FEATURE: Joni Mitchell at Eighty: Eight Essential and Interesting Albums to Add to Your Collection

FEATURE:

 

 

Joni Mitchell at Eighty

IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell wearing a black short-sleeved dress with several necklaces, November 1968. This image was from a photo shoot for the fashion magazine, Vogue/PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

 

Eight Essential and Interesting Albums to Add to Your Collection

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ON 7th November…

IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell in Amsterdam in 1972/PHOTO CREDIT: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns

the genius Joni Mitchell turns eighty. It is very satisfying that we get to celebrate an eightieth birthday of an artist. Maybe it is because of the longevity of their career and the fact they are still with us but, in the case of the likes of Joni Mitchell and Paul McCartney, they are still making music and are quite active. I am going to put out a couple of other Mitchell features before the big day. Her albums sound perfect on vinyl and physical formats. As we know, her albums were taken off of Spotify – though you can still access them from Apple. More than most albums, her music has this richness and depth that demands vinyl. I am going to select eight of her nineteen studio albums (I don’t think we will ever see a twentieth, although Mitchell has performed live recently) that everyone needs to investigate. I am going to mark them in terms of their essentialness. Selecting four that are classics that one needs to hear on vinyl, two that are great that have that classic potential (and grabbing a C.D. copy is crucial) – and are maybe still underrated –, and a couple of rarer/less-loved/discussed albums that are definitely worth exploring digitally – and, if you like them, maybe investing in the physical equivalent. Special thanks to Joni Mitchell’s official website for all the album information and details (including who played on various tracks). All of Joni Mitchell’s albums are remarkable, although I feel that there are a select few that demonstrate why she is so influential and loved. In the run-up to her eightieth birthday on 7th November, I wanted to celebrate this iconic songwriter. One of the most important artists who has ever lived, below are her golden (silver and bronze) records that you…

NEED in your collection.

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VINYL: “WE ARE GOLDEN…”

 

Ladies of the Canyon

Release Date: April 1970

Label: Reprise/Warner Bros.

Producer: Joni Mitchell

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/joni-mitchell/ladies-of-the-canyon

Standout Tracks: For Free/The Arrangement/Big Yellow Taxi

Players, Dates and Details:

“Ladies Of The Canyon is, mostly, the record on which Mitchell delivers on all of those ambitions, although in some ways it remains a transitional album. While more decorated than Clouds, it is still relatively sparse- half the tracks feature just Mitchell's voice with her own solo instrumental accompaniment. Strings, additional vocals and horns are subtly deployed, but as a rough rule of thumb, it's whenever she chooses the piano as her primary conduit of expression that things start to get really interesting. The way her voice colludes with the instrument brings out astonishing new tonal shades, while her increased proficiency offers not just an increased range of textures, but a new way into her music. On songs such as "Willy", her love-struck hymn to Graham Nash, the music follows the whims of the heart. It ebbs and flows, with its own internal logic, unbound by any formal structure, her accompaniment subtly changing with each new line.

Album Notes

Composed and arranged by Joni Mitchell
Engineered and advised by Henry Lewy
Recorded at A&M Studios, Hollywood, California
Assisted on arrangements for Cello by Don Bagley
Cello played by Teressa Adams
Percussion by Milt Holland
Paul Horn on clarinet and flute
Jim Horn on Baritone Sax
Bop vocal by "The Saskatunes"
Circle Game Chorous by "The Lookout Mountain United Downstairs Choir"
Other vocals, guitar and piano by Joni Mitchell
All music published by Siquomb Pub. Co., 55 Liberty Street, New York, N.Y., 10005
Lyrics copyright by and reprinted with Siquomb's permission
Cover by Joni

Reviews of the album from the Library:

Review:

“Named after hippie music mecca Laurel Canyon, Ladies of the Canyon appears, at first, to emulate the sun-dappled, “free love” milieu of which Mitchell herself became reluctantly emblematic. But contrary to that mecca’s sound and iconography, and to the myriad streaming services and music archives that label Ladies of the Canyon as such (see its entries in AllMusic and Wikipedia, among others), it is not a folk-pop album. Perhaps more daring: it is Mitchell’s earliest expression of the jazz sound she would employ holistically in later LPs, notably The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira, and Mingus.

How is this possible? Boasting environmentalist anthems like “Big Yellow Taxi” and zeitgeist requiems like “Woodstock“, all leading up to her rawest expression of the acoustic sound on Blue the following year, labeling Ladies of the Canyon a jazz album feels extreme, even contrarian.

Then again, what is jazz, at its essence?

Merriam-Webster defines the genre as being characterized by “a loud rhythmic manner…propulsive syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, varying degrees of improvisation, and often deliberate distortions of pitch and timbre”. On overtly jazz and experimental albums like The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, such attributes are immediately noticeable. Loud rhythms, syncopation, improvisation, and so on, do not manifest baldly on Ladies of the Canyon, which opens with “Morning Morgantown”, performed on a rustic guitar with a bright, open piano supporting its strums. Jazz? Not quite.

Track two presents an alternative narrative. ”

For Free” begins with a similar simplicity, before unspooling into a stunning jazz expression. This example denotes what I like to call “tangible employment”, the first of two tactics Mitchell utilizes to infuse the genre. As her contemplative piano bleeds into silence, a striking clarinet solo by Paul Horn takes over, pulling the song into a cerebral U-turn during its final moments. The jazz is direct, tactile, redoubtable, so much that it feels like a mistake. Surely Mitchell did not mean to include such a diversion.

Upon shamelessly revisiting a jazz denouement (this time louder and more elaborate) at the end of “Conversation”, the idea that Mitchell “mistakenly” allowed clarinets, saxophones, and even percussion to slip into her otherwise piano-packed and guitar-laden album proves an underestimation, not only of her diverse artistry, but her self-awareness. She understood her handlers’ attempts at essentializing her sound, and image, into that of the folky, Laurel Canyon poster child. Perhaps

Ladies of the Canyon is Mitchell’s proud, unapologetic wink at her listeners: a calculated middle finger to the industry — a hidden jazz statement wrapped up in flower-power accoutrements.

