Who could dispute that JONI MITCHELL is the greatest female singer-songwriter of all time? Her contribution to folk music, and music in general, is colossal. Born Roberta Joan Anderson, November 7, 1943 in Fort MacLeod, Alberta, Canada, she suffered from polio at a young age, although it was while recovering at a children’s hospice that she started to perform. Having taught herself guitar from a PETE SEEGER instruction manual, she subsequently began performing at coffeehouses while attending art school.
In 1964, Joni performed at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Ontario, and married Chuck Mitchell in June ’65, although after they relocated to Detroit the following year, they divorced. She retained the surname and moved to New York, where her songs were gradually recorded by others, mainly JUDY COLLINS (`Both Sides Now’, etc.) and TOM RUSH (`The Circle Game’).
Her self-titled, DAVID CROSBY-produced debut set (aka SONG TO A SEAGULL) {*7} was released in spring ‘68 and reasonably healthy sales led it into the US Top 200. Subtitled “I Came To The City”, side one opened with the bleak but evocatively uplifting `I Had A King’, the follow-on songs were `Michael From Mountains’, `Night In The City’ and the character study that was `Marcie’. Side two (“Out Of The Town And Down To The Seaside”), was downbeat but equally graceful, tracks such as `Sisotowbell Lane’, the harmony-high-octave `The Pirate Of Penance’ and the desolate `Song To A Seagull’ all lyrically part-confessional, musically textured and free of chord limitations. Note, that like many of her future sleeve covers, she designed and painted the beautiful artwork.
Equally intimate and introspective, CLOUDS (1969) {*6} found her in Top 40 territory; poetic rhymes littered the set, none more memorable than the bright and breezy `Chelsea Morning’, the melancholic and reflective `I Think I Understand’, `Songs To Ageing Children Come’ and the aforementioned staple, `Both Sides Now’.
That August, on the advice of David Geffen, she pulled out of the legendary Woodstock free festival, and instead wrote the classic anthem of that name; it was later a US hit for CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG and a UK No.1 for (Ian) MATTHEWS’ SOUTHERN COMFORT.
Her third outing, LADIES OF THE CANYON (1970) {*8}, contained the aforementioned hippie mysticism of `Woodstock’, the expanded title track as well as the surprise ecological hit `Big Yellow Taxi’; the latter made MITCHELL a household name in Britain when the album went Top 10. Accompanying herself on either piano or acoustic guitar, Joni’s high wide-ranged vox accelerated and decelerated with apparent ease, examples of this were `The Arrangement’, `Morning Morgantown’, `Willy’, `Rainy Night House’, `For Free’ and that perennial jewel `The Circle Game’.
The romanticism had all but vanished by BLUE (1971) {*9}, one of the starkest, most soul-searching records of the singer/songwriter era. The autobiographical intensity of the record is borne out by the fact that MITCHELL allegedly allowed no one but the engineer into the studio during recording. One just has to view the track listing of this organic and brooding set to see that it’s her quintessential masterpiece, 35 minutes of sheer delight showcased – if one was forced to pick – by `Carey’, `My Old Man’, `All I Want’, `A Case Of You’, `California’, the festive-esque `River’, `This Flight Tonight’ (a subsequent hard-rock hit for Scots rockers NAZARETH) and `Blue’ (allegedly scribed for JAMES TAYLOR, who played guitar on the set).
Not quite so intense but arguably more introspective was her 1972 transitional album, FOR THE ROSES {*6}, a more experimental edge creeping into the arrangements and the first signs of MITCHELL’s increasing preoccupation with jazz styling (e.g. `Barangrill’ and the sublime `Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire’). Like her female singer-songwriter contemporaries, CAROLE KING, JANIS IAN and CARLY SIMON, Joni was at home in the confines of a producer/session-friendly environment, dreamy explorations and earnest essays coming by way of `You Turn Me On I’m A Radio’ (a hit featuring GRAHAM NASH on harmonica), `See You Sometime’, `Blonde In The Bleachers’, `Banquet’ and `Lesson In Survival’.
