Joni Mitchell
It’s funny when you have spent most of your life listening to a musician without realising the impact that their music has had on your life. Joni Mitchell is one of those people. I first heard her pretty songs like Both Sides Now and The Circle Song in the latter part of the 60s and my ears pricked up when I heard the song she wrote about Woodstock in 1969. She was supposed to be on the stage performing but her manager heard a report that there were 400,000 people sitting in mud and cancelled her gig because she was a guest on the Dick Cavet Show in New York the next day. She saw some images and heard some of the music that was played and wrote a beautiful song that sort of summed up the whole Woodstock experience.
Because I was more focused on the music than the vocals and words I sort of missed out on the beautiful poetry that she wrote. It was her chords that fascinated me. Apparently she created her own open tunings to compensate for the fact that she had polio as a 9 year old. This gave her music a uniqueness that always screamed “Joni Mitchell”.
When Flora and I lived in Healesville, Flora bought “Blue” and we listened to it lots. I also owned “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” and “Mingus” in the late 70’s early 80’s when she started playing with guys like Jaco Pastorious, Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny. Beautiful, brave records.
In the late 80’s I even did a duo with Kate Ceberano covering her song “Big Yellow Taxi”. That’s us in the photograph next door.
It’s been a while since I’ve really listened to her until tonight when I watched a YouTube clip which analysed her beautiful song “Amelia” (inspired by Amelia Earhart). Then I wandered off like I do and watched some other clips and documentaries which I will share here.
The fourth last YouTube clip was this year (2020) when she received the Les Paul Award at the NAMM Tec Awards. Herbie Hancock gives a wonderful speech which really sums up her genius and courage as a musician, poet, artist and human being.
Just to wrap up. My favourite Joni Mitchell period was when she played with Jaco Pastorius. They were a match made in heaven. Below is Hejira.
