight ago and was a bit disappointed as I went in expecting a lot more disjointed (and uptempo) MIDI frippery than I got. The Three Great Stimulants is a real keeper though. And Smokin' (live musique concrete?)

"Fiction" is my keeper: the one time she and the technology are in sync. That sampled EWWW after each example of fiction in the chorus works.

Oh yeah I enjoy that song - and that touch - a lot as well. That was more what I was wanting (maybe my way of saying more like Landing on Water).

The Gershwin Prize:

Among the night’s performers were Mitchell’s former partner Graham Nash, her longtime friend James Taylor, and Brandi Carlile, who is spearheading Mitchell’s big show this summer at the Gorge in George, Washington. Cyndi Lauper led a large group of artists through “Big Yellow Taxi,” while Annie Lennox sang “Both Sides Now.” Marcus Mumford, Diana Krall, Herbie Hancock, Ledisi, and Angélique Kidjo also performed. And at the end of the night, Mitchell herself took the stage to sing Gershwin’s “Summertime” and her own “The Circle Game.” Check out footage from the night below via the CBC and the Associated Press, including performance clips and interviews.

Why is Nash a "former partner" and Taylor a "longtime friend"?

because everybody digs joni.

she never lies iirc

What happened to the two cats in the yard, huh?

They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

More proof that two heads are better than one.

Coyote picked 'em up.

So the night after the Gershwin Prize taping at the Library of Congress, my wife attended the Joni Mitchell discussion there with the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. Joni sang a bit of "Summertime" and "The Circle Game" again. Afterwards my wife is standing outside on the sidewalk glancing at a video on her phone she took of the event. A woman starts chatting to her about the event and Joni Mitchell. It was a Library of Congress special board member and singer Natalie Merchant

Cool, what did they say about that?

"I think Joni was their generation's George Michael! Wouldn't you agree Natalie?"

That's it, exactly.

small talk about enjoying the show, then other stuff - Merchant working on an environmental doc

"I was a free man in Paris."

That's George, I think.

"Marcie's sorrow needs a man," pretty much recited, a warm formula: she needs love/to get laid: this, along with whatever Marcie herself means, as well as can be recalled, about red means this, green means that, as her disquieting sadness or depression or whatever it is thins out the bonds of friendship, of connection---the singer says that someone said they'd seen her somewhere---of knowing, of meaning, of thought and whatever---against thee big gray 1968 sky container of xpost early pressing and original master: (this may not be it, but posted 7 years ago, and seems like it or reasonably close):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTcbhwA02fM

Dammit---that's fab, but this is the right link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQfubxNVljw

From last night, here's Annie Lennox telling Joni how she first learned about her music before performing "Ladies of the Canyon."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYT2vG279IE

(same user has some more videos from the show)

The latest concert: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/11/joni-mitchell-review-gorge-amphitheatre-quincy-washington

Lindsay Z. sez:

... a recognition seemed to ripple through the crowd: Mitchell’s voice had grown even stronger, richer and nimbler in the year since those Newport videos went viral. In that previous performance, Carlile had often guided Mitchell or taken on lead vocal duties herself. But at the Gorge, Mitchell was once again in control.