A combination of glittering melody and a light jazz sheen created one of her most listenable and commercially successful albums, 1974’s COURT AND SPARK {*8}. Examining the issues of honesty and trust in all aspects of life: romance, relationships and business, this part-concept LP weighed in on the side of love, or rather the bittersweet complexities within the emotion. From the singles bar of `Raised On Robbery’ (and the plea of `Help Me’) to the music-industry machinations of `Free Man In Paris’ to the delightful `Just Like This Train’, all were insights to her confessional scribes; the set was also unique in the fact that it included her first cover version: Annie Ross’s `Twisted’.
The assured sophistication of MITCHELL’s blossoming talent was also evident in her live work, MILES OF AISLES (1974) {*6}, a US Top 3 double set that co-credited the pop-jazz ensemble of the L.A. Express. Although reprising all or most of her classic cuts in front of a massive audience, it was worthy for its inclusion of two new songs, `Jericho’ and `Love Or Money’. All but abandoning her folk roots for FM-friendly pop-rock, her next two albums marked a significant move away from the relative simplicity of her earlier work into more sophisticated sonic textures, underscored by jazz and world-inflected rhythms, while her lyrical musings followed suit, away from personal confession towards pointed observation and cultural commentary.
The first of these sets, THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS (1975) {*10}, was her most adventurous and idiosyncratic, while songs veered from the laid-back `In France They Kiss On Main Street’, `Edith And The Kingpin’, `Shades Of Scarlett Conquering’ and `Don’t Interrupt The Sorrow’, to the Burundi-like warrior beats of `The Jungle Line’. No less richer in sophistication and prowess, the five cues on side two, from the title track to the heavenly, near a cappella `Shadows And Light’, were on a higher level spiritually.
Not everyone’s cup of tea (much like DYLAN’s timeless `Desire’), Joni’s HEJIRA (1976) {*8} was the second set of her overtly jazz-pop period. Opening with the smooth and strum-friendly `Coyote’, the 9-song, 51-minute album only reached No.13 in the US charts! – sacrilege for her bedsit loyal who’d converted to the genre when folk’s second generation (FAIRPORTs/DENNY, et al) had disappeared into the night. The country/steely-tinged `Amelia’ defined the distance MITCHELL had come in the past several years, while `Furry Sings The Blues’ (about bluesman FURRY LEWIS), `Refuge Of The Roads’ and the 8-minute `Song For Sharon’ are connoisseur’s favourites.
Alienated from the soft-rock community which had nurtured her amid scathing reviews, she moved ever further into obscure jazz fusion throughout the latter half of the 70s.
Double album DON JUAN’S RECKLESS DAUGHTER (1977) {*4} was ultimately a step too far in the avant-jazz direction, a pretentious and musically pompous affair that lost its way from the opening salvo of `Overture – Cotton Avenue’; one can breathe easier when the 16-minute `Paprika Plains’ ends. However, underneath all the waxing and waning, she could be heard on trad-like number `The Silky Veils Of Ardor’ – sadly, not the LP’s saviour.
Her newfound fixation with everything jazz saw her work with the genre’s giant, bassist Charles Mingus, although the project would hit the skids several times due to the bebop man’s debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis disease (he was to die early ’79) and Joni’s apparent writer’s block. Released as a tribute to the man and simply titled MINGUS (1979) {*6}, Joni found the collaboration an exhausting but inspirational one, and more importantly, it heralded a critical comeback of sorts, working as she did with handpicked jazz musos JACO PASTORIUS, WAYNE SHORTER, HERBIE HANCOCK, Don Alias, Emil Richards and Peter Erskine. Including two of her best commentaries from the late 70s, `God Must Be A Boogie Man’ and `The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey’, it also featured a few Mingus raps/skits (his contributions `A Chair In The Sky’ and `Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’) plus a joint Mingus-Mitchell affair, `The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines’.
