The new book "Gathered Light: The Poetry of Joni Mitchell's Songs" by Lisa and John Sornberger is now available to order. David Geffen, Larry Klein, (song for) Sharon Veer, Wally Lamb, Richard Flynn, and many others contribute. More details here.
JoniMitchell.com has been bringing you the news on Joni since the day the website went live in 1996. It's all archived and searchable here. In addition to the news, you can find an archive of "upcoming tributes and events" that have been listed on the site as well.
The new book "Gathered Light: The Poetry of Joni Mitchell's Songs" by Lisa and John Sornberger is now available to order. David Geffen, Larry Klein, (song for) Sharon Veer, Wally Lamb, Richard Flynn, and many others contribute. More details here.
Just published! An exclusive JoniMitchell.com interview with Jean Grand-Maitre where he announces, among other things, that a new Joni ballet is to premiere in May 2014. Thanks to Mark Scott for conducting the interview.
Gathered Light: On the Poetry of Joni Mitchell by Lisa and John Sornberger, press release:
Joni Mitchell is one of the greatest poets and songwriters of the late 20th century. For over forty years her powerful lyrics have compelled listeners to dig deeper. This one of a kind collection finally allows even her most passionate fans to do just that.
Gathered Light: On the Poetry of Joni Mitchell, includes more than fifty original contributions by acclaimed writers such as Wally Lamb and Fred Wah, Canada’s poet laureate, as well as some of Mitchell’s long-time friends and creative collaborators. These diverse voices celebrate Mitchell’s poetic craft and offer their insight in the form of original essays, poetry, short fiction, photographs, and collages.
Each contributor shares his or her connection to, interpretation of, and inspiration from their favorite Mitchell poem. Many comment on a larger societal or political issue explored therein. All share their experiences of why Joni’s work has been so important to them, and honor her as a poet and source of inspiration.
According to sources close to her, Joni said was excited about and highly honored by the project... that she felt that it will finally set the record straight; that she is an actual poet. Also, that the individual responses make it "personal" and bring it around to complete the circle. She touched on how much the First Nations’ poets’ presence in our book mattered to her, and that she was pleased with the entire contributors list of poets, writers, artists, and friends.
Gathered Light is the collection that fans of this legendary artist have been waiting for.
Available April, 2013, by Lisa and John Sornberger, from Sumach Press
Time to wish Joni a happy birthday! [expired] 69 years young!
We've received a copy of the new boxed set from Rhino (featuring all studio albums through Mingus) and are pleasantly surprised at the quality. Each CD is an exact replica of the original gatefold LP as released, a nice touch. It's a little tough to read some of the lyrics, downsized as they are into CD packaging, but still, a nice set. The package is to be released on November 6, a day before Joni's birthday. More info here.
Rhino will release a Joni Mitchell box set on 29 October 2012.
The Studio Albums 1968-1979 gathers together Joni’s ten albums from that period, including all the classics such as 1971′s Blue and the acclaimed The Hissing Of Summer Lawns from 1975.
Expect the albums to be housed in simple card sleeves and held in a lift-off lid box. The design of the packaging is likely to be very similar to the Madonna Complete Studio Albums box that came from the same label a few months back (that box held 11 discs). Indeed, the graphic design for the top of this Joni box with the ‘grid’ of album covers is not dissimilar to Madonna’s box.
Albums included in this Joni Mitchell box set are listed below:
• Song To A Seagull (1968)
• Clouds (1969)
• Ladies of the Canyon (1970)
• Blue (1971)
• For The Roses (1972)
• Court and Spark (1974)
• The Hissing Of Summer Lawns (1975)
• Hejira (1976)
• Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977)
• Mingus (1979)
Joni - The Creative Odyssey of Joni Mitchell, the new book by Katherine Monk, is now available for ordering. This new portrait of the reclusive icon examines how significant life events -- failed relationships, the surrender of her infant daughter, debilitating sickness -- have influenced her creative expression. Katherine Monk captures the rich legacy of her multifaceted subject in this offbeat account, weaving in personal reflections and astute cultural observations, and revealing the Mitchell who remains misunderstood.
A new Joni tribute album by Peter Herbert and The Koehne Quartett has been released. Called Joni (12 Songs By Joni Mitchell), we find this to be one of the more unique tribute albums released in the past few years.
David Geffen is reportedly "wooing" Joni to perform a series of shows at his Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Herbie Hancock, is also supposedly encouraging this venture, which could include some of the musicians who worked with Joni back in the day. If all that is planned and hoped for comes about, there will be a concert highlight - a track by track re-creation of Court and Spark album. More info here.
It is with sorrow that we relay the news of William Anderson's passing - Joni's father. Our sincere condolences to Joni and all those lives whom William has touched.
Click here [expired] to leave your birthday wish for Joni!
A new book, tentatively titled "Blazes All Across The Sky: Writers Respond to the Poetry of Joni Mitchell", will be published in Spring 2013 by Three O’Clock Press of Toronto.
According to sources close to her, Joni is excited about the project because it is about her work as a poet, and the creative process itself, and has many incredible contributors, including First Nations authors. They also said she will be contributing to the project in some way herself.
Many authors and artists are involved; some are famous, some friends of Joni. Wally Lamb, Kim Addonizio, and Sharon Veer ("Song for Sharon") are among the cast of contributors, to name a few.
The book is a compilation of original essays, poetry, short fiction, a scene from a new play, and a few original photographs, paintings, and collages.
Each contributor shares his or her connection to, interpretation of, and inspiration from their favorite Mitchell poem. Many comment on a larger societal or political issue explored therein. All share their experiences of why Joni’s work has been so important to them, and in doing so, touch yet transcend the personal.
"Blazes" is the vision of Lisa Sornberger, a poet who created this project to honor Joni as one of the finest poets of our time. "It is my way to say thank you to someone whose work has resonated so deeply, brought me great joy, and solace, and sparked my own creative process. I think I can safely say the other contributors feel similarly."
John Sornberger is Lisa’s co-editor, and brings his talents as a poet, author, editor, and left-brained thinker to the project.
"We expect the result will be a meeting of the minds and hearts of those everywhere who have been moved by Mitchell’s poetry. It is high time Joni got her due as the poet she is", say the Sornbergers.
Does this border on gossip? Perhaps, but it sure is nice to see a recent picture of Joni looking healthy and happy. And, due the lack of Joni news lately, we'll take the risk. Here's Jane Fonda's blog post about her dinner with Joni, Bonnie Raitt, and others on Saturday night.
In an interview published yesterday with filmmaker Laura Archibald [regarding her new film Greenwich Village: The Music that Defined a Scene] she states that she asked Joni to participate in the project. The reply from Joni's management was "Joni wishes you the best of luck, but she doesn't do anything regarding her career any longer." Read the article here.
Bread & Roses Presents: The Fine Art of Music Legends
TWO JONI MITCHELL PIECES INCLUDED
ONE DAY ONLY - SUN, MAY 15, 2011, 4 - 6 pm
Reception & Art Show/Sale
Donna Seager Gallery
851 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA
Preview the art here.
Please join Bread & Roses for a not-to-be-missed one-day benefit sale featuring fine art created by some of the music world’s most extraordinary music legends and curated by renowned gallery owner Donna Seager. Pieces to be shown include two meticulously clean wood block prints from Hejira signed by both Joni Mitchell and print artist Cynthia Marsh; a signed, lithographic self-portrait by Leonard Cohen; an extremely rare, signed Tom Waits photographic triptych; a limited edition thirteen-color and separated serigraph of Jerry Garcia painted by Grace Slick;, a limited edition giclee print by Stanley Mouse featuring the classic skull and roses Grateful Dead art; two hand-printed signed photographs by the late Jim Marshall, a Gary Houston silk screen poster for the Grateful Dead hand signed by Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Jimmy Herring, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzman, Jeff Chimenti, and more.
To bid remotely please email or call Elizabeth Share (415) 945-7120 x113
Bread & Roses brings hope, healing and joy through live music to 28,000 children, teens, adults and elders who are isolated or institutionalized in the San Francisco Bay Area. We do this by presenting 600 live performances each year in hospitals, shelters for the abused and homeless, special needs schools, drug and alcohol rehabs, convalescent homes and more.
"Spoony" wrote with more info on the new SHM CDs: 'As it turns out, it appears they will be more widely available, but still at a heftier price than the standard issue CDs of Joni Mitchell. Amazon
Warner Japan is releasing remastered, repackaged reissues of Joni's back catalog in mini-LP sleeves on April 6th. SHM-CD, or Super High Material CD, is an improved version of the Compact Disc material that uses super quality, enhanced transparency polycarbonate material developed for use in LCD screens. They will play in any CD player. Perhaps these will hit the western hemisphere soon, but for now they seem to only be available in Japan. We'll post more information as we get it. [Thanks to Michelle Mercer for the news]
John Sayles, the Oscar-nominated writer of Passion Fish and Lone Star, has been hired by Sony to adapt Girls Like Us, the 2008 bestseller written by Sheila Weller. First-time feature director Katie Jacobs, a producer and director on the Fox series House, is helming and producing the project, along with Lorenzo DiBonaventura, Amy Pascal and Elizabeth Cantillon. The book traces the personal histories of singer-songwriters Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell and Carole King from childhood through their burgeoning professional careers.
Greystone Books publisher Rob Sanders has acquired world rights to journalist Katherine Monk's Joni Mitchell, a new portrait of the reclusive musical icon. This book taps into Mitchell's evolving philosophy to examine how significant life events like failed relationships, the surrender of her infant daughter, and debilitating sickness have influenced her creative expression. Author Katherine Monk moves beyond standard biography to capture the rich legacy of her multifaceted subject, weaving in personal reflections and cultural observations as she explores everything from Mitchell's lifelong obsession with Nietzsche to her current struggle with Morgellon's syndrome to reveal the Mitchell who remains misunderstood. More info here.
Michelle Mercer, author of Will You Take Me As I Am, has posted an audio clip of a conversation with Joni on her Facebook page [listen to the clip here]. Of the clip, Michelle writes: In honor of Joni Mitchell's birthday, a brief excerpt from one of our marathon phone conversations. Joan discusses the journey behind Hejira, the effect of her meeting with the Tibetan lama Chogyam Trungpa, and "Refuge of the Roads."
Leave a birthday greeting for Joni here... [expired]
NEW YORK, NY.- Newly established publisher/editor Thurston Moore (founding member of Sonic Youth) is ecstatic to present as lead title in his first fall season: a luxury format, hardcover volume of the sumptuous photography taken by his favorite American music photojournalist, James Hamilton, entitled: You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen (Ecstatic Peace Library; November 2010)
James Hamilton's portraits of music world luminaries, reveal a previously unearthed master photographer, with compelling and rarely seen images of visionaries and artists from Madonna and Nico to Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. This very first book devoted to James Hamilton's music photography unveils a treasure trove of arresting images, previously unpublished, or available until now only fleetingly in print periodicals.
James Hamilton served as staff photographer for the seminal music magazine Crawdaddy! in the1960s, before later serving on staff at The Herald, Harper's Bazaar, the Village Voice, and The New York Observer in turn. During his tenure at these iconic publications he recorded the rock, punk, disco and hip-hop eras as they simmered in Manhattan . His images capture such emerging artists Suzanne Vega, and Run DMC posing with a young Russell Simmons to relaxed visions of Joan Jett, and poet/songstress Patti Smith with Television's Tom Verlaine. James Hamilton's work moves beyond the label of "photojournalism" and into the realm of art, bringing a rarely seen soulfulness to the oversaturated world of celebrity photography.
Enter the world of James Hamilton, and gain access to a secret stash of rarely seen and previously unpublished celebrity images, predating the age of the internet, and existing for years only in print archives. Peter Tosh, LL Cool J, John Zorn, James Brown, Yoko Ono, Jerry Garcia, Joey Ramone, Rick Rubin, Charles Mingus, Joni Mitchell, Sarah Vaughan are all captured with stunning sensitivity and clarity - in 300 delicate duotone images - granting the viewer unprecedented contact to subtleties of his subjects' personalities. Hamilton visually embraces his subjects, capturing them in all of their glorious humanity, and presenting portraits of celebrity in a light that is more personality than persona.
Featuring rare and previously unpublished photographs of: Patti Smith * Count Basie * Debbie Harry * Iggy Pop * Sonic Youth * Nico * Glenn Branca * Carole King * Ronnie Spector * Yoko Ono * Tom Verlaine * James Brown * Rick Rubin * Beastie Boys * Run DMC & Russell Simmons * Pussy Galore * John Fogarty * Ray Davies * BB King * Joni Mitchell * Dolly Parton * Jerry Lee Lewis * Paul Weller * John Zorn * Joey Ramone * Liberace * Laurie Anderson * Madonna * Jerry Garcia * John Lurie * Stevie Wonder * Roberta Flack * Dusty Springfield * Dizzy Gillespie * David Johansen * Danny Fields * Joan Jett * Jimi Hendrix * Bono * Phillip Glass * Rod Stewart * Prince * Bing Crosby * Captain Beefheart * Frank Zappa * Bette Midler * Van Morrison * The Feelies * Sun Ra * Suzanne Vega * Sarah Vaughn * Sean Cassidy * Bob Marley * Bobby Womack * Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young... and more
To be released August 31st:
LEGENDS OF THE CANYON delivers the story of the advent of rock music spawned in the garden of the Hollywood Hills, Laurel Canyon. Many of rock music's legendary artists of the late 1960's brought to life the anthems of a generation in these hills, in a commune-like setting. CROSBY STILLS and NASH, The Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell, America,, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds and many others...
Adding depth, color and certainly authenticity to the film, famed rock photographer Henry Diltz, (CSNY official photographer) contributes as narrator and with a variety of original photographs, some never before exhibited, and rare footage shot amongst the musicians' tribe of Laurel Canyon. Visually stunning, intensely captivating and musically inspiring, this CLASSIC ARTISTS' film brings us to a time and place where some refused to let go of a dream of a life where harmony ruled the Earth, their music still echoes through the hills of Laurel Canyon to this day.
More information here.
Joni Mitchell has been nominated to receive the 2011 John James Audubon Center Award for Art Inspiring Conservation. This award honors an individual who, through their body of work or a single seminal work, uses art to communicate the real and intrinsic value of the nature, interpret conservation challenges, and inspire humanity to take actions that will protect and preserve birds, other wildlife and the world we share. Scott Weidensaul, the Pulitzer prize nominated writer of "Living on the Wind" was the 2010 recipient.
Joni's version of "All I Want" will be included on the soundtrack to the film "The Kids Are All Right", starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. August 3rd is the scheduled release date. "Filmmaker Lisa Cholodenkob's Sundance hit 'The Kids Are All Right' is an intimate portrait of a "modern family" consisting of mom and mom, daughter and son, with the "dad" role narrowed down to a specimen selected from the local sperm bank. When the kids become teenagers they decide to look for their biological father - cue dramatic tension and the upheaval of the uncomplicated (if traditionally unconventional) family life. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening star as the middle-aged lesbian partners, Australian actress Mia Wasikowska (the Alice of Tim Burton's 'Wonderland') as one of the teenage kids, and Mark Ruffalo as the sperm donor father."
Folks, we are quite confident that the website has gone down for the last time. Our previous (unnamed) hosting company suspended the site a half a dozen times for "overloading the server". Each time, we obliged by rewriting our databases and tweaking our code to try to comply with their requests. Ultimately, over the past few days, we made our hejira from the host in question and moved to another host with a better understanding of our code base and a much more helpful attitude. Our apologies for all the downtime - we no longer plan to weave a course of grace and havoc and vow to remember that you get what you pay for.
"Safaris to the Heart: The Songs Of Joni Mitchell" is being released today. Recorded, in part, at the SoCal JoniFest 2009, this CD features San Diego's finest. Place your order here. Partial proceeds go to support JoniMitchell.com.
Vocalist Robin Adler and her husband, multi-instrumentalist and music producer Dave Blackburn, have been lifelong fans of the music of Joni Mitchell and, in early 2006,
embarked on the ambitious project of learning her music in all its complexity and through
all its epochs. To realize this goal, they formed a band dedicated solely to this music,
named Mutts of the Planet, after a lyric from one of Mitchell's songs. The band features
several of San Diego's finest musicians, many with long pedigrees in the jazz world,
including Adler herself.
Mutts of the Planet explore Joni Mitchell's music from both a jazz improvisatory angle
and as a traditional homage. The band has evolved many original jazz inflected
arrangements of iconic Mitchell standards such as "Woodstock", "River" and "Both Sides
Now" and tackles some of the most challenging material from the later periods in
Mitchell's career. The early years are also represented in an acoustic duo setting for part
of the show.
The result has been a hugely successful series of sold out concerts over a four-year
period. The music is presented along with backstory and biographical details of
Mitchell's life and work, and this has been a favorite aspect for many listeners.
Mutts of the Planet celebrate the release of their new CD "Safaris to the Heart: The
Songs of Joni Mitchell" It is the culmination of several months of work, from both the
musicians themselves and members of the international Joni Mitchell web community,
known as the JMDL.
As of 2010 it appears that Joni Mitchell herself has retired from the performing stage and
this project endeavors to keep her music alive in all its beauty, as a live show and now as
an album of lush reinterpretations. The February 2010 edition of the San DiegoTroubadour features Adler & Blackburn and this project as their feature story in which the author writes: "I can honestly say that I wasn't in the least prepared for the
'world class-ness' of Robin's voice"
Audience testimonials from the RobinAdler.com guestbook:
"Robin's vocals were dead on. I thought Joni was actually in the room!"
"Robin was incarnating the soul and spirit of our beloved Joni"
"Was it worth the 2,281 miles I traveled to hear it? Oh, heck yeah!"
Robin Adler (lead vocals)
Dave Blackburn (guitars and vocals)
Dave Curtis (bass, keyboards and vocals)
Barnaby Finch (keyboards and vocals)
Jeff Olson (drums)
Britt Doehring (backup vocals)
Available June of 2010, Experience Music Project (EMP) presents Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock 'n' Roll Photographs Selected by Graham Nash. This dynamic new exhibition showcases some of the most memorable photography in the history of popular music: iconic performance shots of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Nirvana; portraits of Bo Diddley, Joni Mitchell, and Johnny Cash; as well as intimate photographs of Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. All chosen by a legendary musician who is also highly regarded as a photographer, collector, and pioneer in digital imaging and printing.
As guest curator, Graham Nash brings his rich musical history, keen eye, and storytelling skills to an exhibition of 98 rock 'n' roll images taken by 40 renowned rock photographers, including Anton Corbijn, Lynn Goldsmith, Annie Leibovitz, Daniel Kramer, Jim Marshall, Neal Preston, Mick Rock, Francesco Scavullo, Alfred Wertheimer, and Nash himself. More information here.
JoniMitchell.com is back on-line after a bit of an extended absence. Seems the site is getting a little too popular for its own good and is overwhelming our server. In light of this, we regret having to announce that you must now be logged into JoniMitchell.com in order to access the Library of Articles and to do a site-wide search. Registering is a quick process and all we need is to verify that you are a human being with a valid email address. We will never use your email address for anything.
The Library of Articles relies on frequent database access and has come to be "hammered" by automated bots across the globe, overwhelming the server. The only way to keep them out, keep the site up, and keep the site free to everyone is to require a log in. Consider it your own personal Joni Mitchell Library Card. Thanks for your understanding.
