Showing posts with label joni Mitchell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joni Mitchell. Show all posts

Wednesday 30 June 2021

50th Anniversary of Joni Mitchell’s Blue album

  


 

Hard to believe, where does time go! I have to name Joni and this album as probably my biggest musical influence, how I’d love to have seen her live!

 

First she colours her words with such vivid and honest imagery – with shades not only of blue but every other colour in-between.  

 I am a lonely painter, I live in a box of paints, 

 


 I’d play her Both Sides Now on piano. There are only a few albums you come back to over and over – where the songs linger and pull you back.  


So I grew up on Joni Mitchell.  Her Voice. Well actually I first learnt to play and sing the stage musicals and Burns songs.  I can't remember when I first heard Joni's pure and touching voice but her personal and intimate songs became ingrained in my head, in particular Both Sides Now. 

Her dreams and passion took me skyward when I was young and the sands of time stood still for those moments. She sang of her sorrows and offered us a voice. Most memorable was her pure soaring voice. She wrote of loss, of heartache and love with more creative insights than I'd heard before.  I remember the deep blue colours on her 'Blue' album sleeve. I bought the sheet music and played it often. Like Dylan some of her lyrics are so true we never forget them.  For me Joni is at her best when her songs are lost in those confessional deeply felt emotions.  



Tuesday 14 April 2015

The Ladies of Laurel Canyon


There was a new freedom for women, the women were being reborn in the 60s and 70s.  (In the UK education for women began in the late 19th century and from 1892 Scottish universities admitted women students when St Andrews pioneered with an arts degree. ) Then came the introduction of the The Pill - first approved in 1960 in the US - brought tremendous gains for women’s freedoms and led them to feel they could achieve outside the home.

In an excellent Vanity Fear article in March 2015 with quotes from many of the players of Laurel Canyon, it was interesting to read that the women were the heart of this new movement in music in California. The core players were Joni Mitchell and Mama Cass Elliott, when musicians descended on their homes. Joni lived at first in a street called Lookout Mountain.

Other women of the new movement  were - Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Michelle Phillips, Maria Maldaur, Carole King, Emmylou Harris. According to Michelle Phillips said that ‘The women actually held that whole scene up there together. The Troubadour venue was also a main place to hang out.

The most talented musician of them all was Joni Mitchell. David Crosby discovered her singing in Florida and brought her back to California – he writes that she was not only the best songwriter of them all, but also the best musician.

Joni Mitchell & David Crosby

The California sound blended together a mix of folk and psychedelic rock.  – of blues, rock n roll, Latin, country, psychedelia, bluegrass, folk – and the forerunner of today's Americana sound. 'The vibe of that music, the way it makes you feel when you’re driving in a car – it’s a landscape. ‘ Adam Levine of Maroon 5.
At this time the draft for the Vietnam war sent many Americans up to Canada and brought the Canadians down to the US – such as Neil Young and Joni.
The Mamas and the Papas
The big guns were the two talent scouts from New York  David Geffen and Robert Elliot who were also young and hungry for the new scene here. Within a few years they started Geffen-Roberts management and made 3m a year. Geffen began his record label Asylum Records. Robert managed Neil, CSN, Joni.  

 When two guys (Glen Frey and Don Henley) were asked to be Linda Ronstadt’s backing singers on tour, they were busy watching, learning and taking notes of the big guys Crosby Stills and Nash (CSN), Poco and others bands developing the four part harmony country rock. They became The Eagles and were ultimately bigger than anyone.
‘We watched what they did right and what they did wrong.’ The Eagles were also about both the music and the business.

In the end movements shine only for a short time and the magic of the hillside canyon was changed  eventually.
First of all by drugs – while pot and psychedelia had fuelled creativity but when they turned to cocaine and heroin, everything changed.

According to Phillips the summers of free love came to an sudden end with the Manson murders in '69 – and after that everything changed. ‘The nail in the coffin of the freewheelin, let’s get high, everybody's welcome – I never invited anybody over to my house again after that.’
Carole King
New artists today influenced by and following on from these sounds – singer songwriter Laura Marling, LA band Haim, Dawes, Wilco, Mumford, the Avett Brothers  and others.
Crosby, Stills & Nash

Scenes aren’t meant to last. They sparkle with activity, flourish then burn out. The California music scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s fell apart because of drugs, money, success. Altamont, money, drugs, burnout and new musical trends.’ Vanity Fair. April 1015.
Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell

Thursday 19 April 2012

*The LA sound - The Byrds to The Eagles

Crosby, Stills and Nash; Neil Young; Joni Mitchell; David Geffen. And The Laid back acoustic sound of Laurel Canyon - All about the SONG

In the early 70s LA became the centre of the music business as young artists moved there rather than to New York city. Artists came to play the well renowned LA Troubadour venue.

The artist was the centre of the business, which was driven by the songwriter and by self publishing singer songwriters. Crosby, Stills and Nash were known for their beautiful 3 part harmonies and exquisitely roving melodies. Then we had flower power and hippies.

Carole King and James Taylor moved there from New York and King’s Tapestry album spent15 weeks at no 1. 

Ambition and idealism ‘counter culture' was the name of the game.
However.....eventually the business men moved in and it became more about managers and lawyers - more about business and less about the music. The Corporation of Rock.

Recently I thought... where are the great songs of today? 
And so I begin to wonder about the cheap club nights and that's what ears get used to.... and that it is it simply not about THE SONG anymore?
In my view the cheapening of music has led to some kind of diluted commodity with no thought about quality anymore.

Unbelievable clip  -
John Lennon and Paul Simon present the Best Song Award 1975 at the Grammy's when Olivia Newton John beats icons - Elton John, Joni Mitchell and Roberta Flack!!
The Industry never ceases to amaze me! 
  