With the advent of the 80’s, MITCHELL seemed to lose her focus; she was said to be concentrating on her marriage to bassist Larry Klein. Only the release of a second concert record (featuring PAT METHENY, Lyle Mays, Michael Brecker and Jaco), the double SHADOWS AND LIGHT (1980) {*6} – a virtual update of her previous live effort – gave her fanbase some consolation, and it did contain her reading of FRANKIE LYMON’s `Why Do Fools Fall In Love?’ and the evergreen `Woodstock’.
WILD THINGS RUN FAST (1982) {*4} was Joni’s first LP for Geffen Records, a potpourri of pop, rock and jazz styling that brought her some plaudits from the usual AOR suspects, probably just relieved that her interpretations of `Unchained Melody’ (segued towards the end of opener `Chinese Café’) and Leiber & Stoller’s `(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care’ were not too embarrassing. The same couldn’t be said for the rawk-ish title track or the jazzy, FM-friendly `Moon At The Window’, although closing cue `Love’ saved the day.
Unfairly lambasted at the time, the THOMAS DOLBY-produced DOG EAT DOG (1985) {*7} was an impassioned attack on the rampant materialism and hypocrisy of the 80s, singling out such worthy targets as the TV evangelists of the religious right (example being `The Three Great Stimulants’). The West Coast, synth-pop AOR approach was again apparent, this time through guest spots from MICHAEL McDONALD (on `Good Friends’), the TOTO rock band and harmonies from JAMES TAYLOR, DON HENLEY and Amy Holland. Although the album hit the proverbial rock bottom in the sales department (it only just scraped into the Top 75), it did yield a few wee gems, `Ethiopia’ and `Impossible Dreamer’, while her two co-penned songs with hubby Klein, `Tax Free’ and `Fiction’, were also noteworthy.
The insipid banality of CHALK MARK IN A RAINSTORM (1988) {*4} could’ve sunk our Joni but for the presence of PETER GABRIEL on `My Secret Place’ (he’d lent her and Klein his Ashcombe House studio in Bath, England), HENLEY again (on `Snakes And Ladders’), WILLIE NELSON (on her arrangement of Bob Nolan’s `Cool Water’), BILLY IDOL & TOM PETTY (on `Dancin’ Clown’) and Wendy & Lisa’s backing on `The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)’.
1991’s NIGHT RIDE HOME {*5} saw a return to form of sorts, revisiting the jazz textures and lyrical expansiveness of her earlier work. It was also her final recording for Geffen, her legacy portrayed by classier songs like `The Windfall (Everything For Nothing)’, `Slouching Towards Bethlehem’ (from a poem by W.B. Yeats) and the AOR-aired `Come In From The Cold’.
TURBULENT INDIGO (1994) {*6} was a mature, 50-something self-portrait (as depicted by her Van Gogh-like artwork), taking on such controversial issues as religious violence, AIDS and consumerism in `The Magdalene Laundries’, `Sex Kills’ and Dan Hartman’s `How Do You Stop’ (with SEAL on vox); `Yvette In English’ was co-penned with DAVID CROSBY. The album went on to win a Grammy for Best Pop Album, although her marriage to Klein had ended; there was also the long-awaited compilation of her HITS and MISSES (1996) – {*9} and {*6} respectively; the former featured her own version of her much-covered `Urge For Going’ (The JOHNSTONS, CLAIRE HAMILL, TOM RUSH and LUKA BLOOM).
1998’s TAMING THE TIGER (1998) {*6} found MITCHELL expanding her sound with the use of guitar synthesizer, the jazzy arrangements and uncompromising lyrics (supplied, on `The Crazy Cries Of Love’, by new beau Don Freed) suggesting that the singer/songwriter was still restless despite her approaching 55th birthday. Coming across like an 80s-era JOAN ARMATRADING, sophisticated songs such as `No Apologies’, `Harlem In Havana’ and `Stay In Touch’ were her best efforts here; an album that grows with each listen. If not exactly likely to win many new converts, her loyal fanbase ensured the record a brief Top 75 placing on both sides of the Atlantic, a feat replicated by BOTH SIDES NOW (2000) {*5}.
