FEATURE:
Joni Mitchell at Eighty
IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell in 2015/PHOTO CREDIT: Norman Jean Roy for New York Magazine
A Case of You: The Artists She Has Inspired
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I will talk more about her legacy…
IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell in New York, November 1968. This image was from a photo shoot for Vogue/PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Robinson/Getty Images
and influence on culture closer to her eightieth birthday on 7th November. I am talking about Joni Mitchell. The Alberta-born icon has had a massive effect on so many artists. I am going to end with a playlist featuring songs from many of the artists she has impacted. In future features, I will highlight her essential albums. Also, there have been some nice reissues and new bits from Joni Mitchell. I am not sure whether we will get another studio album from Mitchell, though there are archived songs being put out that we have not heard:
“Joni has unveiled a never-before-heard song “Like Veils Said Lorraine” today from the forthcoming Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975). Mitchell wrote this song and recorded it as a demo in late 1971/early 1972 at A&M Studios in Hollywood, CA. She explains that this song was a piece of dialogue that happened with the real-estate woman who showed her properties in British Columbia. Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975) is set for release on October 6, 2023 via Rhino. Listen here”.
For the diehard Joni Mitchell fans out there, I would recommend the newly-released Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972–1975). In addition to live recordings, we also get alternate versions from sessions from For the Roses, Court and Spark, and The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Also released from the archives was Blue 50: Demos, Outtakes and Live Tracks From Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 2. Throw into the mix this beauty, At Newport, and we get some contemporary live material from the queen:
“Angels of Newport, let’s make history together,” [Brandi Carlile] said with growing emotion. “Hold nothing back in this moment and please welcome back to the Newport stage for the first time since 1969 . . . Joni Mitchell!”
Mitchell emerged from the side of the stage, swaying smoothly, in fine summer-style with beret and sunglasses. Her good-natured mood instantly set the tone. This performance would be an intimate gathering of friends, not unlike the Joni Jams she’d been hosting in her own living room over the last few years of recovery. Smiling broadly, Mitchell took her on-stage seat alongside Carlile and began the extraordinary performance that was on nobody’s bingo card. Within minutes, the news had rocketed around the globe. Mitchell was back, sparkling with enthusiasm, delivering a tender and passionate set of 13 songs, ending with a joyful sing-along of “The Circle Game.” -Excerpt from the liner notes written by Cameron Crowe”.
It is brilliant that Mitchell is still with us and performing. There was a moment when that might not be the case. She released her seventeenth and last album of original songs, Shine, in 2007. She would give the odd interview and appearances afterwards. The rupture of a brain aneurysm in 2015 led to a long period of recovery and therapy. Mitchell returned to public appearances in 2021, where she accepted several awards in person, including a Kennedy Center Honor in 2021. She performed live for the first time in nine years, with an unannounced appearance the Newport Folk Festival in June 2022. Mitchell performed a headlining show in June 2023 at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State. To celebrate her legacy and the fact she turns eighty in November, I am going to highlight the artists inspired by her. First, earlier this month, American Songwriter highlighted five albums where one can hear and feel Joni Mitchell’s legacy and influence:
“1. Debut – Björk
It’s difficult to find a point of reference for Björk. The Iceland native is so singular in the music scene, she feels like she appeared out of thin air, rather than was formed through her listening habits like the rest of the music community. Nevertheless, Björk often mentions Mitchell when asked who her influences are.
“I really love Joni Mitchell,” she told Pitchfork in 2015. “I think it was that accidental thing in Iceland, where the wrong albums arrive to shore because I was obsessed with Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and Hejira as a teenager. I hear much more of her in those albums. She almost made her own type of music style with those, it’s more a woman’s world.”
Björk could certainly be categorized as someone who makes her own music style as well. Though nof one of her albums lives exactly in the same world as Mitchell’s, you can glean how the folk icon inspired many songs on her album Debut—particularly “Aeroplane.” On the track, Björk deals in acrobatic vocal melodies and meditative songwriting like Mitchell. She also colors the song with jazz elements that are reminiscent of Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns.
2. folklore – Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift has made her love of Mitchell known on a number of occasions. She was even rumored to play Mitchell in a biopic at one point in time.
“She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons,” Swift once told Rolling Stone of “River” and the song’s accompanying album. “I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody’s soul so deeply.”
It’s easy to see where Mitchell has inspired the “Anti-Hero” singer, especially when it comes to her 2020 album folklore. As evident by the title, Swift leans heavily into folky melodies on that record. Pair that sonic flavor with the pensive and narrative lyrics Swift has no trouble churning out and you’ve got a deeply Mitchell-esque project.
3. Blood on the Tracks – Bob Dylan
Mitchell hasn’t just inspired younger artists; she is also a calling card for artists from her own era.
Bob Dylan is one of the most celebrated songwriters of all time and even he heralds Mitchell as an inspiration. Dylan once summed up his admiration for his fellow folky with trademark nonchalance: “Joni’s got a strange sense of rhythm that’s all her own.”