 Most amazing CLIP of Judy Blue Eyes ( Joni mitchell) 


Friday 20 January 2012

*I lost my Heart to Joni Mitchell – Both Sides Now

I lost my Heart to Joni Mitchell – Both Sides Now 
It's life illusions I recall, I really don't know life at all.'

So I grew up on Joni Mitchell.
Her Voice. Well actually I first learnt to play and sing the stage musicals and Burns songs.  I can't remember when I first heard Joni's pure and touching voice but her personal and intimate songs became ingrained in my head, in particular Both Sides Now.
Her dreams and passion took me skyward when I was young and the sands of time stood still for those moments. She sang of her sorrows and offered us a voice. Most memorable was her pure soaring voice. She wrote of loss, of heartache and love with more creative insights than I'd heard before. 
I remember the deep blue colours on her 'Blue' album sleeve. I bought the sheet music and played it often. Like Dylan some of her lyrics are so true we never forget them.  For me Joni is at her best when her songs are lost in those confessional deeply felt emotions. 

Songwriting. By 1974 her songs had been hits for other artists - Both Sides Now for July Collins and Woodstock for Crosby, Stills and Nash.  She may have been known as an also ran folk artist with a cult following or as a folk confessional romantic but many of her songs also show clever wit,irony.   
Joni also states Debussy and classical as big influences on her music and her songs show harmonic complexity and melodic invention. 
"I want the full hyphen: folk-rock-country-jazz-classical, so finally when you get all the hyphens in, maybe they'll drop them all, and get down to just some American music."

Lyrics. She states that she is a painter first and a musician second  and certainly the words of her songs paint such clear honesty I was instantly captivated.....
 'I am a lonely painter, I live in a box of paints,'
'Tears and fears and feeling proud, To say I love you right out loud. ...
And dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I've looked at life that way,
But now it's just another show, You leave them laughing when you go,
So if you care don't let them know, Don't give yourself away.'  
'The times you impress me most are the times when you dont' even try.'

Discography. Her ALBUMS from 1971 to 1975 were her greatest output - Ladies of the Canyon 1970; Blue  ; For the Roses; Court and Spark, 1974, No Billboard chart; Miles of Aisles; The Hissing of Summer Lawns.
Help Me was her only top ten single from her Court and Spark album.  C & S was her biggest selling album (when she brought in a backing band). 
Her Blue album is autobiographical and its' narrative shows her as one the best at writing in the first person. Joni had a young pregnancy and gave away the child and the memory of this loss haunted her and she wrote of this in Little Green.

From 1975 Joni changed direction as she turned to jazz-infusion and sythn sounds, and her music felt less accessible for many fans. http://jonimitchell.com/
Was she too much the real deal and even too good to be popular?  What an intelligent and individual force of nature she is.  'We love our loving but not like we love our freedom.' 

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Great Singer Songwriters



Where are the great singer songwriters of today?  They are still here (I hope), they are simply hard to find these days and seem to be buried in a sea of 'commercialism' with over-hype, instant sound-bites, over-production and glossy videos. A telling moment on a recent BBC show was simply Simon and guitar on the Parkinson show. The creative genius behind great music, bands and orchestras is simply this and to find the heart of great art requires it is 'stripped back' to basics.  


What are the best songs of the past 2 decades that compare to the great songs of the 60s?  I was making myself a playlist of favourite songs and I was struggling to think of songs from the 90s and noughties that will last the tests of time...?  Names that came into my mind were Radiohead, Arcade Fire and Coldplay - all bands.  Many great singer songwriters started off in bands - Richard Thompson ( Fairport Convention),  Rafferty (Humbelbums), McCartney (the Beatles), Simon (Simon and Garfunkle)...more. Perhaps it is easier to find your artistic voice through collaborating. I know it can take years for classics to emerge.  

Culture has changed, the internet has given us access to instant media-music. In the 60s music was more of an investment of our time and money and involved a trip to the Record Shop!  I feel certain there are advantages to online streaming but drawbacks too.  It was a big deal for 50s artists when they were able to hear the blues legends on the radio. So the advancement of the new technologies means that all the arts can now develop at a much faster pace than ever before.  Yet the young people seem to crave nostalgia...

Does the proliferation of Talent Shows these days (both local and on tv) have a lot to answer for when they are mainly about producing musical performers and are not about the craft of the songwriter.  I guess there is still the folk scene for singer songwriters. Many say that their music is rooted in traditional folk music - for example Dylan drew on Woody Guthrie, and Elton on Leon Russell.

I worry though that the arts are loosing the 'heart' of what makes art or music truly great and unforgettable in their rush to pursue the business side of it all.  Reflecting on music and songs of recent times I began to wonder is there not much 'substance' or heart behind much of it, that tells me something new emotionally I've not heard a million times before? To quote Rab Noakes - ' a future with no past has no idea'. 

Singer-songwriting is about finding your own unique voice.  
Last week the BBC4 ran a show BBC Singer Songwriters.  On my list were many on this show  -  Joni, Rab Noakes, Rafferty, Paul Simon, Cohen.. all there. Those were simpler times back then. Great acoustic music is still here, it is just hard to find it these days : )


Last week the BBC4 ran a show BBC Singer Songwriters.  On my list were many on this show  -  Joni, Rab Noakes, Rafferty, Paul Simon, John Martyn, Cohen.. all there.  Those were simpler times back then. Great acoustic music is still here, it is just hard to find it these days : )


PS - Are older singer-songwriters doing enough to encourage and offer platforms for the younger artists?
I include a clip of Joni Mitchell on the BBC. Joni is probably my biggest inspiration for singer songwriters.