Directed and co-produced by former husband Larry Klein, the album was a concept set based around the theme of refined romance and musically fleshed out by a 71-piece orchestra. Once more demonstrating MITCHELL’s desire to push herself (back to the sound of Billie Holiday), the record found her interpreting pre-war songwriting in sympathetic and original style, although there was room for sedate versions of `A Case Of You’ and `Both Sides Now’ alongside standards `At Last’ and `Stormy Weather’.
TRAVELOGUE (2002) {*7}, announced as the coda to her long and ever winding music biz road, was perhaps the most ambitious and far-sighted project of her near four decades of recording. Backed by a sizeable orchestra and accompanied by jazz luminaries like SHORTER and HANCOCK, Joni took a long, unsentimental look at her back catalogue, re-imagining a choice selection of her compositions with often intoxicating results.
Themed retrospective sets aside (i.e. THE BEGINNING OF SURVIVAL (2004) {*7}, DREAMLAND (2004) {*7} and SONGS OF A PRAIRIE GIRL (2005) {*6}), Joni put retirement to rest with the release of her “comeback” Top 20 set, SHINE (2007) {*6}. Issued on the new Starbucks’ Hear Music imprint, it was back-to-basics for the Canadian, although it did feature a revamped arrangement of `Big Yellow Taxi’ alongside best songs `Night Of The Iguana’, `Hana’ and `If’.
Like her old musical sparring partner NEIL YOUNG, MITCHELL remains one of the few survivors of the hippie era to avoid falling into terminal self-parody, admirably still challenging herself and her fans with each successive release. She’s currently receiving treatment for Morgellons syndrome, a confusing, but allegedly incurable disease, that has sometimes been misdiagnosed by both the medical world and psychiatrists.
On March 31, 2015, Joni was found unconscious at her home and taken straight to hospital. Although initially out of danger and sitting upright in bed, candles were lit and prayers from all the globe were reported in the media. Let’s hope they’re answered.
In 1964, Joni performed at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Ontario, and married Chuck Mitchell in June ’65, although after they relocated to Detroit the following year, they divorced. She retained the surname and moved to New York, where her songs were gradually recorded by others, mainly JUDY COLLINS (`Both Sides Now’, etc.) and TOM RUSH (`The Circle Game’).
Her self-titled, DAVID CROSBY-produced debut set (aka SONG TO A SEAGULL) {*7} was released in spring ‘68 and reasonably healthy sales led it into the US Top 200. Subtitled “I Came To The City”, side one opened with the bleak but evocatively uplifting `I Had A King’, the follow-on songs were `Michael From Mountains’, `Night In The City’ and the character study that was `Marcie’. Side two (“Out Of The Town And Down To The Seaside”), was downbeat but equally graceful, tracks such as `Sisotowbell Lane’, the harmony-high-octave `The Pirate Of Penance’ and the desolate `Song To A Seagull’ all lyrically part-confessional, musically textured and free of chord limitations. Note, that like many of her future sleeve covers, she designed and painted the beautiful artwork.
Equally intimate and introspective, CLOUDS (1969) {*6} found her in Top 40 territory; poetic rhymes littered the set, none more memorable than the bright and breezy `Chelsea Morning’, the melancholic and reflective `I Think I Understand’, `Songs To Ageing Children Come’ and the aforementioned staple, `Both Sides Now’.
That August, on the advice of David Geffen, she pulled out of the legendary Woodstock free festival, and instead wrote the classic anthem of that name; it was later a US hit for CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG and a UK No.1 for (Ian) MATTHEWS’ SOUTHERN COMFORT.
