Much as I love Joni Mitchell's music (well, a reasonable amount of it) I had not realised until the Word interview, along with the Beeb 2 series on her Joniness and a browse through her biography, that she is a 24 carat whinger. She is still sulking about the poorish reviews she received years earlier, when we decided not to buy her albums as they were no longer as paletable as the earlier ones. Maybe the universal praise she received for her every utterance for quite a few years made her forget that it is a hard old world out there. Oh, and people are interested in her art because she is a pop singer, not because she is a good artist.

Seamus - CSNY & Joni 'Don't Be Denied' is back up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2xWYGL0loo. I'm not sure there was ever a more definitive 'rock star' than Neil Young in 1974. Not sure if this is the place for general Youtube links but Paddy McAloon & Jimmy Webb is worth a look, shame about the moustache though ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VgxwUQqHvA

Nigel, Apparently it was actually a neighbour's house, so you don't really miss Thompson's furnishings on Youtube after all. This was discussed on the Richard Thompson email list at the time, with particular regard to the harp which was behind RT in some of the interview shots. (As you can tell, we all live very full lives. Someone even supplied the information that one interior interview must have been shot in Britain because they had analysed the movement of the traffic on the other side of the window.)

Enjoy the CSNY/Joni clip while you can. There was another 1974 clip of CSNY/Joni doing Don't Be Denied that was taken down.

No! The Hawkwind documentary was marvellous. I haven't seen anything that funny for some time. (I can only assume that the comedic intent was there from the outset, when we were solemnly informed that Dave Brock had refused to take part in the programme when he heard that Nik Turner would be on it. Apart from the comedy, we had the full acerbity of Lemmy -- a man who consistently fails to conceal his wit behind a roadie's demeanour.

I'm afraid the real clunker that evening was the short documentary that followed the Hawkwind programme. I think it covered the counter-culture in 1969 or so, but the combination of hippie chanting and Caroline Coon made me fall asleep.

Saw the Thompson doc in full, so I'm not sure about the weakness turned into a strength point. The strength of YouTube is that you can access the films for free, from any computer, and just the fact that they are there at all. The weakness is that the pieces are bite sized, and that the image quality is awful. That is still a weakness. The original piece, and any long doc, can be great when it's a narrative/immersive experience. Picture quality matters. I remember in the original something of the place where he lived - the furnishings in his Santa Monica living room and so on. On YouTube you miss all of that. But of course in six/twelve months everything will change, for the better.

I'm not going to even attempt to explain the typing in that last post, but maybe this will divert attention away: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztzYYTcExDA Neil Young at his coolest, from 1974 with CSNY & Joni Mitchell. Watch out for the abrupt acid-fried stop about 3.50 in ...

Anyone try to watch the Hawkwind doc on Friday? I tried, but gave up after 10 minutes of contemporary footage of the "underground movement" that spawned them. Christ. I really hate hippies.

I think you may be damning Richard Thompson with faint praise there Steve - I have always regarde him as one of the finest songwriteres - English or otherwise. But equally he is a fantastic interpreter of other peolple's songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmk0C2Jzs_w

All of this BBC "Originals" documentary strand was exceptionally well done, the subjects included John Martyn, Richard Thompson, Gil Scott-Heron, Martin Carthy, Viv Stanshall, Stan Tracey, Robert Wyatt, John Mayall, Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons. Having seen nearly all of them repeated on beeb 2 I was almost moved to buy a second TV license out of gratitude.

I recall watching this when it was first shown on BBC4 a couple of years back and it ranks as one of the best in depth documentaries of a rock star ever.In conjunction with watching this I urge your readers to read the Patrick Humphreys biography on Richard called Strange Affair - it is stunning.As good as Richard is now, the songs he made with Linda will take some beating for emotional intensity and must rank as some of the best ever songs written by an Englishman.