Of course, that image was not a complete misrepresentation of Mitchell’s creative sensibilities. “Big Yellow Taxi” remains not only a masterpiece of the folk genre, but perhaps the most recognizable song about ecological concerns to emerge from the 20th century. As noted by biographer David Yaffe, “When

Ladies of the Canyon was released, “Big Yellow Taxi” became instantly popular — because its protest message was timely and right, and the song was completely infectious.” Other songs, like “The Priest“, “The Circle Game“, and even the title track, emerge as sophisticated exercises in acoustic music-making that have stood the test of time. Thus, to ultimately call Ladies of the Canyon a jazz album in no way eliminates its undeniable folk qualities. But even in its folkiest excursions, a jazz sensibility remains. This second tactic of genre infusion is what I like to call “spiritual emulation” – PopMatters

Key Cut: Woodstock

Blue

Release Date: 22nd June, 1971

Label: Reprise

Producer: Joni Mitchell

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/joni-mitchell/blue-7

Standout Tracks: Blue/River/A Case of You

Players, Dates and Details:

“Commercial success didn’t sit easy with Joni Mitchell. Clouds had gone gold and brought with it a level of popular appeal that took away some of her everyday liberties. Having finished Ladies Of The Canyon in 1970, she vowed to take a year off, ostensibly to recharge her jaded batteries, but also to escape what she felt was an increasing sense of claustrophobia. “I was being isolated, starting to feel like a bird in a gilded cage,” she explained to Rolling Stone’s Larry LeBlanc. “A certain amount of success cuts you off in a lot of ways. You can’t move freely. I like to live, be on the streets, to be in a crowd…”

In many ways, it signalled the start of Mitchell’s conflicted relationship between art and celebrity. Now that the “black limousine” and “velvet curtain calls” of “For Free” had narrowed into the reality of her own life, she needed to regain her peripheral vision, restore a degree of clarity. Mitchell came to despise show business, declaring fame “a series of misunderstandings surrounding a name”. Not for nothing did David Geffen once tell her: “You’re the only star I ever met that wanted to be ordinary.”

There were major upheavals in Mitchell’s private life, too. Her intense love affair with Graham Nash, which had coincided with an accelerated spurt of productivity from both parties, was nearing its end, resulting in a series of petty squabbles. Against this backdrop, Mitchell decided to head for Europe, where she travelled around Greece, Spain and France. Her main seat of exile was the island of Crete, where she took up residence in a cave amid a hippy community in the fishing village of Matala. It was from here that she sent Nash a telegraph home. He was busy laying a new floor in Mitchell’s kitchen when it landed, it read: “If you hold sand too tightly in your hand, it will run through your fingers. Love, Joan.” “I knew at that point it was truly over between us,” Nash recalled, disconsolately, in his memoir, Wild Tales.

Album Notes

CREDITS
Stephen Stills: Bass & Guitar on "Carey."
James Taylor: Guitar on "California," "All I Want," "A Case of You."
Sneeky Pete: Pedal Steel on "California," "This Flight Tonight."
Russ Kunkel: Drums on "California," "Carey," "A Case of You."
Engineer: Henry Lewy
Art Direction: Gary Burden
Cover Photography: Tim Considine
Recorded at A&M Studios, Los Angeles, California
All Selections copyright 1971, Joni Mitchell Music, Inc. (BMI)
Except "Little Green," copyright 1967 Siquomb Music (BMI)

Reviews of the album from the Library:

Review:

“The last time I saw Joni Mitchell perform was a year and a half ago at Boston's Symphony Hall, in one of her final appearances before she forswore the concert circuit for good. Fragile, giggly and shy, she had the most obvious case of nerves I have ever seen in a professional singer. Her ringing soprano cracked with stage fright and her frightened eyes refused to make contact with the audience. It wasn't until well into the second half of the concert that she settled down and began to enjoy herself; even then it seemed clear that she would have preferred a much smaller audience perhaps a cat by a fireside.

Joni Mitchell's singing, her songwriting, her whole presence give off a feeling of vulnerability that one seldom encounters even in the most arty reaches of the music business. In "For Free," her one song about songwriting, she declared that she sang "for fortune and those velvet curtain calls." But she long ago renounced the curtain calls; and her songs, like James Taylor's, are only incidentally commercial: Her primary purpose is to create something meaningful out of the random moments of pain and pleasure in her life.

In the course of Joni's career, her singing style has remained the same but her basically autobiographical approach to lyrics has grown increasingly explicit. The curious mixture of realism and romance that characterized Joni Mitchell and Clouds (with their sort of "instant traditional" style, so reminiscent of Childe ballads) gradually gave way to the more contemporary pop music modern language of Ladies of the Canyon. Gone now was the occasionally excessive feyness of "Rows and rows of angel hair/And ice cream castles in the air"; in their place was an album that contained six very unromanticized accounts of troubled encounters with men.

Like Ladies, Blue is loaded with specific references to the recent past; it is less picturesque and old-fashioned sounding than Joni's first two albums. It is also the most focused album: Blue is not only a mood and a kind of music, it is also Joni's name for her paramour. The fact that half the songs on the album are about him give it a unity which Ladies lacked. In fact, they are the chief source of strength of this very powerful album.

Several of the lesser cuts on Blue give every indication of having sat in Joni's trunk for some time. The folkie melody of "Little Green" recalls "I Don't Know Where I Stand" from her second album. The pretty, "poetic" lyric is dressed up in such cryptic references that it passeth all understanding. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" is a memoir of Joni's "dark cafe days," cluttered with insignificant detail and reminiscent of the least memorable autobiographical songs on Ladies. "River" is an extended mea culpa that reeks of self-pity ("I'm so hard to handle/I'm so selfish and so sad/Now I've lost the best baby/That I ever had"). Joni's ponderous piano accompaniment verges on a parody of Laura Nyro, especially the melodramatic intro, which is "Jingle Bells" in a minor key. The best of this lot is "My Old Man," a lovely, conventional ballad.

These songs have little or nothing to do with the main theme of the album; developed in the remaining songs, which is the chronicle of Joni, a free lance romantic, searching for a permanent love. She announces this theme in the first line of the first cut, "All I Want": "I am on a lonely road and I am traveling/Looking for something to set me free."