Her third outing, LADIES OF THE CANYON (1970) {*8}, contained the aforementioned hippie mysticism of `Woodstock’, the expanded title track as well as the surprise ecological hit `Big Yellow Taxi’; the latter made MITCHELL a household name in Britain when the album went Top 10. Accompanying herself on either piano or acoustic guitar, Joni’s high wide-ranged vox accelerated and decelerated with apparent ease, examples of this were `The Arrangement’, `Morning Morgantown’, `Willy’, `Rainy Night House’, `For Free’ and that perennial jewel `The Circle Game’.
The romanticism had all but vanished by BLUE (1971) {*9}, one of the starkest, most soul-searching records of the singer/songwriter era. The autobiographical intensity of the record is borne out by the fact that MITCHELL allegedly allowed no one but the engineer into the studio during recording. One just has to view the track listing of this organic and brooding set to see that it’s her quintessential masterpiece, 35 minutes of sheer delight showcased – if one was forced to pick – by `Carey’, `My Old Man’, `All I Want’, `A Case Of You’, `California’, the festive-esque `River’, `This Flight Tonight’ (a subsequent hard-rock hit for Scots rockers NAZARETH) and `Blue’ (allegedly scribed for JAMES TAYLOR, who played guitar on the set).
Not quite so intense but arguably more introspective was her 1972 transitional album, FOR THE ROSES {*6}, a more experimental edge creeping into the arrangements and the first signs of MITCHELL’s increasing preoccupation with jazz styling (e.g. `Barangrill’ and the sublime `Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire’). Like her female singer-songwriter contemporaries, CAROLE KING, JANIS IAN and CARLY SIMON, Joni was at home in the confines of a producer/session-friendly environment, dreamy explorations and earnest essays coming by way of `You Turn Me On I’m A Radio’ (a hit featuring GRAHAM NASH on harmonica), `See You Sometime’, `Blonde In The Bleachers’, `Banquet’ and `Lesson In Survival’.
A combination of glittering melody and a light jazz sheen created one of her most listenable and commercially successful albums, 1974’s COURT AND SPARK {*8}. Examining the issues of honesty and trust in all aspects of life: romance, relationships and business, this part-concept LP weighed in on the side of love, or rather the bittersweet complexities within the emotion. From the singles bar of `Raised On Robbery’ (and the plea of `Help Me’) to the music-industry machinations of `Free Man In Paris’ to the delightful `Just Like This Train’, all were insights to her confessional scribes; the set was also unique in the fact that it included her first cover version: Annie Ross’s `Twisted’.
The assured sophistication of MITCHELL’s blossoming talent was also evident in her live work, MILES OF AISLES (1974) {*6}, a US Top 3 double set that co-credited the pop-jazz ensemble of the L.A. Express. Although reprising all or most of her classic cuts in front of a massive audience, it was worthy for its inclusion of two new songs, `Jericho’ and `Love Or Money’. All but abandoning her folk roots for FM-friendly pop-rock, her next two albums marked a significant move away from the relative simplicity of her earlier work into more sophisticated sonic textures, underscored by jazz and world-inflected rhythms, while her lyrical musings followed suit, away from personal confession towards pointed observation and cultural commentary.
The first of these sets, THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS (1975) {*10}, was her most adventurous and idiosyncratic, while songs veered from the laid-back `In France They Kiss On Main Street’, `Edith And The Kingpin’, `Shades Of Scarlett Conquering’ and `Don’t Interrupt The Sorrow’, to the Burundi-like warrior beats of `The Jungle Line’. No less richer in sophistication and prowess, the five cues on side two, from the title track to the heavenly, near a cappella `Shadows And Light’, were on a higher level spiritually.