As Winston Churchill famously said, "It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key." The key to the mysterious boxed set seems to be Joni herself. In an interview with the Vancouver Sun published today, Joni says "I was trying to put together a box set, which I think I'm going to abort, I don't know that I'm going to do it or not. I don't like listening back, no I don't." So there we have it, not a definite no but pretty darn close.
On Friday evening, March 17, 1967, Ed Sciaky went to the 2nd Fret (operated by Manny "Money" Rubin) in downtown Philadelphia (on Sansom Street) and recorded an interview with Joni Mitchell. Recorded between sets, this recording was mastered at 7 and a half IPS on Shamrock recording tape, a cheap brand of audio tape but all that college student Ed Sciaky could afford. It was recorded on an Ampex 354 mono tape recorder with an RCA 44 microphone. Ed Sciaky spoke into one side of the mic and Joni into the other. Since Joni spoke softly, her level was lower than Ed. The interview was engineered by Mike Biel, a student executive at the station at that time.
The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia (of which Ed is now a member), an organization of 350 area broadcasters, has recently equalized and adjusted the levels of the interview and the complete audio interview is now available on their website. They are proud to make this priceless interview again available to the public. The entire interview has not been heard since it was aired the next evening, Saturday, March 18th on Ed's folk music show called "Broadside," which was broadcast Saturday evenings from 8 pm and 12 midnight over WRTI-FM, the campus radio station of Temple University in Philadelphia. The 1974 airing over WMMR was an excerpt.
In January 2010, NPR will launch a year-long exploration of 50 great voices in recorded history. The series isn't an attempt to catalog the so-called "greatest" singers. Instead, they hope to discover and re-discover awe-inspiring vocalists from around the world and across time. Earlier, NPR asked the public to nominate artists for the series and received thousands of options. NPR and a panel of experts are in the process of whittling them down to about 100 singers - a mix of familiar names and surprising discoveries. Currently, down to around 130 singers, Joni is still in the running! Let's help Joni get recognized as one of the 50 great voices. Cast your vote!
Also, the word from the man on the street is that Reprise has begun handling the new releases from Rhino. There was some concern about Rhino's health and it appears now that there still may be hope for the release of Joni's boxed set what with Reprise stepping in. Sorry for the mere speculation, but the status of this set seems to be the most closely guarded secret since the appointment of the pope. Thanks to Greg for the tip.
Joni's birthday is November 7th. Wish her a Happy Birthday here [expired]. There is no guarantee that she'll see it, but one never knows!
Who says the 70's are over? Three of Joni's albums will be re-released on 180 gram vinyl, yes vinyl! Ladies of the Canyon
On August 14, 2008, sixty of the Washington D.C. areas' finest musicians & singers gathered together to pay tribute to the songs of Joni Mitchell at the Music Center at Strathmore. The 2,000 seat concert hall was sold out and the crowd was treated to a wonderful career retrospective of one of musics' immortals as more than 30 of Mitchell's songs were performed. The show was produced by Bandhouse Gigs, a DC based not for profit entity that has organized nine successful tribute concerts in the area since their beginnings in 2004. Other tribute honorees include The Band, Neil Young, Warren Zevon, Nick Lowe, Allen Toussaint, Bob Dylan, the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and Nils Lofgren.
We are pleased to announce that a CD featuring 16 songs performed that night is now available through Bandhouse Gigs.
Among the evenings performers were some of the shining lights in DC music including; Grammy award winners John Jennings, & Jon Carroll, Mary Ann Redmond, Lea, Grace Griffith, Laura Burhenn, Naked Blue, Chaise Lounge, Luke Brindley, Margot MacDonald, Chelsea Lee, Heidi Martin, Diane Rosenthal, Esther Haynes, Carey Creed, One Horse Town, Cairo Fred, Deeme Katson, Cal Everett, and guitarist Steuart Smith of the Eagles who recorded with Mitchell on her Turbulent Indigo album. More than 25 of D.C.'s finest musicians backed this array of singers throughout the concert.
Getting news on the previously announced boxed set is harder to come by than an appearance by Joni herself. Some sources say November (highly unlikely), some say February (more likely), but most official sources say nothing at all. As soon as we get some reliable information, we'll have it for you here.
The track listing for the new Amchitka CD release has been revealed. Looks like we get to hear a couple of unique medleys from Joni!
DISC ONE
Phil Ochs
1. Intro Irving Stowe
2. Intro Phil Ochs
3. The Bells (E. A. Poe/P. Ochs)
4. Rhythms of Revolution
5. Chords of Fame
6. I Ain't Marching Anymore
7. Joe Hill
8. Changes
9. I'm Going To Say It Now
10. No More Songs
James Taylor
11. Intro James Taylor
12. Something In The Way She Moves
13. Fire and Rain
14. Carolina In My Mind
15. Blossom
16. Riding On A Railroad
17. Sweet Baby James
18. You Can Close Your Eyes
DISC TWO
Joni Mitchell
1. Intro Joni Mitchell
2. Big Yellow Taxi/Bony Maroni (Larry Williams)
3. Cactus Tree
4. The Gallery
5. Hunter
6. My Old Man
7. For Free
8. Woodstock
9. Carey/Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan)
10. A Case Of You
11. The Circle Game
Five "unseen" drawings of Joni's are currently featured in a new exhibition at the Scream Gallery in west London. The gallery is currently home to the music industry’s greatest legends’ artwork, some of which has never been seen before. Frank Sinatra, for example, painted himself as a cheerless, unkempt clown while coping with a divorce from his third wife, actress Ava Gardner. The self-portrait, which will be available this month for £25,000, is just one of more than 30 pieces, ranging from paintings to drawings to sketches, featured in the Original Artwork by Pop Culture Artists exhibition. The show, which opened on September 24, also includes works from Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, and Kurt Cobain. Jamie Wood (son of musician Ronnie Wood), who runs the Scream gallery, said that he hoped the exhibition would establish these prominent musicians as “great visual artists in their own rights” due to the art world’s usual scorn of non-artist celebrities entering that realm. Wood assures that the 30-plus works on display “actually show so much more emotion than we see in much contemporary art these days, because they are by multifaceted artists whose creativity extends beyond just one dimension.” Those who can't make it to the event can view the artwork online. The exhibition closes on October 31st.
In November, Greenpeace will release "AMCHITKA", a 2-CD set of a benefit concert that was performed by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, the late Phil Ochs and Chilliwack in Vancouver, Canada, on October 16, 1970. The $18,000 raised at that time enabled Greenpeace to launch its first action, sailing a fishing trawler to Amchitka Island in the Aleutians to protest underground nuclear weapons tests. Stay tuned for details on how to purchase the CD.
Many thanks to all who helped support this website by making financial contributions. Enough money was raised to pay for the costs of hosting the site for an entire year.
JoniMitchell.com is the official site, yet 100% funded by fans. Our fund raising efforts only desire to cover actual monetary expenses for hosting the site - the cost of presenting this to you over the Internet. If the staff of this website were fully paid, certainly this site's cost would run into 6 figures annually. We're hoping only to raise $1800 (usd) for the year.
Did you know?:
The Chronology section is the result of over four decades of work by Simon Montgomery. Rivaled only perhaps... maybe... by the Bob Dylan chronology, this incredible archive of concert dates is presented, like everything else on the site, absolutely free.
The Library is the result of a decade of research by fans across the globe, all contributing their own time, money, and energy to bring a searchable goldmine of more than five decades of articles and books written about Joni. We know of no other such archive devoted to a single artist anywhere else on the Internet.
Joni Undercover is also an unrivaled one-of-a-kind archive. The product of years of research by Bob Muller and contributors across the world, this collection of "covers" has become the standard by which others are judged.
The Guitar and Piano sections present, for free, hundreds of transcriptions of Joni's music. Again, this section - decades in the making - has proven to be the definitive source (so far) for information on Joni's many unique tunings. Sue, Marian, Howard, and Dave collect, create, and present this exhaustive archive for all to use.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. From the site's original vision by Wally Breese and Jim Johansen - to the interactive nature of the site today, JoniMitchell.com presents a depth and wealth of information worthy of the great artist herself. We refuse all advertisements, and we refuse to EVER charge to view any of the content. Please consider making a donation to keep this site alive.
National Public Radio's World Cafe with host David Dye will be broadcasting an interview with Michelle Mercer, author of the book Will You Take Me As I Am - Joni's Blue Period, Thursday, August 13th, 2009. The session will air in the 2nd hour of the show as part of World Cafe's Summer Reading Series. Find when your local station will broadcast the show and tune in. Worldwide, you can listen to the audio stream from 2-4pm EST. An archived copy of the audio can be found here.
Four more dates have been announced for The Fiddle and The Drum ballet:
- Vernon, British Columbia, January 18, 2010 at the Vernon Performing Arts Centre.
- Victoria, British Columbia, January 27 and 28, 2010 at The Royal Theatre.
- Nanaimo, British Columbia, January 30, 2010 at The Port Theatre.
Joni Mitchell is one of the defining artists of contemporary music. As a recording artist, she has gathered the highest accolades in popular music, including nine Grammy awards and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The poetry, insight and originality of her music have influenced so many artists that contemporary songwriting without her is unimaginable, and the sheer beauty of her songs have thrilled music lovers through the five decades of her career.
This October, an ensemble of Australia's foremost singers and musicians will present an extraordinary series of concert tributes to this legendary artist. Katie Noonan, Wendy Matthews, Kristin Berardi, Tania Bowra, Louise Perryman, Virna Sanzone and Rachel Gaudry, together with an outstanding 12-piece band, will pay homage to one of the most respected singer-songwriters in music.
Sure to sell out fast, three Australian capital city concerts are confirmed at this stage - Sydney (30 Oct), Brisbane (4 Nov), and Melbourne (23 Oct). Watch the mini documentary preview here. More infomation here.
Obie Award-winning performance artist John Kelly will bring his acclaimed performance piece Paved Paradise Redux: The Art of Joni Mitchell to San Francisco's Rrazz Room, July 30-August 2. The show, which recently played New York's Abrons Arts Center, will be directed by Kevin Malony.
Kelly, who has performed the work of the Canadian singer-songwriter for many years, will evoke Mitchell's own smoky soprano as he sings songs from the various stages of her career in their original key. He also plays dulcimer and replicates Mitchell's guitar style by way of her signature open tunings.
For tickets, visit RRazzroom. For more information, visit John's website.
In November 2009, Rhino Entertainment will be releasing a Joni Mitchell box set. The 4 CD and 1 DVD package will have over 85 songs, from the mid-sixties up to Joni's last album "Shine". Several unreleased songs and alternate versions will be included, plus very rare and previously unissued video performances spanning Joni's incomparable career. Joni will be contributing notes to the package and overseeing the photo edit and design.
Instead of traditional liner notes, Joni would like to invite the community to send in a statement of why they enjoy the music. It can be one sentence or a short paragraph and the best will be chosen for the liner notes for the project. It can be a personal experience with the music or why in general you like it.
An example of which might be...
"Joni, you make race-less, gender-less music."
"Girl, you make me see pictures in my head."
Joni feels it might be more interesting to hear from the people who truly like the music rather than from a critic or PR person. [Joni is no longer taking submissions]
It's not Joni up on stage, but if you were there you might actually have to think twice about that. JoniMitchell.com reporter Patrick Leader attended the event - events, actually - and has a report. There's still time for you New York area people to get in on the show! Both Paved Paradise Redux and the art exhibition run through June 27th. Check Patrick's review for links and details.
East-coasters! Be sure and get your tickets to Pave Paradise Redux this month in New York City. Here's the official press release:
Obie Award Winner John Kelly Premieres
PAVED PARADISE REDUX:
The Art of Joni Mitchell
Limited Engagement runs June 18 - 27 at Abrons Arts Center
"There's drag and then there's transformation through spiritual osmosis, and that's what
John Kelly accomplishes with this tribute... Magnificent." -- New York Times
"Sounds like pure camp on paper, but when the willowy Kelly sings Mitchell's songs,
his haunting, crystalline countertenor is somewhere between male and female,
human and angel."-- New York Magazine
"It is an homage that transcends" -- Daily News
After an eight-year absence, two-time Obie Award winning artist John Kelly once again inhabits
the persona of Joni Mitchell in an entirely new evening of songs and stories. Conceived and
performed by John Kelly, produced by TWEED TheaterWorks in association with Robbi Kearns,
and directed by Kevin Malony, PAVED PARADISE REDUX: The Art of Joni Mitchell runs for 7
performances only beginning June 18 at Abrons Arts Center.
In PAVED PARADISE REDUX: The Art of Joni Mitchell, John Kelly's performance is a
musical and visual homage to the great Canadian singer/songwriter. His countertenor uncannily
evokes Mitchell's own smoky soprano as he sings songs from the various stages of her career
in their original key. He also plays dulcimer and replicates Mitchell's guitar style by way of her
signature open tunings. Kelly is accompanied on keyboard by musical director Zecca Esquibel,
as well as additional musicians. The evening also features an original video component
featuring Kevin Joseph (Broadway's Threepenny Opera, a.k.a. Flotilla DeBarge) as journalist
Tavis Smiley in a recreation of his PBS interview with Mitchell.
"As a kid growing up in New Jersey, I would put on my headphones and be swept into Joni's
world," explains Kelly on his love for Mitchell's music. "Hers is a world rich with wanderlust,
emotion and innuendo. Her songs have the power to transport a lonely individual into another
world. I suppose it was the words as much as the music. The combination of the two was, and
remains powerful, beautiful and compelling." The Boston Globe recently wrote, "No less a critic
than Joni Mitchell herself has been surprised by the impact of Kelly's cabaret tribute. »I was
braced for a lampooning,' she told The New York Times after seeing "Paved Paradise" in
Manhattan in 1997. »I didn't expect to be so touched. I cried in two places.' Mitchell is now one
of Kelly's biggest fans."
An exhibition of Kelly's self-portraits will be on display at Alexander Gray Associates in Chelsea
from May 20 - June 26. Kelly will also sing The Joni Mitchell Songbook in "Songs for a Shiny
Hot Night" at Castle Clinton in Battery Park on August 6th as part of the annual River to River
Festival.
John Kelly is an author, choreographer, director, performance and visual artist. He has
received numerous awards including two Bessies, two Obies, the American Choreographer
Award, a CalArts Alpert Award, and fellowships from The Guggenheim Foundation and The
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Last year he was a Rome Prize Fellow in Visual Art at
The American Academy in Rome. In a career that spans over two decades Kelly's works have
been staged at venues including BAM, Lincoln Center, PS 1, The Warhol Museum, London's
Tate Modern, PS 122, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop and Carnegie Hall. In 2004, he
appeared as the opening act for Natalie Merchant's Ophelia tour. Kelly was also an original cast
member of James Joyce's The Dead on Broadway and won an Eliot Norton Award for Best
Actor in the American Repertory Theater production of Dido, Queen of Carthage. In 2010, he
will be an artist-in-residence at The Park Avenue Armory and at The Civitella Ranieri
Foundation. He recently staged a workshop of The Escape Artist as part of Music Theatre
Group's Here/See Series, which includes original songs written in collaboration with
singer/songwriter Carol Lipnik. He is also developing a project with writer/director Moises
Kaufman. For more information visit his website
TWEED TheaterWorks was founded by Kevin Malony in the early eighties and has grown from
tiny late night shows in East Village dives to full-scale productions at premier Manhattan
venues. For two decades TWEED has produced innovative and unusual live theatrical work,
including performance art, plays & musicals, dance theater and category-defying
extravaganzas. The TWEED New Works Festival (1985-1995) presented the early work of
many of today's recognized theater artists, including John Kelly. TWEED's long involvement
with Kelly began in the late eighties with the first theatrical incarnation of Pass The Blutwurstte,
Bitte, and has continued in one form or another, for the past 20 years. The TWEED Fractured
Classicks Series, a cult phenomenon, presents staged readings of classic American plays and
films employing unique casting choices.
Robbi Kearns and Kearns Artists Services has produced and managed concerts, events, and
theater projects worldwide since 1995. He has produced concerts both small and large, ranging
from performances with singer/songwriters to The Lord of the Rings Symphony composed by
Academy Award winning composer Howard Shore with over 200 musicians performing on
stage. Robbi has produced Posteriors, Extra-Ordinary People and FOLLY: Vaudeville for the
New Depression with Kevin Malony and TWEED TheaterWorks.
PAVED PARADISE REDUX: The Art of Joni Mitchell runs June 18 - 27, Thursday - Sunday at
8pm, Abrons Arts Center is located inside Henry Street Settlement at 466 Grand Street
(accessible from the F train to East Broadway or Delancey, D/B trains to Grand Street and J/M
trains to Essex Street). All performances are at 8:00pm. Tickets are $20 on Thursday &
Sunday, $25 on Friday & Saturday. For information and reservations call 212-352-3101 or
https://www.TheaterMania.com.
New dates have been announced for the Alberta Ballet's performances of Joni's The Fiddle and The Drum, all in 2010. Four performances total - Seattle, Washington on February 23, Irvine, California on February 25, and Los Angeles, California on February 26 and 27. Click the links for more information. (Thanks to Richard for the information).
Back in 1996, Jack Mittleman and Irma Schultz recorded and released one of the first tribute albums to Joni and entitled it 'A Bird That Whistles.' It was never available outside Sweden in any format and has been very difficult to find. JoniMitchell.com is pleased to announce that because of the album's inclusion on this site, EMI Sweden has re-released (after 13 years) 'A Bird That Whistles' and made it available as a digital download on Amazon and iTunes. To coincide with the re-release, Jack has written the story of the album's origin, including Joni's reaction to hearing it. Thanks to Jack, Irma, and EMI for making this great album available again.
News about the news? Is that really news? Anyway, the RSS news/events feed is back. Once again, you can subscribe to the Joni news and events notifications as they happen. Or at least as we get around to putting them up! The link is here.
Joni's ballet will be performed 3 times during the Winter Olympics in January. Performance dates are January 22-24 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Two Canadian cultural luminaries join forces in this dazzling ballet, which blends the music and images of legendary singer-songwriter and visual artist Joni Mitchell with the choreographic invention of Alberta Ballet's artistic director Jean Grand-Maître. A searing social commentary, the work gives passionate expression to the many shades of the human spirit: its capacity to create and destroy, to love and hate, and for war and peace.
First introduced to audiences in 2007, this expanded full-length production features four additional Mitchell songs, illuminated by her latest artwork and Grand-Maître's choreography.
More information can be found here.
The authors are talking about Joni these days! Lloyd Whitesell, author of the recently published book The Music of Joni Mitchell was interviewed on the WICN-FM public radio program Inquiry on April 10th. Listen to the interview here. Also, Michelle Mercer, author of the just published book Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period will be interviewed live tomorrow morning (April 21) on Canada's Q with Jian Ghomeshi at 9:30 AM Eastern US time (1:30 PM GMT). Tune in or catch the (hopefully) archived podcast here.
Back by popular demand, the Discussion Forum has returned to the website [obsolete again!]. It's been off-line for some time, tending to technical difficulties. Add your voice to the discussion of all things Joni.
Speaking of your voice... JoniMitchell.com has been completely redesigned with you in mind. In addition to the forum, you can add your voice to almost every aspect of the site. Comment on articles, books, and DVDs in the Library; comment on songs, albums, paintings, and videos; add your memories of the times you've seen Joni in concert - even upload photos, ticket stubs, and other concert memorabilia - the list goes on and on. Take some time to explore and contribute to one of the most in-depth artist sites on the web.