In "This Flight Tonight," "A Case of You," and "Blue," Joni comes to terms with the reality that loneliness is not simply the result of prolonged traveling; the basic problem is that her lover will not give her all she wants. In "This Flight Tonight," Joni has walked out on her man, is flying West on a jet, and now regrets the decision. The lyrics, a clumsy attempt at stream of consciousness, are virtually unsingable and Joni's lyric soprano is hopelessly at odds with the rock and roll tune. But the chorus has just the wispiest trace of Bo Diddley and it sticks with you:

Oh Starbright, starbright

You've got the lovin' that I like, all right

Turn this crazy bird around

I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight.

The beauty of the mysterious and unresolved melody and the expressiveness of the vocal make this song accessible to a general audience. But "Blue," more than any of the other songs, shows Joni to be twice vulnerable: not only is she in pain as a private person, but her calling as an artist commands her to express her despair musically and reveal to an audience of record-buyers:

And yet, despite the title song. Blue is overall the freest, brightest, most cheerfully rhythmic album Joni has yet released. But the change in mood does not mean that Joni's commitment to her own very personal naturalistic style has diminished. More than ever, Joni risks using details that might be construed as trivial in order to paint a vivid self portrait. She refuses to mask her real face behind imagery, as her fellow autobiographers James Taylor and Cat Stevens sometimes do.

In portraying herself so starkly, she has risked the ridiculous to achieve the sublime. The results though are seldom ridiculous; on Blue she has matched her popular music skills with the purity and honesty of what was once called folk music and through the blend she has given us some of the most beautiful moments in recent popular music” – Rolling Stone

Key Cut: Carey

Court and Spark

Release Date: 17th January, 1974

Label: Asylum

Producer: Joni Mitchell

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/joni-mitchell/court-and-spark

Standout Tracks: Court and Spark/Help Me/People's Parties

Players, Dates and Details:

“The year 1973 was relatively quiet for Joni Mitchell, at least as far as the public eye was concerned. She only performed a few times, once at a benefit concert, then a few shows with Neil Young; indeed, much of 1973 would be spent in the studio, finding the right musicians and the right metier for the songs that would make up her next album, 1974's Court And Spark. For anyone who has listened through Joni's first wave of albums in their entirety, the leap from the folk stylings of 1972's For The Roses, with its tentative nods to the pop charts, to the panoramic Court And Spark, is nothing short of startling: it's the career equivalent of a deep, long exhale, as though Mitchell has finally, after five albums, found musicians who fully grasp what she is capable of doing. She still kept contact with her old crew - David Crosby and Graham Nash both tum up on backing vocals - and as with For The Roses, she brings in outliers for exotic touches, such as Jose Feliciano's guitar on "Free Man In Paris", and The Band's Robbie Robertson on "Raised On Robbery". What you take away most from listening to Court And Spark, though, is a massive jolt of confidence to Mitchell's writing- she was doing things, now, that simply no-one else was doing.

Album Notes

Drums and percussion - John Guerin
Bass - Max Bennett (on Trouble Child), Jim Hughart (on People's Parties and Free Man In Paris), Wilton Felder
Chimes (on Court and Spark) - Milt Holland
Woodwinds & reeds - Tom Scott
Trumpet (on Twisted and Trouble Child) - Chuck Findley
Piano - Joni Mitchell
Electric Piano - Joe Sample
Clavinet (on Down To You) - Joni Mitchell
Background voices - Joni Mitchell, David Crosby and Graham Nash (on Free Man In Paris), Susan Webb and David Crosby (on Down To You), Cheech and Chong (on Twisted)
Electric Guitar - Wayne Perkins (on Car On A Hill), Dennis Budimir (on Trouble Child); Robbie Robertson (on Raised on Robbery), Jose Feliciano and Larry Carlton (on Free Man in Paris), Larry Carlton on all others
Joe Sample appears courtesy of The Crusaders and Chisa/Blue Thumb Records Inc.
Larry Carlton appears courtesy of Chisa/Blue Thumb Records Inc.
Jose Feliciano appears courtesy of RCA Records
Cheech & Chong appear courtesy of Ode Records
Robbie Robertson appears courtesy of Capitol Records.
The strings on the 'Same Situation' were arranged by Tom Scott; 'Down To You" arranged by Joni Mitchell and Tom Scott; 'Car On A Hill' arranged by Joni Mitchell
Sound Engineer - Henry Lewy
Mastering Engineer - Bernie Grundman
All songs composed by Joni Mitchell, © 1973 Crazy Crow Music/BMI. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Except 'Twisted,' written by Ross and Grey, © 1965 Prestige Music/BMI. All rights reserved. Used by permission
Art Direction / Design - Anthony Hudson
Photography - Norman Seeff
Cover Painting - Joni Mitchell
© 1974 Asylum Records. Mfg. by Elektra / Asylum / Nonesuch Records, a division of Warner Communications Inc., 15 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10023. Printed USA

Reviews of the album from the Library:

Review:

“Her 1974 commercial break-out, Court and Spark, found her backed by first-call jazz session cats L.A. Express. It was her official severance from folk music. Court is her most pop album and gave her three chart hits, going gold five weeks after its release. Mitchell's production features heavy and sudden multi-tracked swells of her voice that spike melodies like a choir of accusing angels and mimic strings and horns. Her arrangement on "Down to You" (aided by Express bandleader Tom Scott) is stunning in its complexity, yet it never shakes you; it is still utterly a pop song.

