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Marc Roy's avatar

Great conversation. I’m one of those people who got into Joni Mitchell in my early 20s and didn’t find her later albums (everything after Mingus) as interesting -- you’ve given me good reason to revisit that body of work!

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Warren's avatar

I used to listen to "Chalkmark in a Rainstorm" to prepare myself for work, or even a party, the way some people would blast AC/DC into their brains. The music felt bottomless; there were all those crazy chords - Joni's infamously eccentric guitar tunings - and the interplanetary spaces in her rhythm arrangements and of course her expressive voice. It's an astonishing album and totally radio unfriendly.

You can find a YouTube clip of her appearance at the Grammys where she "debuted" the new version of Both Sides Now; the sustained applause at the end is quite remarkable.

I was always a fan of Elvis Costello but never moreso than when I picked up a copy of Vanity Fair in 2004 and found an interview he did with Joni Mitchell. She was just past her very embittered stage (at show business) and was releasing new admixtures of her mid to later career albums when Elvis dropped by. You can learn a lot from this interview, and not just that she had a cat named Nietzsche.

https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=1182

Thanks for bringing Sarah Slean back into my life. I've been ignoring her for too long.

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