Citing a burst of creative energy, Joni has completed recording on an album she calls a "masterpiece of a response to a masterpiece." The tentative title for the album, due to release next week, is "Blue Too." Joni plays piano, guitar, and dulcimer, and the songs are, in her words, "the most beautiful and touching that I've ever written." Joni will also launch a world tour to support the album beginning in May with jazz legends Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and others. And as if all this wasn't enough, there's one more thing...APRIL FOOL!
Joni's music is featured in the soundtrack of a new DVD release - "A Single Woman." The film, about the life of first female Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin (R - Montana), is a timely and provocative look at a true American maverick and reformer who changed the American political landscape forever.
The Alberta Ballet has announced it's continuing to tour Joni's The Fiddle and The Drum across British Columbia and the western United States. They've planned more than 60 performances in 12 different cities, yet to be named. We'll provide details when we know more.
One of the features of the old site that hadn't made it to the new revision was the 'Joni in Fiction' section. Due to creator Bob Murphy's declining health, the section was in disrepair and it was decided it would be left off the new site. But with the recent unfortunate death of Bob, and a new person eager to keep his vision alive, JoniMitchell.com is proud to announce that Joni in Fiction is back. Renamed more accurately "Cultural References," the new section has become a part of the Library and is now proudly managed by Laura Oppermann, in Bob's memory.
'The Fiddle & The Drum' ballet continues to be a hit wherever it goes! The Alberta Ballet is raising funds with exclusive ballet merchandise, including a soundtrack CD available nowhere else. Also available are black T-shirts (unisex SML or women's fitted M) that feature the green image of company artist Anthony Pina (as seen on the DVD cover) with 'The Fiddle & The Drum' in white lettering on the back. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of all 'The Fiddle & The Drum' merchandise through the Alberta Ballet Calgary office goes towards touring 'The Fiddle & The Drum' in future. You can also purchase the 'The Fiddle & The Drum' DVD, including behind-the-scenes footage with Joni Mitchell, artistic director Jean Grand-Maître, and Alberta Ballet Company artists. To order the CD, shirts, or the DVD, please send an email to Laurie or call 403.245.4222 (extension 0) for more information. The Alberta Ballet thanks Joni Mitchell and JoniMitchell.com for their assistance in supporting this innovative, non-profit Canadian dance company!
Welcome to the new look! JoniMitchell.com has been extensively reworked and redesigned. Primarily, we've made the site much more interactive and community-based.
- Nearly every section has a comment area, where you can tell us how you feel.
- Simon Montgomery's amazing Chronology section now allows you to add your concert memories and upload photos, concert tickets, and other memorabilia.
- The old JMDL song/album poll system has given way to a 1-10 rating system that's quick and easy.
- Album and Lyric sections have been expanded so that relevant information is at your fingertips - music transcriptions, footnotes, album notes, etc.
- The Library has been expanded to include books, DVDs, and photographs as well as the articles.
- Links to purchase Joni things abound, helping support the site in the process.
- The site now features guitar and piano transcriptions
Links to purchase Joni things abound, helping support the site in the process.
- And, you can listen to sound clips of all of Joni's songs.
It's important to register to get the most out of the new site. It's quick and free as always. It is, however, a new database so your old registration won't work, sorry. And for those who are totally confused, there's a new sitemap [obsolete] as well. Enjoy!
The DVD of Joni's ballet "The Fiddle And The Drum" was released February 10th and is ready to be added to your library! You can find it at your favorite local shop or purchase from Amazon.com as well as other web outlets.
Joni Mitchell's The Fiddle and The Drum explores Mitchell's life-long concerns about environmental neglect and the warring nature of mankind within a ballet performed to a select soundtrack of her eternal songs. The unique combinations of three art forms - music, dance and art - comprise an engaging spectacle that Joni calls "...the best project of her career." Legendary Canadian artist Joni Mitchell and internationally acclaimed choreographer Jean Grand-Maître of the Alberta Ballet Company are the co-creators of Joni Mitchell's The Fiddle and The Drum.
Features the Song Selections: The Fiddle and The Drum, Sex Kills, Passion Play (When All the Slaves Are Free), Three Great Stimulants, For the Roses, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The Beat of Black Wings, If I Had a Heart, If, Big Yellow Taxi
Also Includes Exclusive Bonus Features! -Behind the Scenes with: Joni Mitchell and Jean Grand-Maître, Kelly McKinlay and Nicole Caron (Alberta Ballet Dancers), and Mario Rouleau (Director of Filming) -Joni Mitchell's video installation from the set
Tomorrow marks the opening of the GREEN FLAG SONG exhibition at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon. The show will run from February 6 through March 29, 2009. The opening reception is Friday, February 6 at 8pm. No word if Joni will be attending.
From the press release:
The Mendel Art Gallery is pleased to present a new body of photographic work by iconic singer/songwriter and visual artist Joni Mitchell. As moving as her musical works, Green Flag Song depicts a deeply personal response to the consequences of war and humanity's struggle with itself. The exhibition consists of a series of large green-toned triptychs created from digitally modified combinations of photographic images, printed on canvas.
The impetus for this work began when Mitchell's malfunctioning television began emitting images that resembled green-tinted photographic negatives. Mitchell began to take photographs of the dying screen, and when enlarged and printed on canvas, the result is a collection of intense, dark, semiabstract images. Through photographic expression and rich, saturated colours, Mitchell invites audiences to participate in a collective awareness of a need for change. Primarily recognized as a singer and songwriter, Joni Mitchell brings to these vivid and arresting images the same profound social, political, and spiritual conviction that informs her music.
The Mendel is the only scheduled venue in Western Canada for Green Flag Song.
JoniMitchell.com has received an advance copy of Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni's Blue Period
We were a little worried that this might be a "making of an album" book centered on Joni's 1971 album Blue. Thankfully it is not. Michelle Mercer has written a seriously entertaining and imaginatively thoughtful study of Joni Mitchell's autobiographical songwriting. Mercer's treatment of what she calls Mitchell's "Blue Period" encompasses the songwriter's career from 1970 to 1976. As she tells the story of this Blue Period, Mercer skillfully covers subjects as diverse as Augustine, Beat Buddhism, the songwriting of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and the influence of landscape on music.
The book contains plenty of fresh quotes - this is the first book about Joni and her work to include original interviews with the artist herself. Mercer makes the most of her access to Joni, often quoting her at length on previously unexplored subjects. And though Mercer is not interested in gossip (she's "more interested in how songwriters make their work personal than in what they get personal about") she does turn up some revelations: the backstory of the song "Court and Spark;" the identity of "Richard" from the "The Last Time I Saw Richard" (no... it's not Chuck).
But the real strength of the book is Mercer's expansive examination of Joni's autobiographical work. Anyone who's applied the "confessional songwriter" tag to Joni Mitchell might think differently after Mercer's careful study of the history of literary confessionalism and personal songwriting. Mercer argues persuasively that Joni's work departs from the confessional model: "She doesn't strive to tell the truth about herself. She strives to find and express human truths, and in the process, she happens to reveal quite a bit about herself."
The story of Joni's childhood has been often told, but Mercer brings it new meaning by focusing on its prairie setting. With this focus, Mercer illuminates in great clarity and detail the "sound of open spaces" that have been so vaguely referred to in descriptions of Joni's music in the past. Along the way Mercer makes a sweeping examination of the connection between music and landscape, considering everything from Beethoven symphonies to Neil Young's prairie songs. (This chapter, "Eyes On The Land And The Sky," includes a priceless quote from Joni in which she inventively links the sound of Jamaican tree frogs to the rhythm of reggae.)
For all the book's interview material, Mercer is not afraid to argue with Joni. She takes issue with Joni's devaluing of her autobiographical period, and more controversially takes on some of Joni's most sacred self-mythology. For example, the author doesn't buy that her bout with childhood polio was the originating moment of her artistry: "Sometimes artists and their fans try too hard to come up with a source for unusual creativity, even resorting to pathologizing it. A gift for art may be deepened or otherwise influenced by tragedy, but it doesn't necessarily have to be born of it."
Mercer addresses a couple periods in Joni's career that have been previously overlooked. Joni's post-Blue meltdown and retreat to British Columbia's Sunshine Coast in 1971 is fully considered for the first time here. Mercer situates Joni's retreat within a broader discussion of the value and hazards of autobiography for an artist. (A fascinating interview with songwriter Loudon Wainwright III livens up this discussion). With many supporting quotes from Joni herself, Mercer makes a compelling case for this hermitage as a major turning point in her career, a time when she began to cultivate her need for both love and freedom into an artistic strategy: "A serial romantic life allowed her to experience an affair's stream of small episodes and feelings, which would be followed by the stillness of solitude, when she could then worry those passing events into the big themes of her songs."
Another interlude considered in great depth is Joni's 1976 meeting with Chogyam Trungpa, which fans know was commemorated in the song "Refuge of the Roads." As Joni tells it, Trungpa, a Tibetan lama, forced her into a space "beyond ego," where she experienced great equanimity. Mercer builds an analysis of Hejira from Joni's story, suggesting the album was Joni's attempt "to write her way back to that temporary state of equanimity, to compose herself into the grace" that she experienced when meeting Trungpa.
Mercer's background as a National Public Radio essayist is evident in her clear, accessible prose. She often aspires to a lyricism reminiscent of her subject: Joni's traveling songs, she writes, are "aural postcards from the edge of feeling."
The photo insert is an added bonus that features many unseen childhood shots (Joni with Sharon Bell), a photo of Joni and Carey Raditz together outside the Mermaid Cafe, and even one of Joni during her solo "hejira" back to LA in 1976.
This book is highly recommended.
Will You Take Me As I Am
(DISCLOSURE: JoniMitchell.com provided some research assistance to the author of this book.)
Joni's Ballet, The Fiddle And The Drum will debut in Saskatoon on Friday and Saturday, January 23-24, 2009. According to a recent interview, Joni plans on attending both performances.
A new book on Joni entitled Will You Take Me As I Am
Joni Mitchell is one of the most celebrated artists of the last half-century, and her landmark 1971 album Blue is one of her most beloved and revered works. Generations of people have come of age listening to the album, inspired by the way it clarified their own difficult emotions. Critics and musicians admire the idiosyncratic virtuosity of its compositions. Will You Take Me As I Am looks at Blue to explore the development of an extraordinary artist, the history of songwriting, and much more.
Writer Michelle Mercer spent a significant amount of time hearing firsthand about Mitchell's internal and external journeys as she composed the largely autobiographical albums of what Mercer calls her "Blue Period," which lasted through the mid-1970s. Incorporating biography, memoir, reportage, criticism, and original interviews into an illuminating narrative, Mercer moves beyond the "making of an album" genre to arrive at a new form of music writing.
In 1970, Mitchell was living with Graham Nash in Laurel Canyon and had made a name for herself as a so-called folk singer notable for her soaring voice and skillful compositions. Soon, though, feeling hemmed in, she fled to the hippie cave community of Matala, Greece. Here and on further travels, her compositions were freshly inspired by the lands and people she encountered as well as by her own radically changing interior landscape. After returning home to record Blue, Mitchell retreated to British Columbia, eventually re-emerging as the successful leader of a jazz-rock group and turning outward in her songwriting toward social commentary. Finally, a stint with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and a pivotal meeting with the Tibetan lama Chogyam Trungpa prompted Mitchell's return to personal songwriting, which resulted in her 1976 masterpiece album, Hejira.
Mercer interlaces this fascinating account of Mitchell's Blue Period with meditations on topics related to her work, including the impact of landscape on music, the value of autobiographical songwriting for artist and listener, and the literary history of confessionalism. Mercer also provides rich analysis of Mitchell's creative achievements: her innovative manner of marrying lyrics to melody; her inventive, highly expressive chords that achieve her signature blend of wonder and melancholy; how she pioneered personal songwriting and, along with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, brought a new literacy to the popular song. Fans will appreciate the previously unpublished photos and a coda of Mitchell's unedited commentary on the places, books, music, pastimes, and philosophies she holds dear.
This utterly original book - the first one about Joni Mitchell written with her participation - offers a unique portrait of a great musician and her remarkable work, as well as new perspectives on the art of songwriting itself.
Michelle Mercer, a regular contributor to National Public Radio, is the author of the critically-acclaimed biography Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter
If you have not been one of the lucky ones to catch Joni's "The Fiddle and the Drum" ballet live, you will be delighted to know that a DVD of the TV broadcast of the event will be released on February 10, 2009. Reserve your copy now
Happy Birthday Joni, and thanks from the Joni Mitchell community for 40 years of truth, art and beauty!
Sad news for long-time readers of JoniMitchell.com. Jim Johanson, who along with Wally Breese was instrumental in creating this website, passed away on Tuesday morning after a long battle with cancer. Wally conceptualized the site but it was Jim's technical expertise that brought it to life. The two worked together from the beginning, and Jim continued the maintenance of the site after Wally's death in 2000 until just a few years ago. Our thoughts are with Jim's friends and family.
Quick, pull out those 2010 calendars! Joni was interviewed at length this week for the PBS series "On Record: The Soundtrack of Our Lives" to be aired in the fall of 2010. Hosted by Sir George Martin, the 8-hour series traces the history of recorded music and its impact on our lives. Literally hundreds of artists will be featured.
Here's the official PBS press release:
PBS GREENLIGHTS "ON RECORD: THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES" HOSTED BY SIR GEORGE MARTIN
New Television Series from Wildheart Entertainment Launches Multi-Pronged Project to Include Companion Web Site on pbs.org, CDs, DVDs, Books and More
(February 7, 2008; Washington, DC) PBS in conjunction with Wildheart Entertainment announced today the greenlighting of a major new television series, ON RECORD: THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES, an eight-hour series that traces the history of recorded music and its impact on popular culture. Featuring hundreds of artists from all genres of music, ON RECORD: THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES is slated to air nationally as a primetime series in the Fall of 2010 on PBS; Sir George Martin, legendary producer of the Beatles, will host. Two-time Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey will narrate.
The television series and an extensive educational outreach initiative, including the companion Web site on pbs.org, will be the centerpiece of an ambitious multi-pronged project expected to include a companion CD box-set and branded CD series, 12-hour DVD/home video series, accompanying books, a multi-genre worldwide radio show and broadcasting through internet portals globally.
"ON RECORD: THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES is a project intrinsically dear to my heart and one that I have been developing with Wildheart Entertainment for over five years," said Sir George Martin, legendary Beatles producer, recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and producer of more than 50 number-one hit records. "I am just thrilled that PBS has joined us as our primetime broadcaster. ON RECORD affords me the opportunity to work again with so many of the artists I have worked with throughout my life and to tell a story that has never been told in such a comprehensive way. Music is the only common thread and universal language that binds us together, regardless of race, nationality, age or income. And recorded music is how we experience it and what makes it accessible."
"I'm delighted to be a part of this remarkable, definitive series for PBS," said Spacey. "ON RECORD illustrates how in a little more than a century recording technology has moved from wax cylinders to digital downloads. These extraordinary changes have come to define not only music, but who we are as individuals and as a society."
ON RECORD has been in development by Wildheart executives Maxim Langstaff and Michele Langstaff with Sir George Martin for more than five years. Both have been working with Sir George for more than a decade in conjunction with the successful "Making of Sergeant Pepper" multi-media events, and both will serve as creators and executive producers of ON RECORD. Also serving as executive producer for the series is Phil Quartararo, former president of EMI Music Marketing, founding president and CEO, Virgin Records, and president of Warner Music. Emmy Award-winning Alan Benson (BBC, Walt Disney) is the series director.
"ON RECORD tells the story of how the most universal mass medium of the 20th century marked the emergence of pop culture worldwide," said project visionary Maxim Langstaff, "how the competition between the urban middle class and the rural working class came to define popular music and in so doing, made possible the breakthrough of minority cultures into mainstream consciousness."
ON RECORD will feature artists from all genres of music including pop, jazz, classical, R&B, folk, rock and country. Told as a narrative tapestry weaving the words of today's living legends with memorable musical moments, landmark cultural events and inspiring inventions/innovations, ON RECORD will consist of new interviews with top music icons and legends, historic archival performances and never-before-seen footage exclusive to ON RECORD. Hundreds of artists will be featured, including the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Benny Goodman, Quincy Jones, Elton John, B.B. King, Alison Krauss, Paul McCartney, Les Paul, Paul Simon, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, the Carter Family, Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Enrico Caruso, Luciano Pavarotti, Muddy Waters, Stevie Wonder, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Guthrie, John Denver, Loretta Lynn, Buddy Holly, Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, Jay-Z, the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and scores of others. Their comments punctuated with their music illuminate and reinforce the impact of the world's most pervasive mass entertainment medium.
"So many of us carry in our heads a musical soundtrack that gives our lives meaning and vibrancy," said John F. Wilson, Sr. Vice President & Chief TV Programming Executive, PBS. "Music is such an important art form for understanding our shared culture and history; this was a natural for PBS to greenlight. We feel confident this project, supported with extensive educational outreach, will be one of those monumental and long-lasting series that PBS is so well known for."
ON RECORD tells the story of how recorded music and its distribution and consumption have transformed American life. The technology spawned radio, movies, television and the Internet and gave birth to popular culture. In little more than a century, recording technology moved from the first tin-foil and wax cylinders to flat discs; from 78 to 33 and 45 rpm speeds; from the acoustic horn to 128-track recording; from magnetic tape to digital downloads. The series' educational outreach will provide teachers with a curriculum guide and source materials to help students discover or reconnect with their history and culture through the universal language of music.
Recorded in HD and 5.1 surround sound, ON RECORD: THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES is produced by Wildheart Entertainment, L.P. Wildheart Entertainment manages and produces artists, creative content and media products in film, music, television, publishing and the Internet, and was created in response to the changing landscape of entertainment and communications today.
PBS is a media enterprise that serves 355 public noncommercial television stations and reaches nearly 73 million people each week through on-air and online content. Bringing diverse viewpoints to television and the Internet, PBS provides high-quality documentary and dramatic entertainment, and consistently dominates the most prestigious award competitions. PBS is a leading provider of digital learning content for pre-K-12 educators, and offers a broad array of other educational services. More information about PBS is available at www.pbs.org, one of the leading dot-org Web sites on the Internet.
Then & Now: The Definitive Herbie Hancock
"From avant-garde to Gershwin, post-bop to pop standards, electric jazz to electro-funk, Herbie Hancock has been at the forefront of modern music for five decades," explains writer Kirk Degiorgio in the CD's engaging liner notes. Few artists in the music industry have gained more respect and cast more influence than Herbie Hancock. Beginning his incomparable career as a sideman in the Miles Davis Quintet, Hancock achieved a career milestone in 2008, winning two Grammy Awards including the main prize, Album of the Year for 'River: The Joni Letters' (Verve Records), the first time a jazz record had won Album of the Year since 1964. Hancock was also named to the Time 100, Time magazine's annual list of the most influential people in the world.
Daniel Levitin, author of "This is Your Brain on Music", has a new book out entitled
The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
More awards for Joni as she capped off a gala event at the Jubilee Auditorium celebrating the first Alberta Arts Day September 8th by accepting an award recognizing her contribution to Albertan and Canadian culture. About 1,300 Calgarians took in the the festivities at the Jubilee, which also included performances by Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, singer-songwriter Kris Demeanor, and Alberta Ballet, which performed an excerpt from Fiddle and the Drum, their internationally-acclaimed collaboration with Mitchell.