Now six albums deep on the topic of love and loss, Court has a marked cynicism. It's a grown up album about arriving at the intractable issues of adult love. "Help Me", which was Mitchell's only top 10 hit, is reluctant about romance; she's "hoping for the future/ And worrying about the past." The refrain is pocked by the dawnlight realizations of that post-free love era: "We love our lovin'/ But not like we love our freedom." For the largeness of her band (which included Joe Sample of the Crusaders, and Larry Carlton, soon to be of every memorable Steely Dan guitar solo) they are nimble throughout; their finesse suited her own” – Pitchfork

Key Cut: Free Man in Paris

The Hissing of Summer Lawns

Release Date: November 1975

Label: Asylum

Producer: Joni Mitchell

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/joni-mitchell/the-hissing-of-summer-lawns

Standout Tracks: Edith and the Kingpin/The Hissing of Summer Lawns/The Boho Dance

Players, Dates and Details:

“The Hissing Of Summer Lawns is many things. It's an exclusive peek behind the curtain of palm trees that protects the super-wealthy and the super-bored. It's a set of 10 musical pieces that are at times melancholy, graceful, fine-woven and inscrutable. It's a dossier of sophisticated observations on women's material victories and defeats as they rely on, resent or revolve around their men. Above all, it's an LP that documents the lives of an endangered species that knows little of worlds beyond its own: the indigenous tribespeople of American suburbia. On the embossed sleeve, Mitchell transposed the giant snake to a fettucine-green landscape that might have been a modern-day urban park. The skyscrapers of a metropolis towered in the distance. Lined up in front of them, occupying the space between the businessmen and the bushmen, a row of bungalows stood like tanks before an army, guarding the city's perimeter. Mitchell's motif of the summer lawn was both impressionistic and sociocultural.

Album Notes

In France They Kiss On Main Street
Background voices - G. Nash, D. Crosby, J. Taylor, and Joni Mitchell
Electric guitar - Robben Ford and Jeff Baxter
Acoustic guitar - Joni Mitchell
Electric piano - Victor Feldman
Drums - John Guerin
Bass - Max Bennett
The Jungle Line
Moog and acoustic guitar - Joni Mitchell
and the warrior drums of Burundi
Edith And The Kingpin
Electric piano - Joe Sample
Electric guitar - Larry Carlton
Acoustic guitar - Joni Mitchell
Bass - Wilton Felder
Drums - John Guerin
Horn - Chuck Findley
Sax and flute - Bud Shank
Don't Interrupt The Sorrow
Acoustic guitars - Joni Mitchell
Electric guitars - Larry Carlton
Dobro - Robben Ford
Bass - Wilton Felder
Drums - John Guerin
Congas - Victor Feldman
Shades Of Scarlet Conquering
Piano - Joni Mitchell
Electric piano and vibes - Victor Feldman
Electric guitar - Larry Carlton
Bass - Max Bennett
Drums - John Guerin
String arrangement - Dale Oehler
The Hissing Of Summer Lawns
Keyboard and percussion - Victor Feldman
Trumpet - Chuck Findley
Sax and Flute - Bud Shank
Guitar - James Taylor
Bass - Max Benett
Arrangement - drums - Moog - John Guerin
The Boho Dance
Keyboards - Joni Mitchell
Bass - Max Bennett
Drums - John Guerin
Flugle horn - Chuck Findley
Bass flute - Bud Shank
Harry's House - Centerpiece
Keyboards - Joe Sample
Guitar - Robben Ford
Trumpets - Chuck Findley
Drums - John Guerin
Bass - Max Bennett
Sweet Bird
Piano and acoustic guitars - Joni Mitchell
Electric guitars - Larry Carlton
Shadows And Light
Arp-Farfisa and voices - Joni Mitchell
This record is a total work conceived graphically, musically, lyrically and accidentally - as a whole. The performances were guided by the given compositional structures and the audibly inspired beauty of every player. The whole unfolded like a mystery. It is not my intention to unravel that mystery for anyone, but rather to offer some additional clues:
"Centerpiece" is a Johnny Mandel-Jon Hendricks tune. John Guerin and I collaborated on "The Hissing Of Summer Lawns." "The Boho Dance" is a Tom Wolfe-ism from the book, "The Painted Word." The poem, "Don't Interrupt The Sorrow" was born around 4 a.m. in a New York loft. Larry Poons seeded it and Bobby Neuwirth was midwife here, but the child filtered thru Genesis at Jackson Lake, Saskatchewan, is rebellious and mystical and insists that its conception was immaculate.
Henry - more than an engineer - Lewy and his assistant Ellis Sorkin, piloted these tapes to their destination; Henry and I mixed them; and Bernie Grundman mastered them at A&M studios in Hollywood.
I drew the cover and designed the package with research help and guidance from Glen Christensen, Electra/Asylum Art Director. The photo is Norman Seeff's.
I would especially like to thank Myrt and Bill Anderson, North Battleford, New York, Saskatoon, Bel-Air, Burbank, Burundi, Orange County, the deep, deep heart of Dixie, Blue, National Geographic Magazine, Helpful Henry The Housewife's Delight - and John Guerin for showing me the root of the chordand where 1 was.
She could see the blue pools in the squinting sun and hear the hissing of summer lawns...
All songs written and composed by Joni Mitchell copyright 1975 by Crazy Crow Music BMI, except "Centerpiece," written and composed by Johnny Mandel and Jon Hendricks and published by Caphryl Music ASCAP copyright 1958 and "The Hissing Of Summer Lawns," written and composed by John Guerin and Joni Mitchell and published by Crazy Crow Music BMI and Man Man's Drum Music ASCAP. All Lyrics reprinted with permission of the publishers. All Rights reserved.
Max Bennett, Robben Ford, Victor Feldman and John Guerin - Courtesy of The L.A. Express - Caribou Records. Larry Carlton, Wilton Felder and Joe Sample - Courtesy of the Jazz Crusaders-ABC-Blue Thumb Records. Graham Nash, Dave Crosby - Courtesy of ABC Records. James Taylor - Courtesy of Waner Bros. Records.

Reviews of the album from the Library:

Review:

“With 1975’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns, the singer’s seventh album, Mitchell leaned into her experimental musical influences with synths and jazz painting the soundscapes. Compared to albums like Ladies of the Canyon, The Hissing of Summer Lawns is much more ambitious in its sonic palette, although this has proved divisive. Yet, the unconventional instrumentation works terrifically alongside Mitchell’s voice, providing greater intrigue and weight to her lyrical explorations. With frenetic jazz bursts and drums played by the African percussion group Drummers of Burundi, the record feels expansive and eclectic, highlighting Mitchell’s ease outside the realms of piano and acoustic guitar.

