Fred Brouwers' words translated from the original Dutch.

Fred Brouwers: Here is the first part of the Joni Mitchell concert in Brussels. Part two will follow later, but first we'll let her speak for herself, because Domino also had an exclusive conversation with Joni.

What was on our minds after the incredibly strong display last Tuesday, was the rumour that both this tour and the LP Wild Things Run Fast could well be her last. Is that right, Miss Mitchell?

Joni Mitchell: Well, it was the last of a contract with Asylum Records, it was the fifth, and I was thinking seriously rather than re-signing with the company of making it a swan song. The company was a bit on its last legs, you know, it went through a lot of changes after I left. But then Geffen, who started that company and left it, made me an offer I couldn't refuse, you know, he came around and so it was bartered for and it became the first of a new contract rather than the last of the old contract so I'm back in the harness.

FB: Okay so contractual problems and a switch to David Geffen's production company but she was still interested in making music itself.

JM: I do have other things that I want to do that are time-consuming and that as long as I'm under record contract they would prefer that I spend my time making music whereas I also like to paint and I have a lot of ideas for short stories or I've got some film, you know, small films, things that I want to do with film. A lot of things that I would like to do, but anyway, Geffen has given me a fairly open contract which allows me the freedom, for instance, I wouldn't have to make an album next year or the year after, there's no time on it, so it was a good deal.

FB: Joni Mitchell has never copied anything or anyone. Just like all those other big ones like Dylan, Springsteen, Newman, Bowie or Lennon. From her very first record in 1968, you immediately recognize her own voice and the handling of that voice. Musically, she has touched on just about everything, from folk over rock to jazz and vice versa. Joni Mitchell dares to switch.

Is there anything else we haven't had yet?

JM: There's a lot of ways to go. I mean I could, I wouldn't mind to make an album just of my personal performances on acoustic guitar, just myself and my guitar. It would sound similar perhaps at first listening to very early work and people would say, oh you know, she's run out of ideas. But that's one approach that would interest me, something very sparse or maybe some duets with Larry and I. But on the last album, Larry and I did a duet on "Corrina, Corrina," sort of borrowing from Dylan's version. That's an old folk song, right? A lot of people have done it, but we borrowed something from his, and I rewrote it to make it a song a woman could sing. It really sounds great listening to it. We found a tape of it the other day, completely folky and sparse. Some people would see that as a step backward, I suppose, if it was released. But to me, all of these things go along simultaneously, you know.

FB: Maybe we will get a purely acoustic counterpart of Springsteen's Nebraska from her. Be that as it may, Joni Mitchell has never made it easy for her audience in a career spread over 13 LPs. Is that a thoughtful politics or pure coincidence?

JM: Well, you come to a crossroads and you have, you know, you have decisions to make. And they're based on, in my case, they're based on the strongest pull, you know. It's just like standing, you know, and there's a road leading to one city and a road leading to another, and for a moment they both sound equally interesting. For instance, this last album, I debated for a while how to put these songs down. Initially, I was going to just put them down acoustically, and then I went dancing a few nights, and I said, 'Oh no, I have to have like a beat on these things,' and so it went off in that direction, but they stand up as solo performances as well but they would be very different, you know.

FB: Although Mitchell turned out to be more than convincing solo as an excellent guitarist, pianist and singer -- think of "For Free," "Big Yellow Taxi," "A Case of You" and Amelia" from earlier -- the backing band of last Tuesday, including bassist and husband Larry Klein, is also so convincing, good and functional that you would find it difficult to imagine it away.

JM: Well, you only because you asked you know what my directions might be and that might be one of them in other words you could go off in any direction at any time. Some of them would be things that I've done that would resemble things that I've done before. To me, they would be new because they would contain something fresh, or I wouldn't have enjoyed it. Any artist steals from himself, so there's a certain sameness. But I'm not renouncing a solo tour or anything. I prefer, I love traveling with Larry, needless to say. And the chemistry of the band is excellent. They're very sensitive to one another and very, very supportive, you know, and some nights it's just heaven, you know, like, you know, in their pockets, every night, in every, in every show where it reaches really high pinnacles, you know, sometimes a song peaks on a Tuesday night and the next night, you know, it's, it's like a golf score or something, you know, you play it so well one night that it takes about three more cities before that energy comes back to it. So the thing, this set is always changing up. Every night, different songs have become outstanding pieces in the set, you know? People still taking chances. The music isn't completely gelled. It's arranged to a certain degree, but even as we go along, we'll say, 'Hey, let's change this.' And sometimes we talk about it, sometimes it happens automatically.

I prefer, in answer to your question, traveling with a band. And this band in particular is the most enjoyable group of personalities that I've been out with.

FB: It has been exactly four years since Mitchell gave concerts, then with Jaco Pastorius, the Pat Metheny group and the Persuasions backing. It's no small feat when you're already 40 to set up a world tour with a completely new band.

JM: Oh, the tour has been, we've been beautifully received every place we've been, you know, the audience has showed us great warmth. And the touring is rewarding in that way. But I couldn't have gone out with just any band. In the time between the last time I toured with Jaco, and Don Alias, and Pat Metheny, and that group, they went in various directions. Weather Report began to tour a lot. And so borrowing personnel from that band became prohibitive. Also Zawinul kind of put his foot down, I think. So people, they have other things to do besides musicians. Musicians have other things to do besides play with me. As it turns out, though, this band is a combination. They are favorites of one another to play with, so the unit works. Wouldn't you say, Larry? It's not like they're divided. See, that other band was it was made up of all leaders."

FB: [unintelligible] has been able to experience firsthand what stardom is really like. Three different managers decide on Joni Mitchell's dealings. The greatness has certainly not gone to her head. But how do you preserve your individuality in such a circus, whether royal or not? What is left of the Joni Mitchell from the small clubs in Greenwich Village in New York?

The romance of those years is hard to find and she knows it because the song "For Free" is still on her live repertoire. The song about that bus who is playing beautifully for free in the middle of the city with the only spectators being the passing traffic. A melancholic scene that Joni witnessed from her limousine. But the truth about that street singer is much less idyllic than what she shows about it in that song. After all, the rest of the story goes as follows.

JM: Well, what happened was the fellow that I wrote it about, he played this clarinet down in front of Nedick's, which is on 8th Street near 6th Avenue in New York, and he was always there. One day I came around and he had a sign around his neck and it said, my clarinet was jostled in a crowd, I am taking money. And he was begging for money to replace it. So in the meantime, I had written this song and feeling that I owed a karmic debt to this man who had lost his horn and I depicted him in song. I gave my girlfriend some money and I said... I was leaving town to go and play in a coffee house somewhere and I said, 'Listen, here's the money, go get the guy a new horn.' So she went and bought this horn, she took it to him. She said he was a bad junkie, he was very rude to her. The next day, after she'd given it to him, he'd already hawked it and he still had the sign around his neck and was begging again. So all my romance for this character was ill-placed. But there is something, you know, like about playing your heart out in the middle of pandemonium.

You know, I've become, I used to be able to play in bars when I was first starting out. It always kind of hurt my feelings that, you know, that so many people wouldn't listen. And later on, when I took the concert stage, I would either lay on one note and tell everybody was quiet or I would demand quiet in which to play. So I think if there's anything that I admired about him was the fact that he was playing his heart out, you know, with no audience. He was just playing for playing's sake, you know, and panhandling.

FB: So much for Joni Mitchell, a conversation between [unintelligible] and Fred Browers, last Tuesday after the concert. Are the cassettes reversed? Now follows part 2.