Not everyone’s cup of tea (much like DYLAN’s timeless `Desire’), Joni’s HEJIRA (1976) {*8} was the second set of her overtly jazz-pop period. Opening with the smooth and strum-friendly `Coyote’, the 9-song, 51-minute album only reached No.13 in the US charts! – sacrilege for her bedsit loyal who’d converted to the genre when folk’s second generation (FAIRPORTs/DENNY, et al) had disappeared into the night. The country/steely-tinged `Amelia’ defined the distance MITCHELL had come in the past several years, while `Furry Sings The Blues’ (about bluesman FURRY LEWIS), `Refuge Of The Roads’ and the 8-minute `Song For Sharon’ are connoisseur’s favourites.
Alienated from the soft-rock community which had nurtured her amid scathing reviews, she moved ever further into obscure jazz fusion throughout the latter half of the 70s.
Double album DON JUAN’S RECKLESS DAUGHTER (1977) {*4} was ultimately a step too far in the avant-jazz direction, a pretentious and musically pompous affair that lost its way from the opening salvo of `Overture – Cotton Avenue’; one can breathe easier when the 16-minute `Paprika Plains’ ends. However, underneath all the waxing and waning, she could be heard on trad-like number `The Silky Veils Of Ardor’ – sadly, not the LP’s saviour.
Her newfound fixation with everything jazz saw her work with the genre’s giant, bassist Charles Mingus, although the project would hit the skids several times due to the bebop man’s debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis disease (he was to die early ’79) and Joni’s apparent writer’s block. Released as a tribute to the man and simply titled MINGUS (1979) {*6}, Joni found the collaboration an exhausting but inspirational one, and more importantly, it heralded a critical comeback of sorts, working as she did with handpicked jazz musos JACO PASTORIUS, WAYNE SHORTER, HERBIE HANCOCK, Don Alias, Emil Richards and Peter Erskine. Including two of her best commentaries from the late 70s, `God Must Be A Boogie Man’ and `The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey’, it also featured a few Mingus raps/skits (his contributions `A Chair In The Sky’ and `Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’) plus a joint Mingus-Mitchell affair, `The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines’.
With the advent of the 80’s, MITCHELL seemed to lose her focus; she was said to be concentrating on her marriage to bassist Larry Klein. Only the release of a second concert record (featuring PAT METHENY, Lyle Mays, Michael Brecker and Jaco), the double SHADOWS AND LIGHT (1980) {*6} – a virtual update of her previous live effort – gave her fanbase some consolation, and it did contain her reading of FRANKIE LYMON’s `Why Do Fools Fall In Love?’ and the evergreen `Woodstock’.
WILD THINGS RUN FAST (1982) {*4} was Joni’s first LP for Geffen Records, a potpourri of pop, rock and jazz styling that brought her some plaudits from the usual AOR suspects, probably just relieved that her interpretations of `Unchained Melody’ (segued towards the end of opener `Chinese Café’) and Leiber & Stoller’s `(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care’ were not too embarrassing. The same couldn’t be said for the rawk-ish title track or the jazzy, FM-friendly `Moon At The Window’, although closing cue `Love’ saved the day.
Unfairly lambasted at the time, the THOMAS DOLBY-produced DOG EAT DOG (1985) {*7} was an impassioned attack on the rampant materialism and hypocrisy of the 80s, singling out such worthy targets as the TV evangelists of the religious right (example being `The Three Great Stimulants’). The West Coast, synth-pop AOR approach was again apparent, this time through guest spots from MICHAEL McDONALD (on `Good Friends’), the TOTO rock band and harmonies from JAMES TAYLOR, DON HENLEY and Amy Holland. Although the album hit the proverbial rock bottom in the sales department (it only just scraped into the Top 75), it did yield a few wee gems, `Ethiopia’ and `Impossible Dreamer’, while her two co-penned songs with hubby Klein, `Tax Free’ and `Fiction’, were also noteworthy.
The insipid banality of CHALK MARK IN A RAINSTORM (1988) {*4} could’ve sunk our Joni but for the presence of PETER GABRIEL on `My Secret Place’ (he’d lent her and Klein his Ashcombe House studio in Bath, England), HENLEY again (on `Snakes And Ladders’), WILLIE NELSON (on her arrangement of Bob Nolan’s `Cool Water’), BILLY IDOL & TOM PETTY (on `Dancin’ Clown’) and Wendy & Lisa’s backing on `The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)’.