Lyrically, Mitchell is on top form, often focusing her musings on feminine identity, city life and artistry. With every song, Mitchell uses her words to craft lucid stories which immerse the listener in a specific moment in time. The accompanying instrumentals help to bring these small snapshots to life, resulting in a beautiful and thought-provoking collection of songs.

Opening with ‘In France They Kiss on Main Street’, Mitchell depicts a young girl growing up under the influence of rock and roll’s emergence in the 1950s. With lines like “Feel so wild you could break somebody’s heart/ Just doing the latest dance craze,” the singer encapsulates the intensity of growing up, with simple actions amplified tenfold under the haze of new experiences. “Gail and Louise in those push-up brassieres/ Tight dresses and rhinestone rings, drinking up the band’s beers,” Mitchell sings, crafting a vivid portrait of youth through her observations. The song is accompanied by the occasional electric guitar riff, cleverly uniting form and content.

The following track, ‘The Jungle Line’, takes a slight sonic shift to welcome a sample of the Drummers of Burundi’s percussion, which creates a slightly ominous tone as Mitchell plays a Moog synthesiser alongside. The song stomps forward with a musical intensity like nothing Mitchell had released until this point. Yet, the charging potency of the track works well; it’s one of the record’s most memorable tracks, the demands of its drums forcing us to listen.

Female agency is a central theme of the album, which was released during the midst of second-wave feminism. On ‘Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow’, Mitchell’s pleasant acoustic guitar floats along with steady percussion, allowing her voice to take prominence. She argues for the independence of women, using traditional religious imagery to illuminate the historical subordination of women by men.

Elsewhere, Mitchell explores the relationship between a husband who essentially locks his wife away in a fancy house, keeping her as a decorative object rather than an autonomous being. An underlying terror lies at the heart of the song, with the motif of “the hissing of summer lawns” suggesting an unknown threat – potentially a snake – which evokes further religious imagery. The husband puts up a “barbed wire fence,” retaining his ownership over his wife through “just a little blood of his own” on “every metal thorn.” The symbolism commands the song’s message with power, which culminates in the wife choosing to stay trapped in the relationship, possessing a twisted sense of love for him regardless. Mitchell’s vocals sweep through the background in harmony with gentle saxophones and trumpets, which stand in contrast with the brutal sadness of the narrative.

An album highlight comes in the form of ‘Harry’s House/Centerpiece’, which emphasises the isolation of modern life, commenting on the effects of industrialism and capitalism on people, especially women. While the husband thinks of his wife’s body only in retrospect, preferring her youthful “body oiled and shining,” he soon recognises that he cannot live without her, clinging onto the remnants of their relationship with the realisation “’Cause nothing’s any good without you/ Baby you’re my centrepiece.” Musically, the song has an otherworldly quality, aided by mesmerising trumpets, keys and guitars, which begin to break down with the relationship described by Mitchell, resulting in a stunning, unstable jazz display.

The Hissing of Summer Lawns is a terrific album that sees Mitchell expand her repertoire, unafraid to experiment with bolder sounds. Her lyricism remains tight and contemplative, telling stories with strong social commentary weaved throughout. From the Gone With the Wind-inspired ‘Shades of Scarlett Conquering’ to the gentle acoustic number on the slippage of youth, ‘Sweet Bird’, Mitchell’s seventh album proves her prowess as one of music’s most impressive writers” – Far Out Magazine

Key Cut: In France They Kiss on Main Street

C.D.: “AND I’LL PUT ON SOME SILVER…”

Clouds

Release Date: 1st May, 1969

Label: Reprise

Producers: Joni Mitchell/Paul A. Rothchild

Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Clouds-Joni-Mitchell/dp/B000002KOJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20KRQ4TWBL35B&keywords=joni+mitchell+clouds&qid=1695885303&s=music&sprefix=CLOUDS+%2Cpopular%2C52&sr=1-1

Standout Tracks: Tin Angel/The Gallery/Both Sides, Now

Players, Dates and Details:

“By the time Joni Mitchell released Clouds, in May 1969, the track whose chorus gave the album its name - "Both Sides, Now" - had already been recorded by more than a dozen other artists, with further renditions on the horizon. Its ubiquity was understandable: not only is it a remarkable song but, as Mitchell revealed on March 12, 1967, in an interview for Gene Shay's Folklore Program, "I've been driving everybody crazy by playing it twice and three times a night." She'd only written it "a few days earlier", she added, but within months Judy Collins had cut a version for her Wildflowers album, which, released as a single a year later, took the song into the American Top 10. Frank Sinatra adopted it too, and Camelot star Robert Goulet, while Claudine Longet and Marie Laforet delivered French interpretations. Even Leonard Nimoy took an affectionate, if faltering, crack at it for 1968's The Way I Feel, and its allure has apparently never waned. Including Dexys' cover last year, Mitchell's website currently states that it's been recorded an astonishing 1,480+ times. A standard before Mitchell even put it to tape herself, "Both Sides, Now" is, one might argue, indestructible.

Album Notes

FOR SADIE J. MCKEE
Composed and arranged by Joni Mitchell
Recorded at A&M Studios, Hollywood, California (thank you)
Engineered by Henry Lewy
"Tin Angel" produced by Paul Rothchild
Special thanks to Michael Vossi and Elliott Roberts
All music published by Siquomb Publishing Corp., 55 Liberty Street, New York, N.Y. 10005
Cover art by Joni Mitchell
Art direction: Ed Thrasher

Reviews of the album from the Library:

Review:

“Clouds (1969) is the introduction to Mitchell's real deal, shaking folk tradition and giving off a little humor and spirit. The album sounds casual. Lyrically, she was transitioning from the era's de facto hippie sensualism (colors! the weather! vibes!) to the classically prosodic style (Keats! Cohen!) she'd become known for. The album's biggest signs of life are two of her most famous songs-- the kicky "Chelsea Morning", which is about as straightforward as Mitchell ever got, and "Both Sides Now". Though she'd known burden and heartache plenty by her still-tender age (she'd borne a child alone and in secret after dropping out of art school and married singer Chuck Mitchell in order to make a family; he changed his mind a month later and she put the baby up for adoption) she sounds a bit too young and chipper to be singing about disillusionment. Still, Clouds was a landmark, and she landed a Grammy for Best Folk Performance” – Pitchfork

Key Cut: Chelsea Morning

For the Roses

Release Date: November 1972

Label: Asylum

Producer: Joni Mitchell

Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roses-Joni-Mitchell/dp/B000002GYQ

Standout Tracks: Banquet/For the Roses/Electricity

Players, Dates and Details:

“By Joni's own admission, the brutal self-exposure of Blue took its toll. In 1985, she declared it to be "probably the purest emotional record that I will ever make in my life". That superlative holds still, but what sounds like a simple artistic judgment bears the faint suggestion of a shudder, with a note-to-self attached-never again.