The Alberta Ballet previews the extended version of Joni's ballet "The Fiddle and the Drum" at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow night at the Eric Harvie Theatre, Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta. Tickets are available by calling 800-413-8368. Four songs have been added to the ballet: The Reoccurring Dream, Ethiopia, Woodstock and Shine. Since its Calgary premiere in February 2007, The Fiddle and the Drum has enjoyed a sold-out screening in New York, as well as nine performances at the Luminato Festival, where Alberta Ballet shared the stage for the first time with the National Ballet of Canada.
WNYC's Soundcheck radio program of July 30th featured an interview with Lloyd Whitesell, author of the recently published book "The Music of Joni Mitchell." As the program introduction states, "Joni became a vastly influential singer-songwriter by combining a deep, personal style with the sounds of pop, jazz, and the avant-garde. On this show, Lloyd reveals some of the hidden aspects of her creativity." Download the podcast here.
Lloyd Whitesell's long-awaited book entitled "The Music of Joni Mitchell" is finally available (click graphic for more information). Whitesell presents a thorough exploration of Mitchell's musical style, sound, and structure in order to evaluate her songs from a musicological perspective. His analyses are conceived within a holistic framework that takes account of poetic nuance, cultural reference, and stylistic evolution over a long, adventurous career.
Mitchell's songs represent a complex, meticulously crafted body of work. The Music of Joni Mitchell offers a comprehensive survey of her output, with many discussions of individual songs, organized by topic rather than chronology. Individual chapters each explore a different aspect of her craft, such as poetic voice, harmony, melody, and large-scale form. A separate chapter is devoted to the central theme of personal freedom, as expressed through diverse symbolic registers of the journey quest, bohemianism, creative license, and spiritual liberation.
Previous accounts of Mitchell's songwriting have tended to favor her poetic vision, expansive verse structures, and riveting vocal delivery. Whitesell fills out this account with special attention to musical technique, showing how such traits as complex or conflicting sonorities, dualities of harmonic mode, dialectical tensions of texture and register, intricately layered instrumental figuration, and a variable vocal persona are all essential to her distinctive identity as a songwriter. The Music of Joni Mitchell develops a set of conceptual tools geared specifically to Mitchell's songs, in order to demonstrate the extent of her technical innovation in the pop song genre, to give an account of the formal sophistication and rhetorical power characterizing her work as a whole, and to provide grounds for the recognition of her intellectual stature as a composer within her chosen field.
Even as her work is being exhibited in Toronto, Canada this week, Joni will be traveling to Ireland in July, bringing her Green Flag Song art exhibit for the Arts Festival in Galway.
Leora Cashe and The Ross Taggart Trio have released their Joni tribute titled "Another Side Now - The Songs of Joni Mitchell" and it is available for purchase now. Focusing on Joni's early career, the tracklist is:
1 Carey
2 Chelsea Morning
3 Big Yellow Taxi (2007)
4 Michael From Mountains
5 The Circle Game
6 I Don't Know Where I Stand
7 All I Want
8 The Gallery
9 Both Sides Now
10 Woodstock
11 Rainy Night House
12 A Case of You
New opportunities to see Joni's ballet production "The Fiddle and the Drum" continue to be added. The Alberta Ballet will be performing the show one night only at the Banff Summer Arts Festival on September 5. The Banff Festival is held 80 miles west of Calgary, Canada. According to their website, Joni is in the process of adding another four compositions to the soundtrack, transforming a 48-minute ballet into a full evening work. More information can be found here.
Joni's work will be featured at the Luminato Festival this summer in Toronto. On tap at the festival are both the Green Flag Song art exhibit and the Alberta Ballet company performing the ever-popular Fiddle and the Drum. The Ballet will be performed most days from June 13th through June 22nd - tickets are available on-line. Green Flag Song is a free exhibit available for viewing each and every day of the festival.
Joni's 1972 masterpiece "For The Roses" was among 25 recordings recently added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The registry preserves recorded works that are considered culturally or historically important.
More news in the world of Joni Tributes. Big Yellow Taxi from Denmark has assembled Treasures of Joni Mitchell, their third collection of Joni tunes, and this time around the track listing contains eleven Joni songs that she never released. The CD is available now, but supplies are limited so you'll want to move fast. The tracklist includes Joni's first composition, "Day After Day" and many other Joni songs from the 60's seeing their first official release.
Congratulations to Joni for winning a 2008 JUNO award for "Jack Richardson Producer Of The Year". It is her 3rd Juno and was her 17th nomination. Previous wins were in 1976 (Female Vocalist of the Year) and 2001 (Best Vocal Jazz Album). Other Juno winners included Feist, The Arcade Fire, and Measha Brueggergosman. The Juno awards are Canada's annual music awards, their equivalent of America's Grammy Awards.
The recent Joni appearance with Herbie Hancock on Yahoo's "Nissan Live Sets" is now available for viewing. Joni looks and sounds beautiful!
Those of you who have been waiting to play songs from "Shine" - wait no longer! The music book is available now from Amazon
Luminato 2008, Toronto's "Festival of Arts and Creativity", in association with the Art Gallery of Toronto is adding Joni's latest art exhibit 'Green Flag Song' to its schedule. This will mark the Canadian debut of this exhibit. Green Flag shows June 6-22 at CTV Queen Street, 277 Queen Street West.
More award nominations for Joni! Joni Mitchell has been the recipient of 2 Juno Canadian Music Awards, and nominated for 15 more, and she is in the running for "Jack Richardson Producer of The Year" for "Hana" and "Bad Dreams" in the upcoming 2008 Juno Awards which will be presented Sunday, April 6th. Be sure to watch the broadcast and root for Joni!
Joni made a special intimate Los Angeles soundstage appearance last night to perform with Herbie Hancock and his band for a show that will be broadcast on Yahoo on April 1. Joni performed "River", "Tea Leaf Prophecy", and "Hana". Guest vocalist Sonya Kitchell added backing vocals on "Hana" and also performed "All I Want".
More news from the always-busy world of Joni Mitchell Tributes! Big Yellow Taxi , a Danish group with several Joni tribute discs to their credit, has announced the eagerly-awaited follow-up to their last effort, Unknown and Famous Songs of Joni Mitchell, titled "Treasures of Joni Mitchell". This one promises to be VERY special as it features a host of Joni songs that she never released! The CD will be available in April, check back for details. The tracklist is as follows:
1 The Gift of the Magi
2 Hunter (written and recorded for Blue but never released)
3 Born to Take the Highway
4 Day after Day (the FIRST song Joni wrote!)
5 Dr. Junk
6 The Circle Game
7 Eastern Rain
8 Brandy Eyes
9 Blue on Blue
10 Just Like Me
11 Play, Little David Play
12 Winter Lady
Exciting news indeed!
Joni Mitchell news seems to come from all areas these days; music, art, literature and now more news from the world of dance. The Alberta Ballet has announced a 2008-9 season featuring a longer version of The Fiddle and The Drum, its groundbreaking ballet set to Joni's music. The Fiddle and the Drum, a collaboration between Mitchell and Alberta Ballet artistic director Jean Grand-Maitre, debuted in February 2007 in Calgary and Edmonton. A new full-length adaptation, with more songs and imagery by Mitchell, debuts in February 2009.
April 8th is the Publication date for "Girls Like Us - Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--And the Journey of a Generation" by Sheila Weller.
The Simon & Schuster website describes the book as "a groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America's most important musical artists -- Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon that charts their lives as women at a magical moment in time."
Joni has picked up another Grammy award, this time for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for the song "One Week Last Summer." Joni was not in attendance to pick up the award, but did receive kudos from Herbie Hancock, who surprisingly took the Best Album of The Year award with his tribute disc to Joni, "River: The Joni Letters." "First of all I want to thank Joni Mitchell, with her incredible words and music," Hancock said in his acceptance speech before turning to a list that started with his mother and father, and included participating vocalist Leonard Cohen. More information here.
Newly released is an audio companion piece to the DVD released in 2007 documenting one of Joni's appearances on the Johnny Cash television show. The CD, titled "The Best Of The Johnny Cash TV Show 1969-1971", contains the Joni-Johnny duet of "Girl From The North Country" as well as "Fire and Rain" with James Taylor. The CD is currently available for purchase online
Long-time Joni scholar and fan Lloyd "Chip" Whitesell's new book entiled "The Music of Joni Mitchell" is to be released by the Oxford University Press in July of 2008. Chip teaches music history at McGill University in Montreal. He is the author of articles on Benjamin Britten, Maurice Ravel, Bernard Herrmann, and minimalism, and co-editor of the book Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity. The book is currently available for pre-order
An in-depth Robert Hilburn interview with Joni is featured in the latest edition of Mojo Magazine, on newstands January 2nd.
The Grammy nominations are in, and Joni has received a nomination for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for "One Week Last Summer".
Herbie Hancock's "River: The Joni Letters" has been nominated for Album of the Year.
The Grammy Awards will be broadcast February 10, 2008.
Luminato 2008 is proud to present the Toronto premiere of the Alberta Ballet's The Fiddle and the Drum, a contemporary dance work inspired by the music of Joni Mitchell and choreographed by Alberta Ballet's Artistic Director Jean Grand-Mantre.
Presented in partnership with The National Ballet of Canada, The Fiddle and the Drum will be mounted for 10 performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
The Fiddle and the Drum, a semi-abstract narrative ballet danced in neo-classical style, is performed to an hour of Mitchell's compelling music and her latest artworks, which are projected on three large canvas screens behind the dancers throughout the ballet. Alberta Ballets 26 dancers merge through powerful and sensual movements with Joni Mitchell's eclectic sound and visual art and create a contemporary fusion of art forms that awaken and stir the soul.
The piece also speaks volumes about Joni Mitchell's life-long concerns about environmental neglect and the warring nature of mankind. As an artist creating today, quite frankly, I can see no other subject matter that is of more importance now. We need people to awaken to this reality, says Ms. Mitchell.
The Fiddle and the Drum will be performed in a program that includes Harald Landers virtuoso piece Etudes and William Forsythes provocative the second detail.
And the Tributes keep rolling in...Austin musicians Will Taylor & Strings Attached are releasing a studio CD of Joni Mitchell songs titled "Back To The Garden" The recordings were sparked by the success of Will's live Joni tribute concerts earlier this year. The CD includes "Favorite Colour", an early song of Joni's that she never recorded. The release parties are this weekend and the CD can be purchased here.
2007 continues to be a big year for Joni Tribute releases. Vancouver B.C. jazz artist Leora Cashe has announced the December 1 release of her latest project with the Ross Taggart Trio titled "Another Side Now - The Songs of Joni Mitchell". And should you happen to be in the area, you'll want to be in attendance for the release party , 8PM at the Unitarian Church.
Look for a "big interview" with Joni in the upcoming issue of Mojo Magazine.
Joni is scheduled to appear on The Charlie Rose talk show tonight. Don't miss it!
Happy Birthday Joni!
All of us in the Joni community celebrate your life and the truth and beauty of your life's work, and as 2007 is proving, you are still at the top of your game. Thanks for all you've given us.
Joni makes another TV appearance this week when she talks to PBS' Tavis Smiley this Friday, November 9th. Check your local listings for details.
As previously reported, Joni performed with an All-Star band October 28 in Los Angeles, in tribute to Herbie Hancock. She performed "Tea Leaf Prophecy" and "Hana". And tune in to CBS Sunday Morning this Sunday, November 4, when Joni will appear on that program. Check your local listings for details.
Another Joni tribute CD is in the works - this time from Canadian vocalist Leora Cashe with arrangements by pianist/saxophonist Ross Taggart. Titled "Another Side Now", the album will focus on Joni's early period from 1968-1974. More details to follow as they are known.
Following the thought that one tribute deserves another, Joni is slated to perform at a Herbie Hancock tribute taking place October 28th in Hollywood, CA. The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz is hosting an all-star tribute concert for musician Herbie Hancock in honor of his contributions to the genre and the music industry.
Chaka Khan, Al Jarreau, Joni Mitchell, Sting and others are tapped to perform at the event, to be held Oct. 28 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. The concert is part of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition, which features young talent competing for a series of scholarships.
The competition takes place Oct. 27 at UCLA, and the top three finalists will face off the following night at the Kodak Theater, just prior to the tribute concert. The competition winner takes home a $20,000 scholarship, the second place finalist receives a $10,000 scholarship and the third receives a scholarship for $5,000.
The judges for the competition include Quincy Jones, Herb Alpert, Terence Blanchard, Hugh Masekela, Clark Terry and Roy Hargrove.
The competition and the tribute concert will air on BET at a date to be determined.
THE EMERGENCE OF JONI MITCHELL, a two-hour public radio special on the heralded songwriter will be heard around the country this fall, and is now available for Joni fans to hear online. In this third installment of his series on the seminal work of important figures in popular music, award-winning producer Paul Ingles and guest commentators explore how Joni Mitchell crafted her artistry and connected with audiences over four decades.
The program focuses on Mitchell's key releases to illuminate the musicianship of the woman Rolling Stone called "one of rock's most daring and uncompromising innovators."
By mixing Mitchell's music from these pivotal moments with informed commentary from musicians, fans, music critics and archival interviews with Mitchell herself, THE EMERGENCE OF JONI MITCHELL articulates what music lovers have found so compelling about this thoughtful and innovative writer and performer. Special guests include music writers Ann Powers, Anthony DeCurtis, Paul Zollo, Lydia Hutchinson, and Holly George-Warren. Also featured are KGSR Radio's Jody Denberg and musicians Shawn Colvin, Lucy Kaplansky, Randall Williams, and Herbie Hancock. Joni fans Ashara Stansfield, Sue McNamara, Les Irvin and Jill Haas are included as well.
"Mitchell put the experience of being a woman and being human on artful display," says Ingles. Ingles says the special explores her blatantly honest and confessional lyrics, innovative open guitar tunings and jazz-inflected vocals in some detail.
"I like to think of these programs like docent-led exhibition tours," says Ingles. "The commentators tune listeners' ears for particular things in Joni's music, then we play the song and it becomes a fresh experience."
This is the third in an on-going series of radio programs about the seminal work of important artists that Ingles is producing. Previous episodes were THE EMERGENCE OF BOB DYLAN and THE EMERGENCE OF PAUL SIMON.
For more details on THE EMERGENCE OF JONI MITCHELL, an audio preview, extended interviews, pictures and a link to the program online can be found at Paul's website.
Another place where the program can be auditioned and reviewed is at this link. Visitors need to register with the Public Radio Exchange to hear it there.
The Fiddle and the Drum, World Television Premiere : October 22 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT
Joni and internationally acclaimed choreographer Jean Grand-Maître of the Alberta Ballet Company collaborate to create The Fiddle and The Drum, an engaging performance spectacle combining three art forms ; music, dance and art ; which Joni calls "the best project of my career." Produced by Joe Media Group of Calgary in association with Bravo!, The Fiddle and The Drum, which premieres October 22 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT, showcases Mitchell's life-long concerns regarding environmental neglect and the warring nature of mankind.
Mitchell's provocative music served as Grand-Maître's manuscript and inspiration in choreographing a ballet that celebrates the profoundly humanistic questions and testimonies expressed so poetically in Mitchell's compositions. The performance features three new songs from Mitchell's latest album, Shine, including a remix of Big Yellow Taxi, and selections from her earlier recordings such as: For the Roses, Passion Play, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The Beat of Black Wings, Sex Kills, The Three Great Stimulants and The Fiddle and The Drum.
As the Alberta Ballet's dancers give metaphorical life to the eternal music, Mitchell's most recent works of art are projected on a large screen on stage. These iconic images were choreographed by Mitchell to appear at pivotal moments in the ballet.
The special was filmed at the Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary, Alberta and was also produced with the financial participation of the Alberta Film Development Program, The Canadian Television Fund and CAVCO.
Bravo! is a sojourn in the television landscape where viewers make a regular appointment with the arts. A proud supporter of the Canadian independent production community, Bravo! funds approximately 100 hours of independently produced documentaries and performing arts specials a year. Bravo! is owned by CTV Limited, a division of CTVglobemedia, Canada's premier multi-media company.
Appropriately enough, the upcoming film of Joni's collaborative ballet will kick off the 2007 Woodstock Film Festival, set for Oct. 10-14. "Fiddle and the Drum," which takes its title from a Mitchell song, will be shown at 7 p.m. Oct. 10 at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock. This preview runs 55 minutes and features Mitchell's collaboration with internationally acclaimed choreographer Jean Grand-Maître of the Alberta Ballet Company.
On September 25, Starbucks will host an intimate "Lunch and Listen" event to celebrate "Shine." From 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, more than 6,500 Starbucks stores in the U.S. and Canada will participate in the event by playing "Shine" along with a retrospective of classics which have made Joni one of the most beloved singer/songwriters of our time.
"Shine" will be available at Starbucks locations and traditional music retail outlets in the U.S. and Canada on September 25 and in global markets the week of September 24. "Shine" is already receiving glowing accolades from the press, check out the library for all the latest reviews.
Concord Music has a Promotional Video for Shine, featuring snippets of Joni interview, her ballet, and selections from the new one. See it here.
Joni talks in depth about each track on the new album "Shine" in an article published today by Starpulse. Read the article here.
Head over to the LiveDaily website and be one of the first to hear Herbie Hancock's Joni tribute, which the New York Times says "delivers an intimate reinvention issuing from someplace deep inside the music."
Describing the great work of Herbie's core band on the record (Herbie, sax genius Wayne Shorter, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, bassist Dave Holland and guitarist Lionel Loueke), the Times goes on to say:
They also support a handful of vocalists, ranging from the wistful young singer-songwriters Corinne Bailey Rae and Norah Jones (on "River" and "Court and Spark" respectively) to the spectral poet-songwriter Leonard Cohen ("The Jungle Line"). Tina Turner takes a mesmerizing turn on "Edith and the Kingpin," while the Brazilian jazz singer Luciana Souza offers a respectful "Amelia."
Then there is Ms. Mitchell herself. "If she's not a jazz singer, I don't know who is," Mr. Hancock said. "Her phrasing on 'Tea Leaf Prophecy' is unbelievable."
Coinciding with the release of Shine, Joni will have her art exhibited in New York City. It will be installed by the Violet Ray Gallery, at Openhouse, 201 Mullberry Street, in the Village. The opening is Sept 25th (invitation only) and will be on display until Oct 1st or 2nd.
The Fiddle and the Drum, the ballet collaboration between Joni and Alberta Ballet's artistic creator Jean Grand-Maître, will be broadcast on the Bravo television network on October 22nd. Check your local listings for the exact time.
On September 18, CMV/Columbia/Legacy will release The Best of the Johnny Cash TV Show, a 2xDVD compiling 64 live performances from the 58 episodes of Johnny Cash's 1969-1971 "The Johnny Cash Show". Kris Kristofferson hosts the DVD, which features performances from Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Louis Armstrong, Loretta Lynn, Neil Diamond, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Jones, Derek and the Dominoes, Roy Orbison, the Carter Family (inluding June Carter Cash), and Johnny Cash himself, among many others. The set also features new interviews with John Carter Cash, Tennessee Three bassist Marshall Grant, Hank Williams, Jr., musical arranger Bill Walker, and hairstylist Penny Lane. There will also be a single-disc CD version of the compilation available on the same day as the DVD. More information can be found here.
Advance copies of Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters are generating lots of interest. Hancock commissioned Michelle Mercer to write the official press release. She's the author of Footprints, the Wayne Shorter biography and is working on a book involving Joni Mitchell, which is under contract with Simon & Schuster. Read the press release here:
Herbie Hancock's "River: The Joni Letters"
A Set of Songs, Vocal and Instrumental, by or Influential to Joni Mitchell.
