February 26, 2002

Posted February 26, 2002

Joni joins a group of revered performers ranging from Frank Zappa to Leontyne Price this week, when she receives the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award. The Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artist significance to the field of recording.

"I think that the real acclaim that she should have had is subverted by the commercial goals of the industry at large and the media," says Joni's longtime friend and manager Sam Feldman, in an article by Andrew Flynn that appeared in the Canadian Press last week. "It's not so much which palette she's painting on, it's more that there's a huge exploitation process that happens in our society that more often than not ignores true artistry."

"It's impossible -- Joni Mitchell cannot pander. It's not in her chemistry to ever do anything for commercial purpose. If she thought she was, inadvertently, I'm sure she would take a left turn," says Feldman. "There's some talent that is so huge, it's undeniable, it's not going to be held back -- it's too good, it's too meaningful, it connects with people too heavily."

Says Allen MacInnis, who created and directed Joni Mitchell: River, the "theatrical concert" that recently completed a run at the Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg: "She creates for you a way of understanding being isolated and then being pulled back into the world or giving up something in order to have something else. What her lyrics are about is an incredible specificity and a poetry that in just a few words says everything you need to say, it has such impact. Plus, I think the word is probity, a perfect match very often between music and lyric."

Joni's Lifetime Achievement Grammy will be handed out at a members-only ceremony held prior to the Grammy Awards telecast on February 27. I'll be watching, hoping she'll show or that there will be a segment on her award, but the latest reports I've heard say that her attendance at the ceremony is uncertain.

Read Howie Klein's Grammy Magazine story on Joni.