Entertainment For Lively Minds
Joni Mitchell - Recommendations Please
Posted by oxfordpaul on 22 March 2011 - 12:06pm.
Working from home throughout this week and finding Joni Mitchell particularly conducive to report writing and data analysis. Current albums in my collection (in order of aural pleasure) are 'Hissing Of Summer Lawns', 'Court & Spark', 'Blue', 'Clouds', 'Hejira' and 'Ladies Of The Canyon'.
Any advice from the massive on where to go next or have I exhausted the essential stuff? I gather her latter work is a mixed bag, including an alleged collaboration with Billy Idol sometime in the late 80's. I'd like to avoid that obviously.
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don juan's reckless daughter
Has a lot to recommend it....
Agreed
before you buy anything else of hers, get this. An artist still at the breathless peak of her creativity
Yup...
The title track is one of the best things she's ever done and there's lots more great stuff besides that.
You've got all the real goodies except For The Roses
My personal favourite Joni is For The Roses, for the title track alone. Think this may be the first album I ever bought on CD, circa 1988...
great use of metaphor
you turn me on I'm a radio
If you're driving into town
With a dark cloud above you
Dial in the number
Who's bound to love you
Oh honey you turn me on
I'm a radio
I'm a country station
I'm a little bit corny
I'm a wildwood flower
Waving for you
Broadcasting tower
Waving for you
And I'm sending you out
This signal here
I hope you can pick it up
Loud and clear
I know you don't like weak women
You get bored so quick
And you don't like strong women
'Cause they're hip to your tricks
It's been dirty for dirty
Down the line
But you know
I come when you whistle
When you're loving and kind
But if you've got too many doubts
If there's no good reception for me
Then tune me out, 'cause honey
Who needs the static
It hurts the head
And you wind up cracking
And the day goes dismal
From "Breakfast Barney"
To the sign-off prayer
What a sorry face you get to wear
I'm going to tell you again now
If you're still listening there
If you're driving into town
With a dark cloud above you
Dial in the number
Who's bound to love you
If you're lying on the beach
With the transistor going
Kick off the sand cause honey
The love's still flowing
If your head says forget it
But your heart's still smoking
Call me at the station
The lines are open
It may be just me, but....
I quite like the collaboration with Billy Idol, "Dancing Clown" (I can't find it on Youtube, haven't checked Spotify). It's certainly more listenable than anything from her last album, Shine, which was filled with self-important dirges about acid rain and the Magdalen Laundries.
There's interesting stuff to be found on a lot of the later LPs but not necessarily an album's worth in every case. If I was forced to choose, I'd say "Night Ride Home" was her best effort after the end of the 70s.
I second that.
Night Ride Home is very good. 'Come in from the cold' is my favourite track.
I'll "third"
Night Ride Home.
I would also add Turbulent Indigo. The title track, and The Magdalene Laundries, as well as Borderline and Yvette In English...yup, a pretty good album.
The two live albums, "Miles of Aisles" and
"Shadows and Light," are worth hearing.
These are the musicans that Joni has with her on "Shadows and Light"
Pat Metheny - lead guitar
Jaco Pastorius - bass
Don Alias - drums
Lyle Mays - keyboards
Michael Brecker - saxophone
A pretty useful band, you have to admit.
Not many passengers there!
Not many passengers there!
Another recommendation for Shadows And Light
the best of Joni's 'jazz period' songs played by a stunning band.
There's a full-length video that goes with it as well - here's In France They Kiss On Main Street:
The clip of Jaco's remarkable bass solo from the same gig has been posted far too often :-)
Another vote for the Jaco-accompanied live material;
it's rather excellent.
The album that changed my life.
It might sound pompous but it's absolutely true for me. Before S&L it was all Black Sabbath around these parts. Pat/Jaco et al must have been the about the best band ever assembled.
another option would be to go for covers of Joni songs
k.d. lang doing Help Me and Nazareth doing This Flight Tonight are both corkers. The whole of the 2000 tribute concert is worth a go -- James Taylor singing River.
Or Chaka Khan's version of Hejira
as a big Joni fan
I think you have the best and agree that HOSL is her finest hour. Come to think of it - just about anybody's finest hour (well 45 mins anyway).
Personally, I love "Don Juan" too and perhaps alone have a soft spot for Mingus too. Particularly, the extraordinary and somewhat unsettling "The Wolf That Lives in Lindsay"
Another vote here for HOSL
I think her voice is at it's best on this album.
After this, I think the heavy smoking starts to take it's toll.
I bought Hissing on vinyl recently
It really is a most extraordinary record and sounded so good on vinyl it was like rediscovering an old flame. She took a lot of flak for it at the time because the critics and many of her audience wanted Joni the confessional folkie. How lucky we are that she had different ideas.
HOSL ...
is like one of Hockney's LA pictures set to music
My favourite Joni post 70s
My favourite post 70s is Wild Things Run Fast especially the excellent 'Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody'
'Both Sides Now' from 2000 is marvellous...
This gives you a good idea of what it's like. Sorry about the excruciating standing ovation at the start.
It is but...
The later version of Both Sides Now was ruined for me after it was used in the Worst Film Ever Made ("Love Actually").
Thank you...
... for such a healthy response. I've played 'Night Ride Home' and 'For The Roses' on Spotify.
NRH - Very good, despite the occasional parp of alto saxophone to which I have a slight aversion. Thanks M-People. Strangely the Spotify review calls it a 'rather tough listen' when to these ears it sounds remarkably slick and polished.
FTR - Also very good. I've seen some dismissive reviews elsewhere and I'm not sure why. A nice companion to 'Clouds' and 'Blue'.
I shall check out the remainder today starting with 'Shadows & Light' which gets a resounding thumbs up above.
Thanks again people.
Late period Joni
includes a cover version of a song called 'How Do You Stop.' It's really good and her vocal is excellent.
And a bit of judicious
googling will help you find an album of Joni's demos for HOSL called 'The Seeding Of Summer Lawns.' Really worth hearing. It's remarkable how much of the album's structure she had already worked out on her own before the band got involved.
"Dog Eat Dog"
I bought "Dog Eat Dog" when it first came out, and I've rarely been so disappointed by an album. I think it's a mediocre record by anyone's standards, and by Joni's standards, it's an absolute turkey.
It's Joni's 'Trans'
An established artist looking uncertainly around for a new direction and dabbling in the then new digital technology.
I recommend the documentary
Woman of Heart and Mind, to anyone who hasn't seen it.
To me she is a true artist, one of the greats, completely intuitive, who's followed her own instincts.
To my knowledge she's never really been marketed.
Her image comes from the self portraits looking back at us from the album covers.
An amazing artist with an amazing body of work.