Band comprised of Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Vinnie Colaiuta and Lionel Loueke. Produced and Arranged by Herbie Hancock and Larry Klein. Featured Guest Vocalists &mdash Joni Mitchell, Corinne Bailey Rae, Leonard Cohen, Norah Jones, Luciana Souza and Tina Turner.
Depending on the day, Herbie Hancock might perform any number of roles. He's the nation's first-call jazz ambassador, a futuristic technology advocate, a dedicated educator, and of course, an American music luminary. Most of all, like other great artists, he makes things new again. He did it for us with The New Standard, when he found the swing and the meaning in pop classics. He did it with his kaleidoscopic take on Gershwin's World &mdash and took home three Grammy awards for it.
Yet for all Hancock's accomplishments both in and out of music, there's one thing he'd never done. "I had never thought about lyrics before," he says. "Never."
River: The Joni Letters is Hancock's journey into the world of words, his initiation as a man of letters. "I wanted the lyrics to be the foundation for this whole project, for everything to stem from the lyrics and their meaning."
"What I have done before in projects is to take someone else's song that I like and re-harmonize it," says Hancock, who helped pioneer post-bop jazz, in which lyrics are usually a creative point of departure. "Before I set out to do that on this record, I figured I better find out what Joni did and why Joni did what she did with the melodies. Because if the melodies took a certain direction, knowing her, she took those twists and turns and used certain devices based on what's happening in the lyrics. She's a master at that."
To understand the richly allusive connection among melody, harmony and poetry in Mitchell's work, Hancock enlisted the help of producer Larry Klein, Mitchell's long-time collaborator. "We sat together for a long time, months before we actually recorded the record," Klein says. "We just listened to the songs and looked at the lyrics together. We would discuss song origins, allegorical stuff Joni had told me or in other cases leave the interpretation nebulous, as it was meant to be. This was a whole new world for Herbie to be thinking in."
Hancock then assembled a group of the world's top musicians, including the incomparable Wayne Shorter on soprano and tenor sax, the brilliant bassist and composer Dave Holland, (a musical cohort of Hancock and Shorter's who shares their adventurousness, as well as the Miles Davis imprimatur), drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (a recent member of Hancock's band as well as a former collaborator with Mitchell and Sting), and Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke, also a member of Hancock's band.
When they got to the studio Hancock and Klein led another literary seminar. "Before we recorded any of the songs, we gave a copy of the lyrics to each guy in the band," Hancock says. "We sat in the engineer's booth and discussed the meaning of the lyrics word by word, phrase by phrase, and got into the nuances of the lyrics."
With such advanced musical minds applied to Mitchell's poetry and vocal selections cast with some of the music world's strongest singers, River: The Joni Letters turned out to be no ordinary tribute record. In appreciation of Mitchell's gifts, the musicians created a third entity in which sound conveys word, word conveys sound, and listening is a happy confusion of the two.
A haunting chromaticism marks Hancocks piano intro on Rivers opening song, Court and Spark, the title track from Mitchells bestselling album. In this musical setting, Mitchells familiar Court and Spark lyrics register new poetic impact, especially with the nuanced ambivalence of Norah Joness vocal. You hear as much imagery in Hancocks picturesque keyboard phrases on Amelia &mdash especially when he paints the 747s over geometric farms that singer Luciana Souza darkly intones.
Still, Hancock was careful not to take lyrical adaptation too literally. "One thing that we all agreed on was to be cinematic and dramatic in our interpretation of the lyrics," he explained. "Sort of like we were doing a movie score in many ways. Because when you're writing a movie score, you don't write every single nuance that goes on onscreen. If you do that it's kind of 'cartoony.' So sometimes we decided to just let the lyric be. The music should be the cushion, if anything, under the lyric, that supports it, so the lyric is the focus."
The musicians certainly "let the lyric be" when they support Corinne Bailey Rae's optimistic vocal on "River." Elsewhere, capturing a tune's mood leads the band to altogether different perspectives. While Tina Turner channels the noirish nightlife characters of "Edith and the Kingpin," Wayne Shorter responds on tenor saxophone from a more peripheral vantage point. Hancock explains how Shorter found new character in the tune:
"When we were talking about the tune, Wayne said, 'I'm going to be like one of the cats at the bar who's talking to some of the chicks or something, or be part of the hubbub going on over at the bar at the club.' Now, that's not in the lyrics but I realized that's a brilliant part to play. Because the song is not just about the characters in the lyric &mdash Edith and the Kingpin. It's also about the characters that are there in the environment or scene that the lyric is based off of."
Joni Mitchell herself sings "Tea Leaf Prophecy," an autobiographical song based on the story of her parents' courtship. The recent passing of Mitchell's mother made for a moving performance. "This is a song of her parents meeting and it's kind of a WWII love story, but because of the timing it is also a prayer," Klein says. "She approached it vocally as sending something up to her Mom."
Other songs needed to be instrumentals, Klein says, and none more than "Both Sides Now": "That song was in our in-pile from the beginning because it's been such a lynchpin song of Joni's. And I was really set that we had to do that instrumentally. There's no reason to introduce another vocal version of that into the world, really, since there are so many already existing."
Hancock gives Mitchell's most covered song his most far-reaching interpretation, making space for his own harmonic invention: "There are places I decided would be resting places before I went to the next phrase, which Joni doesn't have on her recording of the song," he says. But again, mindfulness of Mitchell's poetic themes guided his impressionistic approach: "Completely reharmonizing 'Both Sides Now' seemed appropriate to the lyrics."
Mitchell's lyrical perspective broadens verse by verse as she moves allegorically from looking at clouds "from both sides" to considering love and finally all of life "that way." Hancock's instrumental develops parallel to the lyric, gaining dimension with each pass at the melody. "The melody is there," Klein explains, "but the band is completely recontextualizing the melody each time through &mdash in the same way Joni recontextualizes experience with each new verse. It builds up to the last verse's majestic Copland-esque rendering."
Musical symbolism of this order requires a group of musicians who not only speak the language of metaphor but also give themselves over to Mitchell's poetic subjectivity with what Klein calls "perfect humility."
"Lionel has an uncanny sense of placement," Hancock says. "On 'Sweet Bird' he accents the melody with these quiet, long, sustained notes that float up and vanish. You may not hear them the first time you listen, but it creeps up on you."
"Playing what's appropriate is also playing minimally," Hancock adds. "Dave Holland is such a giving and open person and his music reflects it, so when he's in an environment his instinct is to contribute to that environment."
"Vinnie Colaiuta's keeping the time and doing these out of meter things against it," Hancock says. "He's playing almost like two different people, dividing himself in half."
The final strokes in Hancock's portrait of Mitchell's world include two compositions that weren't actually written by Mitchell but were important to her musical development. Duke Ellington's "Solitude" made it onto the record, Hancock says, because Billie Holiday's version "went right to Joni's heart, even at age nine, which is when she first heard it. You can really hear how Joni's influenced by Billie, in her phrasing and even in the sound of her voice &mdash just check out that little vibrato thing at the end of Joni's notes."
Wayne Shorter's asymmetrical masterpiece "Nefertiti" was first recorded by Hancock and Shorter on Miles Davis' classic album of the same name. On River: The Joni Letters, these musicians generously recreate their own composition in the thrilling way Mitchell might have experienced it &mdash as though they're hearing the tune through the prism of her idiosyncratic imagination.
With such astute musicianship the band wasn't limited to playing Mitchell's work song by song &mdash these musicians improvise liberally on her complete oeuvre. Throughout the record Loueke's African guitar inflection recalls Mitchell's experiments with "world music" back before the term had even been coined &mdash in 1975, for example, she used Burundi Drummers on The Hissing of Summer Lawns' "The Jungle Line." In Hancock's version of "The Jungle Line," however, he reduces Mitchell's instrumentation to lone piano, with an incantatory recitation by Leonard Cohen illuminating the surrealism of Mitchell's lyrics.
"Hopefully you've found a new landscape in which to set these great songs so that they can pierce the heart of the listener," Klein says. "We wanted to stretch these things out and give more room for the lyric to be taken in by people, to soak in with them. Herbie's the kind of artist who always asks himself, 'Can I make myself feel something really intensely by making a record?' And then if he can feel it that intensely, hopefully some other people will as well and it will actually help people walk around with a little more of a feeling of their heart."
Mitchell's songwriting has given many listeners their most vivid and visceral sense of the relationship between words and music. Freely adapting Mitchell's entire body of work and expanding her musical and lyrical conversation, Hancock creates fresh metaphorical associations in her music and brings renewed life to her words. Hancock not only pays tribute to Mitchell's genius. He offers us the gift of hearing her songs reborn.
Herbie Hancock the ceaseless innovator has produced an original kind of homage: River: The Joni Letters is a musical passion play on Joni Mitchell's total artistry.
The Bravo! Network announces the World Premiere Broadcast of "The Fiddle And The Drum", Joni's collaborative effort with Alberta Ballet's artistic director Jean Grand-Maître, a ballet set to Mitchell's music and performed before projections of her artwork. The premiere will be October 22 at 8PM ET (5 PM PT). This one-hour dance, music and visual arts performance special, produced by Joe Media Group in association with Bravo!, is a reflection of Mitchell's life-long concerns about environmental neglect and the warring nature of mankind.
The lyrics to the new album have been released! Read them here.
More details on the upcoming Herbie Hancock
Joni tribute project have been announced. The album is titled "River - The Joni Letters" and will feature some of the biggest names in pop and jazz music.
Hancock's CD will be in stores on September 25, coinciding with Joni's own release date for "Shine" as well as Chaka Khan's "Funk This" which will feature a cover of Joni's song "Ladies' Man".
It's official! Joni has signed a 2-album deal with Starbucks' "Hear Music" label. "Shine" is the first and has a release date of September 25. "Shine" includes nine new songs as well as a new version of Mitchell's evergreen, "Big Yellow Taxi." The album is part of a series of new work from her, including a ballet based on her music, "The Fiddle and the Drum," and a visual art exhibit that opens in the fall in New York. The full track listing is:
1. One Week Last Summer
2. This Place
3. If I Had a Heart
4. Hana
5. Bad Dreams are Good
6. Big Yellow Taxi
7. Night of the Iguana
8. Strong and Wrong
9. Shine
10. If
According to the New Music Express , Starbucks is poised to sign Joni and offer up her next release of new music, tentatively titled "Shine". Starbucks has previously released exclusive Joni CD's in their "Artist's Choice" and "Selected Songs" series.
While Joni is not touring this summer, there are still several opportunities to hear her music live - check out these fine artists:
July 21 finds the Robin Adler Quintet and the "Joni Band" performing at the Hilltop Center in Fallbrook, CA.
Further south, in Austin, TX, Will Taylor & Strings Attached will perform three Joni tribute shows on July 27th and 28th.
And you know...there may be more!
More news on Herbie Hancock's upcoming project, which will be a tribute to Joni's music and artistry; Joni may be contributing vocals on "In My Solitude", and such notables as Norah Jones, Tina Turner and British soul singer Corrine Bailey Rae will be covering Joni selections on the disc. Also featured on the album will be a version of one of Joni's favorite compositions, "Nefertiti" by her close friend and musical partner Wayne Shorter. According to Herbie himself, Joni was challenged to write lyrics and sing on the track (as she previously did with the music of Charles Mingus) but was unable to do so as she is working to complete her own album, "Shine".
"They've got stamps of many countries...", so sang Joni in her song "People's Parties", and soon Joni will be appearing on a postage stamp herself! Four legendary Canadian entertainers, including Joni, are being honoured this year with Canadian postage stamps bearing their faces. Paul Anka, Gordon Lightfoot, and Anne Murray round out the quartet of honorees. The stamps will be available June 29th.
JoniMitchell.com and its companion website, the JMDL, have been through a lot of changes in the past year. Content has hopped back and forth between the two as a clear direction has been sought for each. By popular demand (and just plain logic frankly) the Library has been added back into JoniMitchell.com's content as well as being left - for the time being - at the JMDL. This addition will give the Library the extra exposure it deserves and put its wealth of information one step closer to the readers.
2007 continues to be a banner year for Joni covers! The Nonesuch Tribute release continues to make headlines and garner favorable reviews, a bevy of artists have featured Joni's songs (including some of her newer material like "Sunny Sunday" and "Last Chance Lost"), and now one of her long-time collaborators Herbie Hancock has announced that his latest project, due out in October, will be a tribute to Joni, including many of her songs as well as work inspired by her. It promises to be an exciting release, and more information will be forthcoming as we hear it.
In 1979, author Debby Chesher published what has become one of the most sought-after books in anyone's Joni collection, Starart . A collection of artwork by stars mainly known as musicians (Cat Stevens, Ron Wood, Klaus Voorman, and others including Joni), this book often commands hundreds of dollars on eBay and in used book stores. Debby has dug into her archives and is now selling her remaining stock that has been stored for the past 28 years. Check her website for information on how to purchase this important and valuable document. No other book - so far - includes such a wide representation of Joni's artwork.
Joni is a cover girl once again! This time it's MUZ , a music magazine from Italy, featuring her painting from the album cover of Clouds. Several articles and pictures are included in the March/April cover story.
Nonesuch has gone live with a SPECIAL Website promoting the upcoming April 24 release of "A Tribute To Joni Mitchell". The website features samples of each of the tracks as well as Joni's original recordings. Also included are the comments from each artist about their recording and Joni's work. They've done a great job!
Joni's recording of "The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines", one of her collaborations with Charles Mingus from 1979, is featured on an upcoming Jaco Pastorius compilation on Mosaic Records titled "Ultimate Jaco Pastorius". The CD is scheduled to be released on April 3rd and is available for ordering now from Amazon and others..
Myrtle Anderson, Joni's mother, passed away Monday. She was 95. An inspiration and encouragement to Joni, she is immortalized in much of Joni's work such as "Let The Wind Carry Me", "Dreamland", "Song For Sharon" and "Facelift". All of us in the Joni Mitchell community send our heartfelt thoughts and condolences to Joni, her father, and their families.
A bit of confusion has ensued based on the previous news item about "Come in from The Cold - The Return of Joni Mitchell". The dates given were correct, but the claim of the documentary playing "over the next two weekends" is incorrect. The highly-anticipated program will be broadcast Tuesdays from March 20th from 8:30-9:30, local London time. Check the BBC's website for more information.
New Joni Mitchell songs are to be aired exclusively on BBC Radio 2, six months before her first LP in ten years is released. Joni's "Shine" is the first album of new material in a decade, and also features her setting of Kipling's poem "If."
The world exclusive preview of the songs will take place over the next two weekends, as part of a two-part documentary based around an in-depth "conversation" between Mitchell and British singer-songwriter Amanda Ghost.
The radio series "Come In From The Cold: The Return Of Joni Mitchell" sees Mitchell explain the reasons behind her change of mind about recording music again. The series will be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on March 20 and 27 at 8.30pm. "Shine" is expected to be released in the Autumn.
Joni's lovely face graces the cover of another magazine - this time it's The Word, a prestigious UK music magazine. Joni gives a lengthy interview and discusses her latest project among many other topics. And if you want to subscribe to The Word, they'll even send you a free copy of Joni's "Blue". (I'm guessing most of you already have one, however).
Update: Read it here.
The upcoming "A Tribute To Joni Mitchell" CD is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. The release date is April 24.
Rhino, Amazon and CDUniverse are all advertising a Remastered version of Blue available this Tuesday, March 6. No previously unavailable tracks will be included.
The official reports are in from the opening of the "Dancing Joni" ballet. Karen McCarthy's "A Woman of Heart and Mind" and Brett Code's "Not a Chalk Mark" give us eyewitness reports of the event. Thanks to both of them for giving us a virtual front-row seat to this critically-acclaimed evening.
Whew... it's tough keeping up with Joni these days! Last night, the "Dancing Joni" ballet debuted to quite good reviews. The articles are rolling into the Library, as of this moment there are no less than 17 articles previewing and reviewing the ballet. Stay tuned for a report from this website's own representative at last night's opening in Calgary.
The official JMDL/JoniMitchell.com reports from this weekend's Hall of Fame celebration are in! Official attendees Catherine McKay and Pat Hillis give us an inside look into both the cocktail party at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto the night before the event and the star-studded main event on Sunday. Thanks to them both for attending on behalf of the rest of us who couldn't make it!
Pictures of and articles about last night's star-studded gala at the Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame are rolling in faster than we can keep up! Head on over to the Library at the JMDL and read all the latest news.
In honor of Joni's upcoming induction into the Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has launched two websites - collectively compiling an extensive video and audio archive of Joni. CBC Radio's site and a compilation entitled "All Sides Now" are available for viewing now. The archives feature video clips from as early as 1967, articles, and even audio interviews with her parents. Definately worthy compilations for a world-class artist!
James Taylor, funk legend Chaka Kahn and jazz innovator Herbie Hancock are among the music stars who will pay tribute to Joni when she is inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame this month. James will sing "Woodstock," Kahn will perform "Help Me," and soprano Measha Brueggergosman will put her spin on "Both Sides Now." Herbie Hancock will induct Joni into the hall of fame.
Who says you can't dance to Joni? Certainly not the Alberta Ballet, as Joni Mitchell and internationally acclaimed choreographer Jean Grand-Maitre have come together to collaborate on "The Fiddle And The Drum" a special ballet that will speak volumes of Joni Mitchells life-long concerns about environmental neglect and the warring nature of mankind.
Big news in the ever-burgeoning world of Joni covers! Billboard reports that Bjork, Prince, James Taylor and Elvis Costello are among the artists who have recorded covers for "A Tribute to Joni Mitchell," due in the spring via Nonesuch. The 12-track set also boasts contributions from Sarah McLachlan, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris and Sufjan Stevens.
Here is the track list for "A Tribute to Joni Mitchell":
"Free Man in Paris," Sufjan Stevens
"Boho Dance," Bjork
"Dreamland," Caetano Veloso
"Don't Interrupt the Sorrow," Brad Mehldau
"For the Roses," Cassandra Wilson
"A Case of U," Prince
"Blue," Sarah McLachlan
"Ladies of the Canyon," Annie Lennox
"Magdalena Laundries," Emmylou Harris
"Edith and the Kingpin," Elvis Costello
"Help Me," k.d. lang
"River," James Taylor
The 19th annual international convention of the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance (Folk Alliance) will present US Congressman-elect John Hall and Native American songwriter Buffy Saint-Marie as keynote speakers. With more than 2,000 attendees, the conference offers a complete view of the world of traditional and contemporary folk music and dance through showcases, films, workshops, and a networking-rich tradeshow. The business conference will be held at the Memphis Convention Center and Memphis Marriott Downtown February 21 - 25, 2007.
Buffy Sainte-Marie has enjoyed a long career in music and activism. In addition to her keynote address, the Folk Alliance will screen her documentary film Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life. The documentary chronicles the achievements of Sainte-Marie and her personal journey as a singer, songwriter, artist, teacher and activist. It features interviews with Joni Mitchell, Randy Bachman, Stepppenwolf's John Kay, Robbie Robertson, Bill Cosby and folk legend Eric Anderson. Sainte-Marie has remained one of the most influential artists in any genre through the past five decades.
The last discounted registration will be offered until January 5, 2007. Go online to Folk.org or call (901)522-1170 to register.