His song “Tangled Up in Blue” has long been thought to have been inspired by Mitchell’s Blue. The track acted as the opener for Dylan’s 1975 album Blood on the Tracks.
4. Little Voice – Sara Bareilles
“Fiona Apple and Joni Mitchell are two of my most favorite role models,” Bareilles once said. “As you can tell by that, I’m a junkie for great lyrics.”
Bareilles’ focus on crafting great lyrics is evident in many of her songs. Pull a Bareilles song out of a hat and there is a 50 percent chance you might be crying by the end of it. If there’s anything the California native knows how to do it is inspire emotion—a skill Mitchell is also adept at.
Certain songs on her 2007 album Little Voice could draw comparisons to Mitchell’s smoky, jazz-steeped album Both Sides Now—particularly “Gravity.”
The song acted as the third and final single from the record and sees Bareilles strip things down to their bare bones. Largely accompanied by just a piano, Bareilles lets her lyrics take center stage.
5. Harry Styles – Harry Styles
Harry Styles is among the few artists that can boast quality time spent with the icon herself.
“I did go to her house for a Christmas carol sing-along one time,” Styles revealed to Youtube personality Nardwuar in 2022. “I wasn’t gonna sing anything, and then Brandi [Carlile] volunteered me to sing ‘River,’ which was one of the more nerve-wracking moments in my life…but it was pretty special.”
Styles, a long-time fan of Mitchell, went so far as to name his latest record after one of her songs, “Harry’s House/Centerpiece.” Though that album makes irrefutable nods to Mitchell, it’s actually his debut album that follows in her footsteps sonically.
There are a few acoustic guitar-driven ballads throughout the self-titled record that instantly recall Mitchell’s ’70s catalog—notably, “Ever Since New York” and “Sweet Creature”.
Prior to getting to that playlist, I want to bring in AllMusic’s biography of the legendary and peerless Joni Mitchell. If you want to get together a Joni Mitchell reading collection, here is a good place to go. There have been some good interviews and live performances though, to my mind, there has not been an authoritative and detailed documentary about her – not for many a year at least! I hope that comes. Also, I wonder whether we’ll ever get a Joni Mitchell biopic. That said, Mitchell has been working on something with Cameron Crowe, so that may take the form of a drama scored by her music:
“A folk singer with a poet's spirit, Joni Mitchell is among music history's most poignant and influential songwriters. A veteran of the '60s folk circuit, Mitchell first came to prominence as a songwriter, composing oft-covered tunes of the era "Chelsea Morning," "The Circle Game," and "Both Sides Now." By the time Judy Collins brought the latter into the charts in 1968, Mitchell had released her David Crosby-produced solo debut, Song to a Seagull. Mitchell became part of Los Angeles' folk-rock scene, but worked from a different compositional aesthetic, utilizing alternate guitar tunings and writing from a stark personal perspective. These qualities shone on Clouds, a self-produced 1969 LP that won the Grammy for Best Folk Performance, setting the stage for her 1971 masterpiece Blue, an album that has served as the cornerstone of introspective singer/songwriter music since the '70s. Mitchell expanded her horizons quickly, working with a collective of L.A. studio musicians on the smooth and pop-minded Court and Spark, the 1974 album that turned into her commercial breakthrough thanks to the Top Ten single "Help Me" and its sequel "Free Man in Paris." From there, she embraced jazz fusion and worldbeat, collaborating with players like Joe Sample and Weather Report's Jaco Pastorius on such revered albums as The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira. Mitchell moved to Geffen in the early '80s where she reckoned with new wave before returning to her impressionistic folk-pop roots for 1994's Turbulent Indigo, which earned her a Grammy Award for Pop Album of the Year. Almost ten years separated 1998's Taming the Tiger and 2007's Shine, her last two studio albums of original material -- but her legacy not only loomed large, it grew as listeners and artists caught up to the innovations she pioneered throughout her career.
Born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort McLeod, Alberta, Canada, on November 7, 1943, she was stricken with polio at the age of nine; while recovering in a children's hospital, she began her performing career by singing to the other patients. After teaching herself to play guitar with the aid of a Pete Seeger instruction book, she went off to art college and became a fixture on the folk music scene around Alberta. After relocating to Toronto, she married folksinger Chuck Mitchell in 1965, and began performing under the name Joni Mitchell.
A year later, the couple moved to Detroit, Michigan, but they separated soon after; Joni remained in the Motor City, however, and won significant press acclaim for her burgeoning songwriting skills and smoky, distinctive vocals, leading to a string of high-profile performances in New York City. There she became a cause célèbre among the media and other performers. After she signed to Reprise in 1967, David Crosby offered to produce her debut record, a self-titled acoustic effort that appeared the following year. Her songs also found great success with other singers: in 1968, Judy Collins scored a major hit with the Mitchell-penned "Both Sides Now," while Fairport Convention covered "Eastern Rain" and Tom Rush recorded "The Circle Game."