In the latter half of 1971, Mitchell realised that her mental health was being compromised by a combination of factors: her deep, autobiographical questing, the fallout from her breakups with James Taylor and Jackson Browne, the voracious demands of what she felt was an exploitative industry and the public adulation that Blue delivered -to the point where she was cancelling as many shows as she was playing. Even applause she found difficult. As she told Timothy White in Rock Lives: "My animal sense was to run offstage. Many a night I would be out on stage, and the intimacy of the songs against the raucousness of this huge beast that is an audience felt very weird. I was not David to that Goliath." So, at the age of 28, she sold her Laurel Canyon home and retreated to a small stone house - just one room with a loft, "like a monastery" - that she was building on a 40-acre property on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. It was there, in a period of unsettlement, that she wrote most of her fifth album, and her first for Asylum, For The Roses.

Album Notes

This album was added to Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2007.

Woodwinds and Reeds: Tommy Scott
Bass: Wilton Felder
Drums: Russ Kunkel
Percussion: Bobbye Hall
Strings: Bobby Notkoff
Harmonica: Graham Nash
Electric Guitar (Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire): James Burton
Rock 'n' Roll Band (Blonde in the Bleachers): Stephen Stills
Sound and Guidance: Henry Lewy
Recorded at A&M Studios- Hollywood, California
Art Direction/Design: Anthony Hudson
Photography: Joel Bernstein
Direction: The Geffen Roberts Co.
All songs composed by Joni Mitchell
All songs published by Joni Mitchell / BMI
Copyright 1972
Asylum Records, Manufactured by
Atlantic Recording Corporation
1841 Broadway, New York, New York 10023

Reviews of the album from the Library:

Review:

“On For the Roses, Joni Mitchell began to explore jazz and other influences in earnest. As one might expect from a transitional album, there is a lot of stylistic ground explored, including straight folk selections using guitar ("For the Roses") and piano ("Banquet," "See You Sometime," "Lesson in Survival") overtly jazzy numbers ("Barangrill," "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire," and hybrids that cross the two "Let the Wind Carry Me," "Electricity," "Woman of Heart and Mind," "Judgment of the Moon and Stars"). "Blonde in the Bleachers" grafts a rock & roll band coda onto a piano-based singer/songwriter main body. The hit single "You Turn Me on I'm a Radio" is an unusual essay into country-tinged pop, sporting a Dylanesque harmonica solo played by Graham Nash and lush backing vocals. Arrangements here build solidly upon the tentative expansion of scoring first seen in Ladies of the Canyon. "Judgment of the Moon and Stars" and "Let the Wind Carry Me" present lengthy instrumental interludes. The lyrics here are among Mitchell's best, continuing in the vein of gripping honesty and heartfelt depth exhibited on Blue. As always, there are selections about relationship problems, such as "Lesson in Survival," "See You Sometime," and perhaps the best of all her songs in this genre, "Woman of Heart and Mind." "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire" presents a gritty inner-city survival scene, while "Barangrill" winsomely extols the uncomplicated virtues of a roadside truck stop. More than a bridge between great albums, this excellent disc is a top-notch listen in its own right” – AllMusic

Key Cut: You Turn Me On I’m a Radio

DIGITIAL: “HANDY’S CAST IN BRONZE…”

Hejira

Release Date: November 1976

Label: Asylum

Producers: Joni Mitchell/Henry Lewy

Standout Tracks: Furry Sings the Blues/Hejira/Blue Motel Room

Players, Dates and Details:

“The women of The Hissing Of Summer Lawns were always trapped in somebody else's frame. Joni Mitchell only used the first person once on her seventh album; instead, she sang of women as seen through men's eyes, assessed according to their suitability for motherhood, sex and deference. Similarly, Mitchell found herself made into an adjunct when she briefly joined the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975, opening for male artists who were her equal. She approached the tour as a research trip, "an amazing experience, studying mysticism and ego malformation like you wouldn't believe", as she told journalist Timothy White. "Everybody took all of their vices to the Nth degree and came out of it born again, or into AA."

Where these acts were tilting towards the mainstream, by the mid-‘70s, Mitchell was keenly following Marvin Gaye in "moving away from the hit department, to the art department", keen to forge her own rhythms away from rock. In the wake of her split from drummer John Guerin, she was ready to give life the slip for a while.

After the end of the Hissing tour, Mitchell was sojourning at Neil Young's beach house.