Also, a heads up to Joni fans in the Syracuse NY area - Syracuse jazz singer and songwriter Maria De Angelis will perform an evening of songs by Joni. One night only, Saturday, January 13, 2007, De Angelis will sing and play guitar for two different sets of Joni's songs, at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m., at Jazz Central in downtown Syracuse.
Advance sale tickets may be purchased directly from Maria at 446-3918. Admission will be $10 at the door, $8 in advance. Jazz Central, the cozy, 70-seat home of the Central New York Jazz Arts Foundation, is located at 441 East Washington Street in Syracuse, near the corner of Townsend Street.
Due to the enormous level of attention Joni's gallery show "Green Flag Song" has received, the Lev Moross Gallery (962 North La Brea Avenue) has extended its duration until January 10, 2007. If you are in the Hollywood area, be sure and check it out!
Joni's legendary "Blue" album gets mentioned in the latest edition of Time Magazine's article ALL TIME 100 albums. The list, spanning the 50's forward, has some very interesting inclusions and exclusions. About Blue, it says "It's not deceptively simple, just simple. From the bare arrangements of acoustic guitar and piano with maybe a hint of dulcimer, to the lyrics "All I really want our love to do/ Is to bring out the best in me/ and in you, too". Mitchell whittles her journal entries and melodies down with poetic economy and relies on her falsetto to add the dramatic tension. Enjoyment depends entirely on your tolerance for sincerity, but even cynics concede the greatness of lines like, "I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet."
Joni is among a group of artists to be inducted next year into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Organizers say that Joni is among four songwriters and 25 songs to be celebrated at a black-tie gala in Toronto on January 28. Classic songs to be inducted include Joni's "Help Me'' and "Big Yellow Taxi'' and Sylvia Tyson's "You Were on My Mind,'' recorded with her then-husband Ian Tyson.. More information can be found here.
A new look has been unveiled today! Based on many requests (remind me not to ask next time :-) the site has undergone a complete transformation. Not only is the look new, but a couple of other significant changes need to be noted. First, the search engine has been vastly improved. Now, "plain language" searches can be performed, such as "When is Joni going to release that new album?". Also, JMDL.com has been revived, and most of its content removed from JoniMitchell.com. As the official site, hindsight proves it best to stick with official content! The JMDL will feature many of its original fan-related content. Endless thanks to Raffaele Malanga for his tireless work on the new site. It would have been simply impossible without him. Oh and by the way... Happy Birthday (tomorrow) Joni!
The Lev Moross Gallery is proud to present “Green Flag Song,” an exhibition of sixty new artworks by artist and musician Joni Mitchell. This is Mitchell’s first public showing of her artwork since her retrospective at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 2000, and the first exhibition Mitchell has created on a single motif.
Best known as a vastly popular and influential singer and songwriter whose blend of folk, rock, jazz, and classical music helped to shape both, her own, and subsequent generations of musicians and audiences, Canadian-born Joni Mitchell has always been an artist. She attended the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary before moving to Toronto, and then the United States, to follow a musical career. Like other major musicians of our time (such as John Lennon, David Byrne, Miles Davis and Herb Alpert), Mitchell’s visual sensitivity informs her musical output, and vice versa. The exhibition “Green Flag Song,” with its ruminations on war, politics, and the power of images, is based in part on Mitchell’s 1985 song “The Beat of Black Wings,” but promises in turn to lead Mitchell to further musical, artistic, and even theatrical creation.
The sixty panels comprising “Green Flag Song” grew out of an experimental series of photographs Mitchell began taking about a year ago, photographs made with a camera and taken off of a malfunctioning television set. The images, transferred to canvas, are of current events, historical events, and fictional events – all of which interrelate both thematically (through war and ritual) and visually (through their green cast and negative reversal of light and shadow). Very different from Mitchell’s previous paintings of figures and landscapes, best known from their appearances on her album covers, the panels of “Green Flag Song” nevertheless continue to address major moral and political issues in a highly distinctive, personalized voice.
The current series grew out of Mitchell’s interaction with gallerist and printer Lev Moross, who has known Mitchell and done printing work for her for several years and with whom Mitchell has maintained a fruitful dialogue about contemporary art and life. “Green Flag Song” is to be the first of a number of such series, in which Mitchell intends to address a wide array of topics, from modern diplomacy to Shakespeare, and to expand upon her experimentations with various techniques. Most immediately, images from "Green Flag Song" will comprise the centerpiece of the decor for a ballet based on her music, choreographed by Jean Grand-Maitre for his Alberta Ballet Company, to premiere in Calgary on February 8th, 2007.
A catalogue to "Green Flag Song," with an essay by Peter Frank, accompanies the exhibition and is available for purchase.
GREEN FLAG SONG
New Paintings at Lev Moross Gallery
November 10-December 18, 2006
962 N. La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90038
(one block south of Santa Monica Boulevard)
(323) 512-0151
levmorossgallery.com
Regular Gallery hours: 10am – 6pm
Tuesday – Friday (10-5 Saturday)
Joni will be contributing some artwork to the "Art for the Arts - Inaugural Celebrity Art Auction" to benefit the Los Angeles Ballet. The event will be on November 9, 2006 at the Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, California. The event, with Honorary Chair Anjelica Huston, will offer works by Joni and celebrity artists Jeff Bridges, Pierce Brosnan, Billy Crystal, Anjelica Huston, Gil Garcetti, Joel Grey, Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper, Martin Mull and Yoko Ono, among others. The auction will be conducted live by Santa Monica Auction House Auctioneer, Robert Berman. The evening will include fine food and wine, live music, and a first glimpse of Los Angeles Ballet! Tickets may be purchased at this link. For more information see the LA Ballet's website.
Author Dan Levitin wrote to let us know that he has a new book out entitled "This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession" (Dutton, 2006). The book features an extensive discussion of Joni's tunings and her interaction with Jaco Pastorius. Joni's even read the sections that deal with her and she has approved!
Jeanette Campbell, the former owner of the MainPoint in Bryn Mawr (Philadelphia area) passed away last Friday. The MainPoint was the region's premiere showcase for singer/songwriters - a proving ground for artists such as Tom Waits, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Linda Ronstadt, Eric Andersen, Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat, and many others. Jeanette and her husband ran the place for years until it closed down in the '80's. Joni played at the club in November of 1968, one of her last club dates before stardom propelled her into larger halls.
Lyrics to two early, unreleased songs written by Joni have recently surfaced. The two songs, "A Rambler, A Rover" and "Free Darling" were performed by Joni as early as 1965 back in Detroit. Thanks to those who were able to locate these for all to enjoy.
To celebrate the 63rd birthday of iconic singer/songwriter Joni
Mitchell, Robin Adler and a specially assembled six-piece band will
perform a night of Mitchell’s music spanning her thirty-plus year
career. Mitchell’s music is presented chronologically in order to showcase
the arc of her multi-phase career which ranged musically from folk to
rock to jazz and will be performed against a backdrop of Mitchell’s
artwork and photos of the artist. The show will be recorded for
possible future CD release and will feature a stellar line-up of
musicians:
Robin Adler, known in San Diego as primarily a jazz vocalist will be negotiating Joni’s challenging music in all its beauty and
complexities, along with husband Dave Blackburn on guitars, vocals
and percussion, Barnaby Finch (keyboardist for Tom Scott, George
Benson, Lee Ritenour and Ronnie Laws) on keyboards and vocals, Roger
Friend on drums and percussion, Paul Carman (ex-Frank Zappa sax man)
on saxophone and 16-year old wunderkind Evan Stumpges on fretless bass.
Date: Saturday Nov 4th 2006
Time: 7pm
Venue: Dizzy’s, 344 Seventh Ave, San Diego, CA.
All ages always welcome
More information about Robin Adler and Dave Blackburn can be found at Robin's website or by calling 760.723.1056.
In the recent interview with the Citizen, Joni disclosed the words to several songs she is working on for her latest album. Here is one, a piece she described as "a good poem for courage through tough times, a soldier's poem, really."
HOLY WAR
There's nothing on earth
As unholy as a war,
The rich sacrifice the poor.
If I had a heart I'd cry.
In fairy tales the good go to heaven
And the evil go to hell,
Ring the funeral bell.
If I had a heart I'd cry.
Holy earth, religion has failed us,
It failed to make us kind,
It spoke of light but kept us blind.
If I had a heart I'd cry.
Joni made an exciting revelation in her most recent interview in the Ottawa Citizen celebrating the anniversary of Hejira..."she revealed she's recording her first collection of new songs in nearly a decade."
You can read the full article in the library, and of course new details will be announced as they become known.
Joni was interviewed on Monday by the Ottawa Citizen, the largest newspaper in Canada's capital. The theme of the conversation was the 30th anniversary of the release of Hejira. The story will be published on October 8 in the Citizen's Sunday Arts and Books section.
Thirty-six years later, Joni still bemoans the paving of paradise - a Bloomberg story today details her activism in trying to stop the development of a $100 million industrial-rock mine on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast.
The song "One For Joni" is included on Kenny Werner's latest Album, "Democracy", released on August 29. Brian Blade, drummer on two of Joni's albums and a member of her touring band, is also featured on drums. "One for Joni" is based, in part, on the opening figure from Joni Mitchell's song "Court and Spark".
According to a story in today's "Saskatoon Star Phoenix", a bronze mask of Joni Mitchell is missing, and a friend of the music icon hopes it can be returned.
The mask was made from a plaster mould of Mitchell's face in 1985 during the recording session for the fundraising song Tears Are Not Enough.
Veteran art director Ed Thrasher, who worked on hundreds of albums with such artists as Frank Sinatra and received 12 Grammy Award nominations, has died. He was 74. Ed did the art direction on Joni's first album, 'Song to a Seagull'.
Joni's songbook continues to be interpreted by various artists. Here are the latest announcements:
Jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux will duet with k.d.lang on "River" on her new release titled "Half A Perfect World".
Sarah McLachlan, who already has a cover of "Blue" to her credit, has announced that "River" will be included on her upcoming holiday album titled "Wintersong".
Jazz guitarist John Hart, having previously recorded a lovely Both Sides Now, has included a recording of "Help Me" on his latest release titled "Standards - Green and Blue". The recording features Joe Locke on vibes. Joe has recorded a number of Joni's songs with his band.
Joni's 1974 critical and popular masterpiece "Court and Spark" is the subject of a forthcoming book by Sean Nelson in Continuum Publishing's 33 & 1/3 series which spotlights classic albums. The book is not yet available but can be ordered through Amazon.com. The publication date is November 1st.
A new Dutch translation of selected lyrics by Joni titled "Onstuimig Indigo" has just been published. Translated by Huib Fens, this beautifully packaged bilingual clothbound hardcover edition of 264 pages is published by Wagner & Van Santen Poetry Publishers of the Netherlands. You can get more information (alas, only in Dutch) and see a picture of the cover here. The book can be ordered by email.
In stores today is "Rise", the latest release from Chris Thomas King, New Orleans blues guitarist. The album, which features mostly original songs that deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, also contains Chris' interpretation of Joni's classic "Big Yellow Taxi", undoubtedly for its refrain of "you don't know what you've got 'til its gone..."
Singer-Songwriter Vance Gilbert has announced on his website that his upcoming album "Angels, Castles, Covers" will contain a cover of Joni's standard "A Case Of You". The release date is set for August 22.
Available today on CDBaby is the latest CD from the Danish Joni Tribute group known as Big Yellow Taxi.
Samples and purchasing information available here. Titled "Unknown and Famous Songs of Joni Mitchell", it features many of Joni's best-known and most loved songs such as "Carey" and "A Case Of You", but also includes three tracks that Joni wrote but never released herself!
"Come To The Sunshine"
"Carnival In Kenora"
"The Way It Is" (written for the CBC-TV show of the same name)
Very exciting news for fans of Joni Mitchell...Joni may be retired, but her songs never take a day off!
Joni makes the Top Ten in Paste Magazine's "100 Most Important Living Songwriters" in their latest issue. The full list:
1. Bob Dylan
2. Neil Young
3. Bruce Springsteen
4. Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan
5. Paul McCartney
6. Leonard Cohen
7. Brian Wilson
8. Elvis Costello
9. Joni Mitchell
10. Prince
Petrol Records in Australia have announced that their upcoming June release titled ROADTRIP: Road To Nowhere will contain a cover of Joni's Blue by Andy Gilbert.
The press release states:
"Are you ready for a taste of the open road? ROADTRIP: Road To Nowhere presents 12 of the most evocative pop and rock songs of all time, as you have never heard them before - re-imagined for today's adrenaline-fueled lifestyle."
An adrenaline-fueled cover of "Blue" should be quite interesting to say the least!
Joni makes the cover of Rolling Stone once again...along with many, many other cultural icons in the most recent Special Collector's Edition 1000th Issue.
The audio of Joni's talk at "An Earth Day Celebration with Joni Mitchell" at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on April 22, 2005 is now available online. Many thanks to Andrew Lawton (Chair, Environment and Natural Resources) of Commonwealth for providing us with this audio.
Henry Lewy passed away peacefully last Saturday, April 8th.
Henry worked on nearly every Joni Mitchell record from "Clouds" on, acting as a combination engineer/producer/listener, as well as on projects with singer-songwriters ranging from Leonard Cohen to Van Morrison to Stephen Bishop. He also had a long, colourful history in the Los Angeles studio scene working on projects by the Mamas and the Papas, Crosby Stills & Nash, and a slew of others. The German-born Lewy began his career in the music business in the early fifties, working as a combination disc jockey and engineer at stations in San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
There will be no funeral or memorial at his request.
Houston-area Joni fans have something to do this Saturday night, April 8th. Selia Qynn's Habitat House is hosting a tribute to Joni Mitchell featuring Selia Qynn, Connie Mims, Sandy Wells, Gary Taylor, John Lassen, Lloyd Ernstes, Sara Bleibe, Carolyn Wallace, Melissa Sambrooks, Donna Binkley, Mauri Cowen & Katy Callahan. The suggested donation is $10 and all proceeds go to the Post-Polio Health Organization. Things start off with an optional potluck supper at 6:30pm and the music gets started around 7:30pm. More information and directions can be found here.
Percussionist Don Alias died in his home on Tuesday, March 28th. Don played on Joni's albums "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter", "Shadows and Light", and "Mingus" as well as being a member of the touring band for the Shadows and Light tour in 1979.
Calling upon a wide variety of musical genres, Don Alias supplied the rhythmic foundation to such luminaries as George Benson, James Taylor, Al Jarreau, Quincy Jones, Chick Corea, Miles Davis and Roberta Flack. In addition, he served as the long-time percussionist for saxophonist David Sanborn. Don's own band, Stone Alliance, has included players like Kenny Kirkland and Jan Hammer.
Alias' command of Afro-Cuban, Latin and other rhythms was unique in the jazz community. He was a master of the conga drum, and his kit includes many unique African instruments.
In lieu of sending flowers, the Alias family asks that donations be made to defray expenses. Please send to:
Mrs. Violet Richardson-Alias
1380 University Avenue, 6F
Bronx, NY 10452
Don talked about his relationship with Joni in a 1999 interview with DigitalInterviews.com:
Q: You played with Joni Mitchell. What memories stand out?
Don: She had done the Mingus stuff, and somehow or another we got to be hanging out. I used to take her up to Harlem and up to the Bronx, to get the culture and the feeling. We're talking about an extremely prolific poet and songwriter and lyricist. That stuff comes off the top of her head. She will write exactly what she lives. If she puts some money in the soda machine, she'll write about putting money in the soda machine. "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," on the Shadows & Light album, was about sitting next to a dry cleaner from Des Moines, playing a slot machine. She jumped into the Mingus project at that time. He asked her to recite T.S. Eliot over some of his music. He also found out that she was a songwriter, so he said, "Why don't you write lyrics to my music?" So she did that. Then when she was going out on tour, she got this band together -- Pat Metheny, Mike Brecker, Jaco Pastorius, Lyle Mays, myself, with The Persuasions, an acapella doo-wop group. What a band!
Q: She was really immersed in jazz music at that time?
Don: Oh, yeah. She wanted to have that element in her music. Of course, when she heard Jaco's music and met him, that floored her -- really grabbed her. She decided that Wayne Shorter was really conducive to her music. She would speak metaphorically about things. "I want this to sound like a taxicab driver, or a taxi in New York," or "I want this to sound like a telephone ringing." She would speak to musicians like that, and we really tuned into what she would want our music to be.
Joni's writing songs again?? Although you can't believe everything you read, the latest news from the Edmonton Sun sounds hopeful. While interviewing Joni "she said she had retired and wasn't recording anymore. But she had found herself writing again, and had three new songs. She'll consider recording again..." Keep your fingers crossed!
The Mendel Art Gallery of Saskatoon presents:
The Amazing Childhood of Joni Mitchell
March 17 to May 22, 2006
As part of the Mendel Art Gallery’s Naked City series, The Amazing Childhood of Joni Mitchell is presented in celebration of Saskatoon’s centenary, and in conjunction with COOLART ‘06 (formerly School Art), the Gallery’s annual showcase of artwork produced in local schools by Saskatoon's creative youth. This special collection of photographs, drawings, writings and other memorabilia, on loan from Myrtle and Bill Anderson, provides an intimate glimpse into the formative years and childhood imagination of their world-famous daughter, the legendary musician, songwriter, poet and visual artist Joni Mitchell.
Joni was born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, in Fort McLeod, Alberta, but grew up in Saskatchewan. Her parents moved around a lot, living in Creelman, Maidstone and North Battleford, before settling in Saskatoon when she was eleven years old. Joni proudly considers Saskatoon her hometown.
This exhibition documents Joni’s youth from infancy to high school years, and derives from a scrapbook lovingly compiled by Myrtle Anderson and titled The Life and Times of Roberta Joan Anderson. Myrtle, a teacher who taught grades one through eight in a one-room rural schoolhouse, describes her young daughter as having been "precocious, strong-minded, always talking and busy, busy, busy." For Anne Bayan, Joni’s long-time childhood friend, "she was a force of nature... magnetic, daring and inventive."
The sources of Joni’s numerous artistic and creative adult accomplishments may be found in some indissoluble blend of the effects of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’. As for early influences, she was an only child, and her supportive parents provided her with many opportunities. Starting with a small blackboard as a gift for her second birthday, Myrtle made sure her daughter had art supplies and even let her paint a tree on her bedroom wall. Joni’s friends and peers recognized her talent for drawing, and, as she had an early predilection for music, which may have been inherited from both of her grandmothers, she was given piano lessons at age seven. The Andersons also thought it important that Joni experience the world beyond Saskatchewan and took vacations in the United States, where she saw the Lewis and Clark Caverns and a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. Like all children, she enjoyed playing dress-up and making angels in the snow. Her father, Bill, a grocer who played the trumpet, made a bowling alley in the basement of their home, and she became an excellent bowler, playing on a team and winning several trophies.
Outside of her parents, there were other important influences. Playmates Frankie McKitrick and Peter Armstrong shared their passion for music and she was fortunate in grade seven, at Queen Elizabeth Public School, to have had an exceptionally responsive teacher named Arthur Kratzman. His advice to her was to "write and paint in your own blood." But perhaps the most profound experience that shaped Joni’s creative sensibility occurred when she was hospitalized with polio at age nine. She states, "Polio probably did me good.... I drew like crazy and sang Christmas carols to the other patients.... The creative process was an urgency...a survival instinct.... I believe convalescence in bed develops a strong inner life in a young child. I think it solidified me as an independent thinker. Nietzche was a convalescent."