Thanks to all of the outside exposure, Mitchell began to earn a strong cult following; her 1969 sophomore effort, Clouds, reached the Top 40, while 1970's Ladies of the Canyon sold even better on the strength of the single "Big Yellow Taxi." It also included her anthemic composition "Woodstock," a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Still, the commercial and critical approval awarded her landmark 1971 record Blue was unprecedented: a luminous, starkly confessional set written primarily during a European vacation, the album firmly established Mitchell as one of pop music's most remarkable and insightful talents.
Predictably, she turned away from Blue's incandescent folk with 1972's For the Roses, the first of the many major stylistic turns she would take over the course of her daring career. Backed by rock-jazz performer Tom Scott, Mitchell's music began moving into more pop-oriented territory, a change typified by the single "You Turn Me On (I'm a Radio)," her first significant hit. The follow-up, 1974's classic Court and Spark, was her most commercially successful outing; a sparkling, jazz-accented set, it reached the number two spot on the U.S. album charts and launched three hit singles -- "Help Me," "Free Man in Paris," and "Raised on Robbery."
After the 1974 live collection Miles of Aisles, Mitchell emerged in 1975 with The Hissing of Summer Lawns, a bold, almost avant-garde record that housed her increasingly complex songs in experimental, jazz-inspired settings. "The Jungle Line" introduced the rhythms of African Burundi drums, placing her far ahead of the pop world's mid-'80s fascination with world music. 1976's Hejira, recorded with Weather Report bassist Jaco Pastorius, smoothed out the music's more difficult edges while employing minimalist techniques. Mitchell later performed the album's first single, "Coyote," at the Band's Last Waltz concert that Thanksgiving.
Her next effort, 1977's two-record set Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, was another ambitious move, a collection of long, largely improvisational pieces recorded with jazz players Larry Carlton and Wayne Shorter, Chaka Khan, and a battery of Latin percussionists. Shortly after the record's release, Mitchell was contacted by the legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus, who invited her to work with him on a musical interpretation of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Mingus, who was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease, sketched out a series of melodies to which Mitchell added lyrics; however, Mingus died on January 5, 1979, before the record was completed. After Mitchell finished their collaboration on her own, she recorded the songs under the title Mingus, which was released the summer after the jazz titan's passing.
Following her second live collection, 1980's Shadows and Light, Mitchell returned to pop territory for 1982's Wild Things Run Fast. The first single, a cover of the Elvis Presley hit "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care," became her first chart single in eight years. Shortly after the album's release, she married bassist/sound engineer Larry Klein, who became a frequent collaborator on much of her subsequent material, including 1985's synth-driven Dog Eat Dog, co-produced by Thomas Dolby. Mitchell's move into electronics continued with 1988's Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, featuring guests Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, and Billy Idol.
Mitchell returned to her roots with 1991's Night Ride Home, a spare, stripped-down collection spotlighting little more than her voice and acoustic guitar. Prior to recording 1994's Turbulent Indigo, she and Klein separated, although he still co-produced the record, which was her most acclaimed work in years. In 1996, she compiled a pair of anthologies, Hits and Misses, which collected Mitchell's chart successes as well as underappreciated favorites. A new studio album, Taming the Tiger, followed in 1998. Both Sides Now, a collection of standards, followed in early 2000.
Two years later, she resurfaced with the double-disc release Travelogue. She announced in October 2002 that this would be her last album ever, as she'd grown tired of the music industry and intended to retire. She did take a break from recording for a few years, but in 2006 she began working on a set of songs that became the 2007 album Shine. Mitchell stepped away from music again in 2009 to focus on health issues.
In 2014, Mitchell helped compile her first box-set anthology, Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced, which featured remastered versions of 53 songs from her back catalog, all dealing with some aspect of love and relationships. A series of releases chronologically charting her evolution with previously unreleased recordings kicked off in October 2020 with Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967). The expansive collection included dozens of songs from home demos, live shows, and radio broadcasts that hadn't been publicly shared up until that point. Exactly a year later, the archival series continued with Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968–1971). This volume of the series focused on the years surrounding Mitchell's first four solo albums for the Reprise label, again including a wealth of unreleased home demos and live material, along with studio outtakes from sessions for classic albums like 1969's Clouds and 1971's incomparable Blue. An unannounced show at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival marked Mitchell's first live appearance in nine years, and the hit-heavy set was released a year later as 2023's Joni Mitchell at Newport. Joining her for the performance were backing vocalists Wynonna Judd, Brandi Carlile, Shooter Jennings, and others, along with notable backing musicians like Blake Mills and Marcus Mumford. The performance gave Mitchell the bug, and subsequent live shows (dubbed "Joni Jams" from that point forward) followed”.
Prior to the magnificent Joni Mitchell turning eighty on 7th November, I will do at least a couple of other features about her. Maybe one that collates the best books to buy. Something relating to her live performances. How she has inspired a generation of female songwriters, perhaps. Below is a playlist of songs from artists who would definitely see Joni Mitchell…
AS a big influence.