Album Notes

COYOTE
Bass Jaco Pastorius
Rhythm guitar Mitchell
Lead guitar Larry Carlton
Percussion Bobbye Hall
AMELIA
Rhythm guitar Mitchell
Lead guitar Larry Carlton
Vibes Victor Feldman
FURRY SINGS THE BLUES
Drums John Guerin
Bass Max Bennett
Harmonica Neil Young
Guitar Mitchell
A STRANGE BOY
Rhythm guitar Mitchell
Lead guitar Larry Carlton
Percussion Bobbye Hall
HEJIRA
Bass Jaco Pastorius
Guitar Mitchell
Percussion Bobbye Hall
Clarinet Abe Most
SONG FOR SHARON
Drums John Guerin
Bass Max Bennett
Vocals & Guitar Mitchell
BLACK CROW
Bass Jaco Pastorius
Rhythm guitar Mitchell
Lead guitar Larry Carlton
BLUE MOTEL ROOM
Bass Chuck Domanico
Drums John Guerin
Acoustic guitar Larry Carlton
Electric guitar Mitchell
REFUGE OF THE ROADS
Bass Jaco Pastorius
Drums John Guerin
Guitar Mitchell
Horns Chuck Findley & Tom Scott
Recorded at A&M Studios in Hollywood by Henry (Inspirational) Lewy
assisted by Steve Katz
Musical Director Mitchell Mixed by Lewy & Mitchell
Mastered by Bernie Grundman
John Guerin, Max Bennett & Victor Feldman appear courtesy of Caribou Records – The L.A. Express
Larry Carlton appears courtesy of ABC/Blue Thumb Records
Jaco Pastorius appears courtesy of Epic Records
Neil Young appears courtesy of Warner Bros. Records, Inc.
Bobbye Hall appears courtesy of 20th Century Records
Tom Scott appears courtesy of Ode Records
Henry Lewy appears courtesy of Nado Lewy
All songs by Mitchell ©1976 Crazy Crow Music (BMI)
All songs used with permission
All rights reserved
Cover design Mitchell
Art Direction Glen Christensen
Photos by Norman Seeff & Joel Bernstein
Photo prints Keith Williamson
Special thanks Toller Cranston
Personal management Elliot Roberts

Reviews of the album from the Library:

Review:

“Blue is probably the most accessible of Mitchell’s records. Each self-contained song tells a story that is matched by an emotion that is equally well pitched. It is about the angst of young love, for the most part. Yet it is with Hejira, her ninth album, that Mitchell had reached a maturity in which her imagination and talent burst the banks of traditional song-writing. She had shaken off the acoustic sound with the 1974 album Court and Spark, and this had increased her popularity. She started to experiment with jazz, a sound that can be heard on her 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns. That experimentation led to the stripped-bare record Hejira, which, unlike its predecessors, was markedly not commercial.

Hejira is 52 minutes long, and yet contains 9 tracks. The title track is almost 7 minutes long and is followed by the epic ‘Song for Sharon’, which is closer to 9 minutes. The majority of the tracks comprise the sound of Mitchell’s guitar (electric and rhythm), and the fretless bass played by jazz musician Jaco Pastorius. Neil Young plays harmonica on ‘Furry Songs the Blues’. The acoustic guitar appears only on one track, ‘Blue Hotel Room’ and the percussion throughout is, for the most part, understated.

Hejira is a contemplative work about travel, as well as the alienation & observation that accompanies the traveller. Mitchell matches the sense of her lyrics perfectly with songs that work at their own pace and are not shaped by the tradition of verse and chorus, and the limitations that lead to radio-play. They do not follow predictable patterns, and because it is not about what appears on the surface, it becomes necessary for the listener to adapt, to really listen. It challenges the sense of what popular music is and can be.

If you think of the music of the mid to late ‘70s, of the pre-punk era, the dominant sound is that of disco. Hejira is not tied to time and trends anything other than the time and trends in Mitchell’s development. It is the most out-of-time of all her records.

Take the track ‘A Strange Boy’, which recalls the singer’s attraction to, and conflict with, a young man she does not feel has reached maturity. There is all the excitement of what playing the rebel with this boy can be. Then there is the tension that results from demanding that he also behave as she thinks he sometimes should, as a grown-up. That tension is mirrored in the percussion, which weaves in and out of a track ruled by electric and rhythm guitar, and in a melody that undulates with the mood of the singer.

What a strange strange boy

He sees the cars as sets of waves

Sequences of mass and space

He sees the damage in my face

The shape of the song, the direction of the song, is determined by the story told by the lyrics. The lead characters are played by the rhythm electric guitars respectively, and the percussion reflects the tension between them. There is a real audacity in writing a song in this manner, which is stripped to its basic components and as a result resonates with feeling.

There is a maturity and idiosyncrasy to Hejira that is not often witnessed in popular music. It is the product of an artist at the peak of her creativity who also knows that after this act of observation she must return to everyday life. This is a statement that not only describes her subject matter but the creative process she has undertaken in bringing the songs to life. As she writes at the end of the title track,

I’m travelling in some vehicle

I’m sitting in some café

A defector from the petty wars

Until love sucks me back that way” – Polari Magazine

Key Cut: Coyote

Taming the Tiger

Release Date: 29th September, 1998

Label: Reprise

Producer: Joni Mitchell

Standout Tracks: Man from Mars/Taming the Tiger/Stay in Touch

Players, Dates and Details:

“For better and worse, nearly every track on Taming The Tiger seems to have been inspired by the possibilities offered by this "virtual guitar". And it's not just in tunings -the same technology can be used to trigger sounds that you'd usually associate with other instruments. For instance, the opening track, "Harlem In Havana" starts with the digital burblings of what sounds like a heavily mutated steel drum, or a marimba. All of these voicings, however, are actually synth sounds being triggered by Mitchell's new digital toy, the VG8. "It's like a marimba," says Mitchell, "but it's not like any marimba part you've ever heard because it's fingerpicked. Meanwhile, the bass string is almost atonal and sounds like a didgeridoo ... " She describes the Roland guitar on the sleeve credits as her "guitar orchestra".

"Harlem In Havana" was apparently inspired by a very young Joni witnessing Leon Claxton's Afro-Cuban circus when it visited her home town of Saskatoon in the '50s. Her parents had forbidden her from visiting, and the lyrics relish the circus's forbidden status ("Hootchie-cootchie! Auntie Ruthie would've cried if she knew we were on the inside!"). Despite recalling an event that happened in the 1950s, the sonic language being used couldn't be more forward looking. "Step right in! Silver spangles, see 'em dangle in the farm boy's eyes", she hollers, the "silver spangles" mirrored by the futuristic metallic sounds made by the synth guitar. It's a curious collision of styles - Brian Blade eases through a swinging shuffle rhythm, Wayne Shorter sprays his soprano sax in the gaps, while Mitchell lays punky thrash guitars over her digital chimes. Absolutely nothing released in 1998 sounded anything like this.