1991’s NIGHT RIDE HOME {*5} saw a return to form of sorts, revisiting the jazz textures and lyrical expansiveness of her earlier work. It was also her final recording for Geffen, her legacy portrayed by classier songs like `The Windfall (Everything For Nothing)’, `Slouching Towards Bethlehem’ (from a poem by W.B. Yeats) and the AOR-aired `Come In From The Cold’.
TURBULENT INDIGO (1994) {*6} was a mature, 50-something self-portrait (as depicted by her Van Gogh-like artwork), taking on such controversial issues as religious violence, AIDS and consumerism in `The Magdalene Laundries’, `Sex Kills’ and Dan Hartman’s `How Do You Stop’ (with SEAL on vox); `Yvette In English’ was co-penned with DAVID CROSBY. The album went on to win a Grammy for Best Pop Album, although her marriage to Klein had ended; there was also the long-awaited compilation of her HITS and MISSES (1996) – {*9} and {*6} respectively; the former featured her own version of her much-covered `Urge For Going’ (The JOHNSTONS, CLAIRE HAMILL, TOM RUSH and LUKA BLOOM).
1998’s TAMING THE TIGER (1998) {*6} found MITCHELL expanding her sound with the use of guitar synthesizer, the jazzy arrangements and uncompromising lyrics (supplied, on `The Crazy Cries Of Love’, by new beau Don Freed) suggesting that the singer/songwriter was still restless despite her approaching 55th birthday. Coming across like an 80s-era JOAN ARMATRADING, sophisticated songs such as `No Apologies’, `Harlem In Havana’ and `Stay In Touch’ were her best efforts here; an album that grows with each listen. If not exactly likely to win many new converts, her loyal fanbase ensured the record a brief Top 75 placing on both sides of the Atlantic, a feat replicated by BOTH SIDES NOW (2000) {*5}.
Directed and co-produced by former husband Larry Klein, the album was a concept set based around the theme of refined romance and musically fleshed out by a 71-piece orchestra. Once more demonstrating MITCHELL’s desire to push herself (back to the sound of Billie Holiday), the record found her interpreting pre-war songwriting in sympathetic and original style, although there was room for sedate versions of `A Case Of You’ and `Both Sides Now’ alongside standards `At Last’ and `Stormy Weather’.
TRAVELOGUE (2002) {*7}, announced as the coda to her long and ever winding music biz road, was perhaps the most ambitious and far-sighted project of her near four decades of recording. Backed by a sizeable orchestra and accompanied by jazz luminaries like SHORTER and HANCOCK, Joni took a long, unsentimental look at her back catalogue, re-imagining a choice selection of her compositions with often intoxicating results.
Themed retrospective sets aside (i.e. THE BEGINNING OF SURVIVAL (2004) {*7}, DREAMLAND (2004) {*7} and SONGS OF A PRAIRIE GIRL (2005) {*6}), Joni put retirement to rest with the release of her “comeback” Top 20 set, SHINE (2007) {*6}. Issued on the new Starbucks’ Hear Music imprint, it was back-to-basics for the Canadian, although it did feature a revamped arrangement of `Big Yellow Taxi’ alongside best songs `Night Of The Iguana’, `Hana’ and `If’.
Like her old musical sparring partner NEIL YOUNG, MITCHELL remains one of the few survivors of the hippie era to avoid falling into terminal self-parody, admirably still challenging herself and her fans with each successive release. She’s currently receiving treatment for Morgellons syndrome, a confusing, but allegedly incurable disease, that has sometimes been misdiagnosed by both the medical world and psychiatrists.
On March 31, 2015, Joni was found unconscious at her home and taken straight to hospital. Although initially out of danger and sitting upright in bed, candles were lit and prayers from all the globe were reported in the media. Let’s hope they’re answered.