Here’s a bit of music to start the week. Here’s the finest folk rock singer/songwriter of our time (I will brook no dissent), performing at the height of her powers: at the BBC on September 30, 1970. She was 26.
Joni plays piano, guitar, and dulcimer. Unlike many acoustic concerts, where it’s simply a display of proficiency on acoustic instruments and a chance to see the artist, an acoustic concert by Joni Mitchell was a complete, emotionally satisfying experience, needing no other accompaniment.
The highlights for me here: “My Old Man” (8:32, written about Graham Nash), “Real Good for Free” (11:43), a stunning version of “California” (18:17), and “Both Sides Now” (25:49).
If you want a bit more, there’s a lovely piano version of “Woodstock”, from the same concert, but not on the video above
Oh, and if you want to see her first incarnation, as Joni Anderson of Saskatoon (1965), go here and start at 1:36. And you can read about her greatest album here.
Great choice of best artist and wonderful choice of clips. The BBC excerpts are the clips I send to people when I want to turn them on to Joni (so many people these days don’t know her!!!)
This was a great performance video, and one I’d never seen before. And, I agree that “Blue” is her best album, although I think the work that she did on “hejira” with the late, great Jaco Pastorius is her most musically daring.
Lovely. Especially ‘My Old Man’ and that was a nice version of ‘Woodstock’ which I hadn’t heard before. For me it’s almost impossible to watch this sort of thing without a feeling of bitter/sweet nostalgia. It also makes me think I’m not listening to enough music these days!
At 25:49 it’s “Both Sides Now”, from the album Clouds.
Yep, fixed, thanks.
Great stuff. I love Joni.
I read all the science posts. That is what drew me to this site. Much of the science is over my head, but I take in as much as I can. (Commenting would be far above my pay grade.)
I saw her at the Atlantic City festival in 1969, 3wks before Woodstock. She started a song, and then melted down for some reason and walked off. It probably wasn’t the right venue for her (perhaps why she wasn’t at Woodstock?).
For all that has occurred within my particular lifetime ? For my own accomplishments or for what others have done TO me or FOR me ? ( which is a passel, I am thinking ! ), my own three children tout me / introduce me to their friends as … … nothing more than thus: “ ’nd this is our mother, Blue. She was … … she was at Woodstock.”
There could be of one’s self by one’s kiddos … … way way – worse intros, not ?
“By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration,” … … soooo Friend and I just exited the back of the vehicle in which we had hitchhiked thereto —- and with our two $18.00 per each – tickets that we had actually purchased ( which not everyone, o’course, had done ) simply strolled on Friday, 15 August 1969, those eight more miles in to Max’s lands.
Blue
Magnificent. Joni. Wow.
Like Joni I did not get to Woodstock either as I was in England at the time. I did go to a very similar event at the Isle of Wright soon after Woodstock. Yes, those were the days.
Joni Anderson on the CBC (1965)
Thank you for this. I recently read Maria Popova’s review of Joni Mitchell – In Her Own Words by Malka Marom. Here’s the link, should you be interested: http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/22/joni-mitchell-in-her-own-words-malka-marom/
I know I’ve posted this here before, but classical opera sopranos Dawn Upshaw and Renee Fleming both regard JM as the greatest of popular songwriters. That’s a tribute indeed!!
I particularly appreciate her versatility and staying power. And I recommend the Herbie Hancock album of jazz renditions of Mitchell songs.
That video is a great find. I’ll bet if you offered people of a certain age a choice of entertainments, “Joni Mitchell while she’s working on Blue” would get a lot of votes.
Sub
there is a terrific article in the WSJ 11/14 about her time in Crete in 1970 and the genesis of Carey and other songs on “Blue”.
I vote “Court and Spark”, but it’s a close call. IMHO, she made some of her best music when she went from being a folk/rock singer/songwriter, to being a folk/rock/jazz singer/songwriter,
I love “Blue”.
Bittersweet–that those days are so far away now…
But the music is eternal.
Wonderful – thanks. A great version of “California,” much more different from the studio version than, say, “Chelsea Morning.”
I still marvel at how her work is both very much of her era, and yet timeless. “I’m gonna see the folks I dig/I’ll even kiss a Sunset pig” could only have been written in the 60s, and yet the lyrics “all the news of home you read/More about the war and the bloody changes” is as true today as it ever was.
That takes true artistry: to capture the essence of one’s time and at the same time transcend it.
My favourite singer songwriter and musician as well.
My best album choices are “Court and Spark”, “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” and “Hejira”. There’s also a great concert from her later years (1998) called “Painting in Words and Music” where some of her paintings are on display.
An artist that brings a tear to your eye because of how impossibly good she is.