Album Notes

Harlem In Havana
Larry Klein – Bass
Brian Blade – Drums
Wayne Shorter – Sax
Femi Jiya – Barker
Joni Mitchell – Guitar Orchestra, Vocals and Background Vocals
Engineered by Femi Jiya, Dan Marnien and Tony Phillips
Man From Mars
Brian Blade – Drums
Joni Mitchell – Bass, Guitar and Keyboards
Engineered by Femi Jiya, Dan Marnien and Tony Phillips
Love Puts On A New Face
Wayne Shorter – Sax
Greg Leisz – Peddle Steel
Joni Mitchell – Guitar and Keyboards
Engineered by Femi Jiya, Dan Marnien and Tony Phillips
Lead Balloon
Larry Klein – Bass
Brian Blade – Drums
Wayne Shorter – Sax
Michael Landau – Low Lead Guitar
Joni Mitchell – Guitar Orchestra, Vocals and Background Vocals
Engineered by Femi Jiya, Dan Marnien and Tony Phillips
No Apologies
Brian Blade – Drums
Greg Leisz – Peddle Steel
Joni Mitchell - Bass, Guitar and Keyboards
Engineered by Dan Marnien and Tony Phillipsv
Taming The Tiger
Joni Mitchell – Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals
Engineered by Dan Marnien
The Crazy Cries Of Love
Larry Klein – Bass
Brian Blade – Drums
Wayne Shorter – Sax
Greg Leisz – Peddle Steel
Joni Mitchell – Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals and Background Vocals
Engineered by Dan Marnien and Tony Phillips
Stay In Touch
Wayne Shorter – Sax
Joni Mitchell – Guitar and Keyboards
Engineered by Dan Marnien
Face Lift
Wayne Shorter – Sax
Joni Mitchell – Guitar and Keyboards
Engineered by Dan Marnien
My Best To You
Greg Leisz – Peddle Steel
Joni Mitchell – Bass, Percussion and Keyboards
Engineered by Dan Marnien
Tiger Bones
Joni Mitchell – Guitar, Keyboards and Vocals
Engineered by Dan Marnien
All Songs Written, Arranged, and Produced by Joni Mitchell
©1998 Crazy Crow Music ASCAP
All rights administered by
Sony/ATV Music Publishing
8 Music Square West
Nashville, TN 37203
Except "The Crazy Cries Of Love" (Words by Don Freed)
©1994, 1998 Crazy Crow Music ASCAP/Scratchatune Publishing SOCAN
And "My Best To You" Written by Gene Willadsen and Isham Jones
©1942 Forster Music Publishers Inc. ASCAP
Lyrics Reprinted by Permission. All Rights Reserved.
Mixed by Joni Mitchell and Dan Marnien
Art Direction by Joni Mitchell and Robbie Cavolina
Album Photography by Theo Fridlizius
Management by Steve Macklam and Sam Feldman for S.L. Feldman and Associates
Special Thanks to Fred Wallecki and Brian Blade for rekindling my desire to make music.
Thanks to everyone at The Daily Grill for the good food and the good cheer.
Thanks to Edwin and the parking gang for their friendliness and courtesy.
Thanks to Julie Larson for fighting for me and with me.
And special thanks to Kilauren and Marlin just for being in this world.
©1998 Joni Mitchell. Made in U.S.A.

Reviews of the album from the Library:

Review:

“The story of Taming the Tiger begins with a health necessity: Mitchell was a polio survivor at age nine, and has struggled with related back problems ever since — as such, she needed a sound and approach that worked for her physical limitations. As Mitchell recalled in a 1998 conversation with musicologist and her site creator, Wally Breese, “There was a merchant in Los Angeles who knew of my difficulties and knew that this machine was coming along that would solve my tuning problems.”

That machine was the Roland VG-8, a digital guitar processor that allowed her to program her increasingly labyrinthine guitar tunings on the fly. A luthier then made a “wafer-thin,” “two-and-a-half-pound” Stratocaster to go along with the processor, “which not only kind of contours to my body, but also kind of cups up like a bra!” But as Joni Mitchell’s biographer, David Yaffe, put it in Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell, the processor sounded “like a computerized approximation of a guitar with a head cold.” No matter, Mitchell had landed on a dreamy new sound, one that updated her textural work on albums like 1976’s Hejira for a digital age.

Mitchell wrote a set of songs that fit her ambient, drifting new sound. While Turbulent Indigo had a glaring edge to it, from its darkly Van Gogh-referencing cover to its socially critical lyrics, Tiger is down-to-earth and movingly personal. She was no longer lashing out; she was observing her own heartbreak and daily minutiae with candidness and heart.

Take “Man from Mars,” the second track on Tiger, which was originally commissioned as a lost-lover song for the mostly forgotten 1996 music flick Grace of My Heart. It ended up being about Mitchell’s cat, who the song was named after — that’s him on the cover. According to Mitchell’s site, she threw the kitty out for having one too many accidents on the rug — and Man from Mars did not return for some time. “The grief that I felt in his absence coincided with the grief of the character in the movie,” she remembered.

Mitchell also gets lost in the past. “Harlem in Havana” is a dreamy remembrance of a circus that would come through her tiny Canadian hometown of Saskatoon. As Joni explains it, “The thickness of the arrangement, the density of it is an attempt to, in an orderly fashion, create the cacophony and the compressed density of the sound … through the screams of people on the double Ferris wheel.” “Face Lift” explores Mitchell’s relationship with her mother in a series of small moments: pushing a bed up to a candlelit window, seeing the Christmas lights.

But the twin triumphs on Tiger are the quietest. “No Apologies” continues the heavier themes of Indigo: it’s a ripped-from-the-headlines indictment of a rape incident involving servicemen in Okinawa, Japan. But the music isn’t aggressive or didactic; it’s pure melancholy, riding on long, gorgeous trails of lap steel. And the most glacial song of the whole set, “Stay in Touch,” peels apart the meaning of its commonplace title until it’s about any two souls meeting and parting: “In the middle of our time on Earth / We perceive each other.”

The album’s unique atmosphere is just as indebted to its backing ensemble, made up of saxophonist Wayne Shorter, bassist and ex-husband Larry Klein, and legendary session drummer Brian Blade, who’s just as powerful for not appearing on most tracks, letting the glacial, synthesizing sonics envelop” – Billboard

Key Cut: Harlem in Havana

Sam Liddicott