The creative impulse is a quintessential attribute of all children, who have an honest sensitivity to, and unbridled curiosity about the world around them. In early childhood there is an easy, natural commerce among expressive media – singing, dancing, role playing, drawing – which develops out of personal experience and serves as a natural means for working out various potent themes in a child’s life. As adults, we can learn much from the depth of perception and emotional honesty expressed in the imaginative play of children, which for many people seems to progressively wane as they grow older.
This exhibition suggests that the interdisciplinary relationship between music, poetry and visual art that is fundamental to Joni Mitchell’s unique genius had its impetus in the artist’s childhood, reinforcing a theory posited by Edith Cobb (The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood), that adult creativity is built upon a childhood sense of self and world. Although childhood is so short-lived in terms of time, it is lasting in impact and memory. As Joni herself states, "you carry your childhood with you.... When the spirit of child's play enters into the creative process, it's a wonderful force and something to be nurtured."
The Mendel Art Gallery is delighted to be working with Joni Mitchell on the creation of "The Joni Mitchell Café", as part of the plans for an expanded facility. This unique, multi-sensory space of image, word and sound will celebrate the creative spirit through the telling of Joni’s story, and provide a pilgrimage destination for her many fans around the world.
–Terry Graff, Executive Director & CEO
Seventy-Seven Signs Ltd. & Mastergraph Inc. are gratefully acknowledged as exhibition sponsor for The Amazing Childhood of Joni Mitchell.
Mendel Art Gallery
PO Box 569
950 Spadina Cres. E
Saskatoon, SK
S7K 3L6
306.975.7612
www.mendel.ca
British artist Ian Shaw’s new studio album, "Drawn to All Things, The Songs of Joni Mitchell" is currently being mastered and is due for release in April on Linn Records. Featuring guest contributions from Claire Martin, Guy Barker, Nigel Hitchcock, Lea De Laria and Jim Mullen, this collection of Joni songs produced by Richard Cottle showcases Ian's long-term devotion to Joni's compositions.
Tracklist: Jericho, Moon at the Window, Night in the City, Edith and the Kingpin, Harlem in Havana, A Case of You, Barangrill, Chelsea Morning, Love or Money, Talk to Me, River, Night Ride Home, Both Sides Now and Stay In Touch.
A concert to celebrate this new release will be held at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London on April 15th, with Ian, his band, and a host of special guests from the international jazz world.
Rosanna Arquette's movie entitled 'All We Are Saying' will be featured on the cable channel 'Showtime' in the USA on March 8. Arquette, a self-professed lover of real music musicians sets out to find out how rockers balance their lives with art, their opinions on today's music and who inspires them. Artists, including Stevie Nicks, Sting, Steven Tyler, Mary J. Blige, Elton John, Peter Gabriel, and Joni Mitchell, provide all the answers. The movie will also be featured at the Tribeca Film Festival in late April. (Thanks to Sarah Roane for alerting us to this information)
Patrick Leader's report on the Tribute to Joni Mitchell at Carnegie Hall is now on-line. Thanks to Patrick for his prompt recap of the event! Here are other reports on the event: On the Scene: Joni Mitchell tribute concert, Music of Joni Mitchell, A tribute from the Joni Mitchell songbook.
The line-up for the Carnegie Hall Tribute seems to change daily. Currently, here's the list of performers from the event's website: Laurie Anderson, Assembly of Dust featuring Sonya Kitchell, Don Byron, Marc Cohn, Judy Collins, Shawn Colvin, Cowboy Junkies, eels, Bebel Gilberto, Amy Grant, Richie Havens, Bettye LaVette, Jesse Malin, Nellie McKay, Me’shell NdegéOcello, Pharaoh's Daughter, Tom Rush, Jimmy Scott, Neil Sedaka, Martin Sexton, Joanne Shenandoah, Suzanne Vega, Dar Williams, Michelle Williams (of Destiny’s Child), and The Wood Brothers.
Kay Ashley reports that because of a booking mishap, the Night In The City benefit concert at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City won't start until midnight on Thursday, February 2. She's been assured that the musicians can play late into the night, so there's no time pressure on the back end of things.
Check Kay's website for the current list of confirmed performers.
Jill Linn spotted a gem on the Mendel Art Gallery's website:
Naked City: The Amazing Childhood of Joni Mitchell.
March 17 to May 22, 2006
In recognition of the Saskatoon centenary, the Mendel Art Gallery proposes a series of events, exhibitions, performances, lectures and artists' projects that expose the "underbelly of the city" and the "unofficial" history of Saskatoon, its secrets, its celebrities, its hopes and dreams. Naked City will also explore the role of art in expanding our ideas around sustainability and urban living.
"Layer One: City of Curiosities" will include Myrtle Anderson's childhood memorabilia of her daughter, Joni Mitchell.
Kay Ashley has announced a special event on the night following the Carnegie Hall Tribute:
NIGHT IN THE CITY:
An Evening of the Music of Joni Mitchell Benefitting the Musicians of New Orleans
Thursday, February 2, 2006
11:00 pm -- Late
Rockwood Music Hall
196 Allen Street
New York City
212.477.4155
F train to 2nd Ave, exit at 1st Ave & Allen NO COVER -- we'll pass the bucket for donations to Katrina's Piano Fund
Here's the almost-final line-up, in alpha order, subject to last-minute
changes:
Kay Ashley, Joy Askew, Denise Barbarita, Donna Binkley, Cari Cole, Elizabeth Dotson-Westphalen, Jenny Goodspeed, David Lahm, Victoria Lavington, Nikki O'Neill, Michael Paz, Lisa Roma, Aviv Roth, Ari Scott, Lynn Skinner, Allison Tartalia, Bryan Thomas, Justin Tracy, Gary Zack.
Unconfirmed: Chris Coccaro, Alison Einerson, Chuck Eisenhardt, and possibly other special guests...
The New JoniMitchell.com quietly went live today, culminating a more than 3 month transition. Within 24-48 hours, the domain servers across the globe will point to the new site. Endless thanks to Raffaele Malanga, Jamie Zubairi, Bryan Taulbee and countless others who helped with the transition.
With bittersweet feelings I also annouce that the JMDL website as we have known it will soon cease to be. Rather than try to maintain 2 good websites, I'm merging both together into one great site - as JoniMitchell.com. Nothing has been lost from either site, only made better.
Discouraging news from Joni's management regarding the Carnegie Hall Tribute: "Unfortunately, Joni will not be attending the event and neither will any of our staff. " Maybe she'll have a last-minute change of heart.
Canadian TV viewers have something to look forward to!
Shakin' All Over - Canadian Pop Music in the 1960's
On CBC Television, Monday, January 30 at 8 P.M.
The flower-power decade gave the world a wealth of great music, from England's mods to America's psychedelic rockers. But the hippie era also gave us cool sounds from the Great White North. It started with the folk music of Ian & Sylvia and the rhythm 'n' blues of Ronnie Hawkins and quickly evolved into a sonic revolution, as literally hundreds of bands and singer-songwriters from coast to coast began making noise. Shakin' All Over captures all of those freewheeling sounds, from such legendary stars as Joni Mitchell, The Guess Who, Neil Young, Anne Murray and The Band to cult heroes like David Wiffen, The Collectors and Mashmakhan. The two-hour special airs on CBC Television, Monday, Jan. 30 at 8 p.m.
Shakin' All Over takes viewers on a trip back in time to Vancouver's 4th Avenue, Winnipeg's community centres, Montreal's dance halls and the clubs and coffeehouses that sprang up along Toronto's Yorkville and Yonge Street. There, in the absence of a music industry, a brave new sound began to emerge. The special is full of candid interviews with more than 60 iconic figures like Gordon Lightfoot, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Bruce Cockburn, who offer illuminating stories about each other. And, the show features an abundance of rare performance clips from the period, from Early Morning Rain to Oh What a Feeling.
But Shakin' All Over also features some of Canada's brightest younger stars, including Blue Rodeo, Barenaked Ladies and Sarah Harmer, who pay tribute to the period. Hawksley Workman tells of being inspired by Ian Tyson, who wrote his first song, Four Strong Winds, after hearing "this punk named Dylan." Matthew Good fondly remembers cranking the volume on Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride. And Sloan's Jay Ferguson draws a connection between the Canadian bands of the '60s and current garage-rock favourites. Said Ferguson: "If you listen to records by The Ugly Ducklings or The Great Scots, they could almost be a hit in this day, because it's so contemporary with the revival of that sound by The White Stripes and The Hives."
Along with vintage archival footage from a variety of sources, including the CBC, Shakin' All Over mines contemporary material to present recent covers of classic Canadian songs, including Diana Krall's spellbinding performance of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You and Margo Timmins' and Tom Cochrane's stunning rendition of The Guess Who's American Woman. This is a music lover's dream: a TV show with non-stop performances, including more than 60 classic songs.
Shakin' All Over is based on the book Before the Gold Rush - Flashbacks to the Dawn of the Canadian Sound by Nicholas Jennings. Directed by Gary McGroarty, and produced by Nick Orchard, Randolph Eustace-Walden and Pierre L. Touchette. Executive producer is Luc Châtelain. Produced by Soapbox Productions and Amérimage-Spectra.
Recently spotted on Cassandra Wilson's website:
"Early November 2005, worked on a Joni Mitchell Tribute project for Nonesuch records. Brandon Ross, Kenny Davis, Gregoire Maret, and Jeffrey Haines. These guys are my family. We spent two days together at Allaire Studios in Shokan. The leaves had completely turned before and fell the day after we recorded. For The Roses was well worth the wait. I used to do it back in the '80's and could not remember the tuning. But have no fear, the guitar god is here. Thanks, Brandon."
No other information about it at this time!
Our good friend and watchdog Julius Mills reports that, according to Carnegie Hall's on-line ticket office, all tickets are gone for the upcoming tribute. It looks like Joni's sold out another event!
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| Wally's Resting Place |
For a short time early on our ride (the cruise lasted a little more than an hour) everybody stayed at the back of the boat while I walked up in front. I talked with Wally for a few moments as we plied our way across the water, just making small talk like "Yeah, I know, you'd rather be home listening to the stereo than out on this boat," or "It turned out to be a nice day, didn't it?" and so on… when I started talking about the "I wish I didn't have to do this" and the "I'm sure going to miss you" stuff, I had some trouble keeping it together. I was very fortunate to be with a caring and sympathetic group of people.
We stopped in a quiet little cove just inside the Golden Gate and said (or thought) our farewells as I gently released the ashes of our pal into the calm bay water. As the ashes swirled about and disappeared, a few seagulls flew in close to the boat and circled overhead, as if to welcome him; the usually very vocal birds were completely silent. The only sounds were those of wind, waves and weeping.
One gull seemed particularly interested in the proceedings, hovering motionless for the whole time. Maybe this is just Jim doing what he needs to do to work through this, but I can't get that bird out of my head; I think Wally's spirit was visiting so he could have a look. I've been listening to the Song to a Seagull CD again and again these days—so free, so out of reach—now everytime I see a seagull I find myself thinking "Hi, is that you?"
Life is strange, sad and wonderful; the chaos of the last few months had subsided long enough for us to have a few peaceful final moments together.
A gathering at my house afterwards went well. Joni and her management company sent flowers, as did Reprise. We listened to a compilation of some of Wally's favorite Joni songs and passed around pictures, sharing memories as we talked and propped each other up. Sue McNamara assembled and sent a beautiful scrapbook of messages from JMDL members.
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| JoniMitchell.com reader and friend Winfried in Germany celebrates Wally's spirit |
jj
P.S. Wally wouldn't like it if this site became centered more around him than it was around Joni, but since the interest in and response to his story have been so big I'll do one more post, about Wally's journey with JoniMitchell.com and about the site's future, soon.
Paste Magazine "confirms" today that Alison Krauss and Joan Osborne have been added to the Carnegie Hall Tribute. No verification as of yet on the official event site.
A few changes have been made to the list of artists who'll perform at the Carnegie Hall tribute on February 1st. Most importantly, Shawn Colvin has been added! The current list of artists is as follows:
Laurie Anderson, Keren Ann, Joseph Arthur, Assembly of Dust featuring Sonya Kitchell, Tracy Chapman, Marc Cohn, Judy Collins, Shawn Colvin, Cowboy Junkies, eels, Bebel Gilberto, Amy Grant, La India, Bettye LaVette, Me'shell N'degeocello, Jimmy Scott, Neil Sedaka, Joanne Shenandoah, Suzanne Vega, Dar Williams, Michelle Williams (of Destiny's Child), and The Wood Brothers.
Josh Schurr has some year-end Joni news for us from New York City:
88.5 WXPN, a big East Coast radio station had a week long countdown that named the 885 Greatest Albums of All Time. Each album was voted in by the listeners, so we really get to see what the people think. Joni had 8 albums on the list. Here's the order she came in from the top down:
13 Blue
44 Court and Spark
88 Hejira
221 Ladies Of The Canyon
387 Miles Of Aisles
397 For The Roses
458 Hissing Of Summer Lawns
594 Clouds
Three albums in the top 100 out of 885 is pretty impressive, especially having Blue at #13 (although I thought it should have been #1). This countdown shows how listeners feel about Joni. All in all, I think it was a fairly good order, except For the Roses and Miles and Aisles deserve to be furthur up on the list.
Joni will be the subject of another tribute in February of 2006! Check out the tentative stars who may show up - this list from the event's website:
Wednesday, February 1st, 2006: The Music of Joni Mitchell at Carnegie Hall
Please join us for this rare evening. 20+ TRIBUTE PERFORMANCES Partial list of participating artists (NOT CONFIRMED and Subject to change): Laurie Anderson, Keren Ann, Joseph Arthur, Tracy Chapman, Marc Cohn, Judy Collins, Cowboy Junkies, eels, Ben Folds, Bebel Gilberto, Amy Grant, La India, Joe Jackson, Bettye LeVette, Matisyahu, Michelle N'degeocello, Jimmy Scott, Neil Sedaka, Suzanne Vega, Dar Williams, Michelle Williams (of Destiny's Child), & Surprise Guests
6:30pm VIP Artist Reception, 8:00pm Concert
Tickets:
$225 - VIP Seats & Artist Reception
$100 - Prime Box Seats or Prime Orchestra Seats
$75 - Side Box Seats or Orchestra Seats
$58 - Dress Circle Seats
$42 - Balcony Center Seats
$30 - Balcony Side Seats
Tickets are available at Carnegie Hall's box office
Sponsor Packages
Sponsorships and host packages available: contact Michael Dorf, Producer.
HOST PACKAGE: includes name in program and 10 VIP Tickets - $5000
PATRON PACKAGE: includes bigger name in marketing materials and 15 VIP Tickets - $10,000
PRESENTER PACKAGE: includes name in title, stage mention, and 20 VIP Tickets - $25,000
This concert is a benefit for The Music for Youth Foundation, a non-profit initiative with two primary missions: To identify, fund and lend our experience to innovative programs that make quality music education available to young people, AND to create scholarship opportunities for exceptionally talented youth who choose to make music their life's work, thereby helping to sustain the next generation of artists and teachers.
Jazz pianist and vocalist Patricia Barber mentioned Joni in a recent interview with Andrea Canter. A native of suburban Chicago, Barber was genetically predispositioned to follow the jazz life; her father, Floyd "Shim" Barber, played sax with Glen Miller. Studying psychology and classical music at the University of Iowa, she switched to jazz, later moving back to Chicago and literally launching her career in 1984 with a standing engagement (5 nights per week) at the famed Gold Star Sardine Bar.
Patricia has since gained a critical and cult following, and released numerous albums. Of her album called "Verse", Patricia makes this comment in the interview:
"Verse is about songwriting," says Barber, "and about trying to create new material within both a narrow and broad construction of what vocal jazz is now. I have been diligent about trying to learn from, absorb, and acknowledge the great American songwriters whose songs have been appropriated as repertoire by the jazz masters... I was hearing the songs in my head had more to do with the guitar than the piano. In a loose way, Verse is a Patricia Barber homage to Joni Mitchell."
Andrew Lawton sent me an email today:
Greetings JMDL,
Here is a very special holiday treat for the JMDL community.
On Earth Day of this year, I had the rare pleasure of hosting Joni as a speaker at the Commonwealth Club of California, where she spoke to a sold-out audience of around 400.
The audio of her speech has been posted on the Club's website.
I know that you and the rest of the JMDL community will enjoy this recording. I am working on posting a text transcription and will alert you when it is available. It is possible that the Club may broadcast this recording via public radio on or around Earth Day 2007, but this would depend on the level of interest that the program generates on-line, so I urge all JMDL members to spead the word, and point as many people to the Club's website as possible.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Andrew Lawton
San Francisco, CA
Happy 62nd Joni! This year's card was done by Frank Garwood of Southern California and personally delivered to Joni. Frank chose a southwest theme. If you look real close you can see (in translucent) "A Journey Taken" also the word Environment. The highway is the front of the card and the Indian styled art is on the back. Black Ink medium, with color.
The inside of the card says:
Happy Birthday Joni
From the internet commmunity at JoniMitchell.com
Thank you for being an inspiration to us all in so many ways
2005 Birthday Card
Artwork and design created by JDML member Frank Garwood from Southern California. Front, insert, and back are shown.
2004 Birthday Card
2003 Birthday Card
Artwork by Kurt von Behrmann
2002 Birthday Card
Thanks to Steve Polifka for the card design
2001 Birthday Card
Thanks to Steve Polifka for the card design
2000 Birthday Card
Many thanks to Sue Cooper for contributing her painting, and to Rose Joy for her photo collage.
1998 Birthday Card
Jim and Wally designed the inside of the birthday card using the cities, states and countries of those of us in the Joni Mitchell Internet Community as a background for our birthday wishes.
JoniMitchell.com has officially begun a transition. Jim Johanson has decided to pursue other opportunities and will be handing over the reigns to Les Irvin. This site is an enormous resource with mountains of data, so the transition will not be quick. While the look of the site will dramatically change, Les will attempt to maintain the spirit that Wally and Jim have given to the site in the past decade. Look for JoniMitchell.com and JMDL.com to begin sharing resources, and for the two sites to become a one-stop (two-stop?) avenue for all things Joni.
Songs of a Prairie Girl is the title of Joni's latest retrospective CD, due in stores today. The CD is Joni's contribution to centennial celebrations in her childhood home of Saskatchewan. Last week, the Canadian Press reported that she'll be headed for Saskatoon in May to take part in the Centennial Gala, but apparently she wanted to do something more than just make an appearance.
In an interview with CTV's "Canada AM," Joni elaborated on some of her motivations for the CD release: "Saskatchewan is having its centennial celebration, and... I'm retired basically, so they had wanted me to perform, and I thought, well, I don't do that anymore, I'm a painter now, so what I'll do is I'll see if Rhino Records will put out a compilation of material that is either inspired or is directly addressing my childhood, you know, songs about the prairie in one way or another..."
"You carry your childhood with you regardless of who you are," she said. "Saskatchewan is in my veins." The music on Songs of a Prairie Girl certainly bear out those statements. She's chosen songs ranging from her earliest compositions ("Urge For Going," the song she's called her "only protest song... a protest against winter") to her latest ("Harlem In Havana"). The CD illustrates how the Canadian prairie has been close to Joni's heart throughout her life.
Warner Strategic Marketing's press release tells us that she's been "very hands-on in terms of track selection, sequencing, mastering and artwork," (as was the case with last year's Dreamland); the result is a lot more personal than your average "greatest hits" package. Long-time fans are sure to be interested in the 2004 update of "Paprika Plains," originally on Joni's groundbreaking Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. Many Joniphiles will recognize Joel Bernstein's cover photo as part of the series from which the cover art of Joni's classic Hejira is taken.
Joni's been a little more visible lately in the days leading up to the CD release. In addition to the CTV interview, she appeared at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club to give an Earth Day speech on the 22nd, telling the audience that to be a nature lover right now is to be in "terrible pain." Probably the most surprising recent Joni comment, though, comes to us courtesy of writer Nancy Alspaugh, who, in her new photo-essay book "Fearless Women" tells us Joni said that as far as lovers go, James Taylor "was the best. Just the best." I haven't seen the book, but the photos of Joni and others holding Camelot-style swords should be interesting as well.
Joni's at Starbucks:You can now get a slice of Joni at coffee conglomerate Starbucks when you stop in for your Venti Chocolate Brownie frappuccino; two compilation CD's, released last week, both offer interesting insights.
First up, we're invited to "Spend an hour with Joni Mitchell's record collection." The Joni Mitchell Artist's Choice™ CD ($14.95) is a collection of songs Joni cites as being those which have had the most impact on her. Long time fans will find many of the artists they expect to find on this CD, of course, but others who haven't heard Joni talk about her musical influences may be surprised at the contents. In any case, there's a wide variety of fine music to be heard here; Joni even includes one of her own songs, the wonderful "Harlem in Havana." Here's what you'll find on the CD:
The second disk, Songs Chosen By Her Friends & Fellow Musicians, is a collection of Joni's music chosen by a variety of artists. I suppose many of us might have other artists we would have liked to have seen selections from in addition to the ones represented (Wayne Shorter? James Taylor?), but it's still an interesting cross-section of well-known artists, and a satisfying variety of Joni's music. This disk, priced at $12.95, contains the following songs, culled from mostly early to mid-points in her career:
Both CD's are hopefully available at your local Starbucks (I say hopefully because two of the Starbucks I checked didn't have them), or online at their website.
Happy Birthday Joni -- Those eyes have always been one of her most striking features, so this year we've sent Joni a birthday card that looks back at her! The card has a blue tint to it, similar to the classic album cover, but lighter. And the gaze here is directed outwards. Have a look…
"Elvis Costello Interviews Joni Mitchell" is the headline on the front cover of the November issue of Vanity Fair, and that's essentially what it is. But Elvis' "Joni's Last Waltz?" interview strikes me as being a bit more than that. Elvis segues into a conversation with Joni after weaving a short history of Joni's musical career together with telling us a personal story of how Joni's music has been a part of his experience from her first album, given to him as a gift by his father. The fact that one respected songwriter is talking with another gives the interview an extra dimension, covering a wide range of topics: Among other subjects, Joni discusses her songwriting as well as the songwriting of others, the perils of commercial acceptance, and her post-retirement retrospectives The Beginning of Survival and Dreamland. And as always, there are a few surprising comments. One that I find interesting is Joni's remark that "I can't remember anything I ever wrote." It's quite a shock to hear her say something like that when you consider the fact that so many other people know her songs inside out!
The most complete chronology of Joni's appearances is here! Thanks to exhaustive research by Simon Montgomery (with contributions and assistance from Joni's photographer and pal Joel Bernstein), you'll find the most comprehensive and accurate record of Joni's public appearances to be found anywhere. Thanks also to Les Irvin, who took this mountain of information and formatted it for the Web. It's easy to navigate, and completely searchable. Joni history buffs are going to love this!
Rhino's new Dreamland E-Card is well worth a look. In addition to Joni's paintings (some of which you may not have seen), the E-Card also has links that will enable you to hear much of the CD, or let you forward the card to a friend. You may have already noticed the link on JoniMitchell.com's entry page, but I thought I'd post it again here in case you missed it.
Thanks to everybody who entered the Dreamland giveaway -- we've got winners from the US to Australia! Many thanks also to WB for supplying me with some extra prizes, since the response was bigger than anybody expected -- in addition to the promo CD's, I get to give away some posters too. Nobody has long to wait, whether or not they won the drawing; Dreamland arrives in your local store and your online stores (such as Amazon) on September 14.
"An art born of pain, an artist in happy exile" is the title of a wonderful feature article in the Los Angeles Times that was in yesterday's newspaper and is appearing online with their "Calendar Live" songwriters series. Equal parts history and interview, it's a revealing snapshot of a contented post-retirement Joni today. The story covers a wide range of topics: early inspirations, influences and opinions ("I thought 'Both Sides Now' was a failure," Joni says), her creative process, her rocky relationship with the music industry and her take on the current pop world are just a few of topics Joni talks about. "I'm so happy," Joni tells writer Robert Hilburn, speaking of life since retirement from the music biz. In addition, there's a multimedia feature with photos, music and interview excerpts.
Interviews with Joni are few and far between these days; this one is like paying a visit to a friend to talk about old times and catch up. I think Joniphiles will love reading it.
I wish I could reprint the article here, but I think there would be some ruffled feathers at the newspaper! The stories in the "Calendar Live" series are only available by subscription; if you're not interested in subscribing to the newspaper, you can subscribe to "Calendar Live" online for $4.95/month. If you're only interested in the Joni story, you might want to take advantage of a 14-day free trial. If you do this you'll have to give them a credit card number, but you won't get billed if you remember to call them to cancel 14 days later (888 448-5959).
Joni's retrospective CD Dreamland is due for release on September 14. Following are a few excerpts from today's press release:
"Curated with Mitchell and featuring several of her new paintings as well as liner notes from noted film director and journalist Cameron Crowe, DREAMLAND includes 17 tracks and their complete lyrics together for the first time in one place....Crowe was approached to write the liner notes that accompany the CD and submitted a wonderfully eloquent and insightful essay framing the history of Joni's work and Joni herself.
DREAMLAND includes songs from every phase of Joni's amazing repertoire. From the earliest days of Ladies Of The Canyon to the emotional intensity of Blue; from the romantic song cycle of Court And Spark to the pioneering days of sampling on The Hissing Of Summer Lawns and her jazz journeys on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter and Mingus; from the Grammy-winning Pop Album of the Year Turbulent Indigo to Joni's orchestral explorations of her own work on Both Sides Now and Travelogue, Mitchell is a seminal artist who continues to push the boundaries of both music and society."
A few words from Cameron Crowe are included with the press release: "Like her painting, like her songs, like her life. Joni Mitchell has never settled for the easy answers; it's the big questions that she's still exploring, like no one else, whether it's with a paintbrush, a guitar, a ukulele."
This is a great collection for Joniphiles who want to listen to her best-known music without having to sift through a stack of CD's to find it, or as an introduction to Joni's music for the uninitiated. The uplifting, introspective and familiar music on Dreamland works wonderfully as a contrast to the serious and challenging selections on The Beginning of Survival; the pair of CD's show different sides of Joni and serve as fine companions. And as always, the package doubles as a gallery of her latest paintings.
Although Rhino.com is sure to have information on the CD available at their website, it isn't up just yet. I'd wait until the September release date gets a little closer before checking with them.
Joni's doing a live radio interview tomorrow, Tuesday August 3, on Los Angeles station KPFK. The interview is scheduled to air at 4 PM PST. According to Producer/Host Aura Bogado, this will be Joni's only radio interview, so try to catch it if you can! If you're in KPFK's Southern California broadcast area, you can tune the station in at 90.7FM; listeners in other areas can hear the interview on the station's website by clicking on their "Listen Live" link.
The elusive Joni interview: I wish I had more information to give you here, but I'll tell you what I know: Joni's to be interviewed by CNN on Thursday. Now I'll tell you what I don't know: when we'll get to see this interview is a mystery. There's been no word about when the interview will be aired, or about whether or not it will appear in print -- CNN hasn't responded to requests for more information. With luck, we'll know more about the interview before it has come and gone, but I wanted to put the word out so we can all watch for it.
Joni's CD The Beginning of Survival is due for release today. Her CD of "commentaries on the world in which we live" is a powerful, well-timed social statement that's every bit as effective right now as these songs were when the many albums the music comes from were initially released; the fact that the music is now all together in one spot increases the impact even more. "The time has come," says Joni, referring to the new CD. She's paid careful attention to song selection and order to make it a coherent, focused collection. Her reflections are also expressed here through her latest paintings, a new essay, and the moving "Chief Seattle" speech that regained prominence when referred to by Joseph Campbell in his famous "Power of Myth" conversation with Bill Moyers.
The recording industry is most likely to notice audience support in the days just after release -- I hope you'll pick it up today so these important songs reach as many new ears as possible.
Joni has a favor to ask of you.Joni and I talked for some time tonight about all of us getting a little "conspiracy" together for the release of The Beginning of Survival. How can you help? By purchasing the CD on July 27, the day it's due in stores. Tell your friends. Let's help Joni get her new CD onto the charts.
There's a very good reason for this: Joni wants to make sure that there are future collections as beautiful as this one's going to be. It's an unfortunate truth that how a CD sells when it first comes out can make or break an artist's chances for having a say on future releases. Joni doesn't want what she considers her best work to end up "in Geffen's basement." She wants to be sure that she can continue to give us releases with her latest paintings, more than just a disc inside a plastic box.
Joni's really happy with this CD. "When they see it, they'll love it, and they'll want to share it with people," she told me. "Buy two and hold on to one of them to give away as a Christmas present!" I promised her I would, of course, and hope you all will too.
Here's an interesting entry from Who mastermind Pete Townshend about Joni's Travelogue CD, from his May 23, 2004 diary entry on PeteTownshend.co.uk:
"I am listening to Joni Mitchells' CD called Travelogue. It is a revisit to her career with full orchestra. It is, quite simply, a quantum masterpiece. Joni is at the peak of her powers. Even her paintings seem to me to be especially revelatory gathered as they are in the sleeve. Someone told me last night, after The Who's show at Madison Square Garden, that she plans no more recording. If she never made another record, this one will stand as a testament not only to her work, but to the greatness of American Orchestral music. I hear Oliver Nelson, Aaron Copland, Edgar Meyer and even Thomas Newman in this work. But her arranger, under the guidance of her ex- husband Larry Klein - who could do nothing more to express his ongoing love and respect - is Vince Mendoza. This guy knows how to score, and someone certainly knows how to fix the right musicians."
I know it's not an uncommon occurrance, but I still love it when Joni gets her due from other well known musicians!
The Beginning of Survival is the title of Joni's latest anthology, due out July 27 on Geffen. Calling the CD "commentaries on the world in which we live," Joni focuses on songs from her 1985-1998 releases, serious and weighty subjects all: greed, hunger, corruption (just for starters). The material on this CD demonstrates the ongoing relevance and timelessness of Joni's exquisite songwriting, in this case when she's addressing subjects that we all wish weren't so timeless. The beauty of the music draws the listener into Joni's impassioned, sometimes outright angry lyrics.
In addition to the original artwork and song lyrics we always look forward to, Joni's written an essay for inclusion in the CD package. Also included is a reproduction of an inspiring circa-1850s speech by Chief Seattle. The CD title is taken from a translation of this speech; the Chief was speaking to address a proposed treaty under which the Indians were persuaded to sell two million acres of land to the US Government for $150,000. Reading any one of the many translations of Chief Seattle's letter 150 years on can be an eerie, unsettling experience.
A wide range of guest artists appear with Joni on The Beginning of Survival: Willie Nelson duets with Joni on her version of "Cool Water," originally by the Sons of the Pioneers, a group Joni has called one of her very early influences. Playing a fire-and-brimstone televangelist, actor Rod Steiger spikes "Tax-Free" with incendiary shouts as he feeds off his flock. Other guests include Wayne Shorter, Iron Eyes Cody, James Taylor and Don Henley.
Audiophiles are sure to enjoy the sound quality: the tracks have all been 96k/24-bit mastered from the original master tapes (for those of us lacking technical expertise, that means it's going to sound great).
This isn't going to be an easy CD to listen to. I think Joni's challenging us to look society's ills straight in the eye instead of running off in the other direction. If you're looking for the intimacy and warmth that's evident in so much of Joni's music, you should also pick up one of her other CDs, but don't miss The Beginning of Survival. Let these songs sink in.
Good news from the Grammies:Vince Mendoza picked up a Grammy award for his work on Joni's Travelogue Sunday night, in the Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) category. This award is given for arrangement work on one song or track; Mendoza's award is for his arrangement work on "Woodstock."
Court and Spark, the 1974 album that contains Joni's biggest chart hits, is in the Grammy news too these days. It's one of the 33 albums added by the Recording Academy to the Grammy Hall of Fame list. Court and Spark is Joni's second album on the list, the first being 1971's Blue, added to the Hall of Fame list four years ago. The Grammy Hall Of Fame was established in 1973 to honor recordings of "lasting qualitative or historical significance" that are at least 25 years old. 33 albums or singles were added this year, bringing the total to 639.
John Guerin's recent death adds a sad note to the Court and Spark news. Guerin, well-known as one of the most frequently recorded drummers of all time, has been heard with everyone from Joni to Frank Zappa, Frank Sinatra to The Byrds, as well as on seemingly countless movie soundtracks and commercials. The drummer-producer's best known work is probably as a member of the popular jazz-informed group LA Express (Joni did the cover art for one of their four albums). Beginning with Court and Spark, Joni worked with LA Express through much of the seventies. During this time they recorded and toured extensively, performing some of her most praised (and best-selling) work; Guerin shared songwriting credits with Joni on the title song for The Hissing of Summer Lawns. He died suddenly on January 14 in Los Angeles from heart failure, aged 64.
Actor-singer-dancer John Kelly returns in New York next month with his third Joni show Get Up and Jive: Even More Songs of Joni Mitchell, opening at Fez in the Village on March 5. The multitalented artist's funny, empathic and evocative recreations of Joni have been a hit in venues across the US and UK since the 1984 Wigstock festival in NYC; Joni is among his many fans. Other works in Obie-winning Kelly's multifaceted career include transformations into Dagmar Onassis, artist Egon Schiele, composer Robert Schumann and transvestite trapeze artist Barbette. Get Up and Jive: Even More Songs of Joni Mitchell runs through March 27. A must-see.
Happy Birthday Joni!It's hard to believe, but Joni turns 60 today. As always, I've sent her a card from all her Web friends, illustrated by one of our own; this year, I was lucky to enlist the assistance of artist and writer Kurt von Behrmann, who's been a friend to JoniMitchell.com for many years (for a look at more of Kurt's art, visit the Paulina Miller Studio Gallery). Thanks to Kurt's creation and a verse suggestion from a Joniphile pal, we have another beautiful card that I hope Joni will enjoy. I got to speak with her on the phone briefly last night; I wished her many happy returns and told her we all miss her!
Joni's new box set The Complete Geffen Recordings arrives in stores today. Joni recorded four albums while with Geffen: Wild Things Run Fast in 1982, Dog Eat Dog in 1985, 1988's Chalk Mark In A Rainstorm and 1991's Night Ride Home. Each of the disks in this four-disk set offers one of the four albums in its entirety. There are three previously unheard tracks: an unreleased piano-and-vocal demo of "Good Friends," and demo versions of "Two Grey Rooms" and Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." An 88-page booklet features liner notes where Joni comments on the tracks. The booklet also includes rare photos from the the Dog Eat Dog and Night Ride Home sessions.
Compilation producer Mike Ragogna told ICE magazine recently that "We hardly did any remastering. In fact, these are basically flat transfers of the albums, since we found them in such good shape. We had the original master tapes, which have only been used once - when Mobile Fidelity licensed the Wild Things Run Fast album. Otherwise, these masters have never been touched."
The set is also available from online vendors such as CD Universe or Amazon.com. CD Universe has a better price.
Congratulations to the winnersof Joni's Shadows and Light DVD! And many thanks to everyone who entered -- the great response to the drawing is testimony to the fact that Joni has plenty of fans out there. I wish I had a roomful of these things so I could send one to everybody. At least the DVD is widely available from your local retailer, or from online merchants such as Amazon.com. No matter how you get it, a copy of Joni's Shadows and Light DVD is a lot more than a consolation prize.
Win a copy of Joni's Shadows and Light" DVD at JoniMitchell.com! I think most Joniphiles have seen this concert at least once. For many, once wasn't enough, and this performance has gone on to become one of her best loved live appearances. Here's a chance to pick up a free copy, compliments of Shout! Entertainment and jm.com. Enter the drawing by September 15.
Joni's made the top ten again, this time on a list in the July/August issue of Women Who Rock magazine. It's hard for any "best of" list to please everyone, but "100 Women Who Rocked the World" does a good job. The editors strive for a wider look at popular music of the 20th century for this list than many I've seen, acknowledging women from Ma Rainey (the original 1920's blues queen) to rap pioneers of recent times. Joni's #7 on the list, between Aretha Franklin and Patti Smith; one of Joni's own influences, Billie Holiday, is up at #2. Although Joni's usually not that big on the idea of any kind of female segregation in the music world, maybe she'd be happy to hear about this since it's a list created by other women to honor their peers.
In any event, it's good to see anything about Joni during a summer where it seems that the closest we come to hearing her on the radio with any frequency is Counting Crows' remake of "Big Yellow Taxi." Not that the remake is bad, but I still find myself thinking "Why can't they play the original once in a while?" Not part of the marketing plan, I suppose.
Joni Mitchell Lovers Rejoice! Shadows and Light is finally available on DVD! Joni's landmark concert video, performed with the support of musical giants such as bassist Jaco Pastorius, guitarist Pat Metheny and vocal group The Persuasions, has always been a favorite of Joni lovers (including myself). The new DVD, released last week by Shout! Factory, is a stunner. Enjoying this magical performance with breathtaking sound quality is an experience not to be missed (for you audiophiles, Shout! Factory bills it as "PCM Stereo with a 5.1 Dolby® Digital surround sound option"). Also not to be missed is the disk's 48-image Tour Diary featuring never-before seen photos by longtime JM friend and photographer Joel Bernstein. Joni and Joel went over hundreds of his photos in a marathon session recently that stretched into the wee hours; the included photos are Joni's personal selections.
For more information, check out the Shout! Factory website.
More DVD news: Woman of Heart and Mind, the highly-reviewed documentary broadcast earlier this year, was released on DVD by Eagle Vision in June. Besides additional footage, this disk has four bonus recordings taken from Joni's great 1998 concert release "Painting With Words and Music." Years in the making, it's another DVD Joniphiles won't want to be without.
U.S. viewers: Don't forget! Canada got the first look last month, but tonight's the U.S. premiere of Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind on the PBS American Masters series (check local listings for time). I had a chance to preview the show recently (many thanks to my good friend Simon Montgomery) and found a treasure trove of newly released photos, excerpts from many of her best loved songs as well as rare recordings of songs from early in her career, exclusive interviews with Joni and many others, all exhaustively researched and presented as a 90 minute program that's a joy to watch. I particulary enjoyed the Joni's-eye-view perspective that the film often imparts to viewers, an important factor that sometimes slips by unnoticed.
The American Masters site is beautifully put together, with a feature essay excerpted from NPR's classical music critic Tom Manoff's book Music: A Living Language; the essay, titled "Joni Mitchell's Stylistic Journey," is well worth reading. You'll also find plenty of video clips, an interview with filmmaker Susan Lacy and a timeline covering some of the high points in Joni's career.
I hope you're able to catch Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind tonight but if not, there's a link on the American Masters site to order a video of the show. I also expect that the program will be released on DVD soon; I'll let you know when a date is announced. Enjoy!
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