From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2014 #1842 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Unsubscribe:mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe Website:http://jonimitchell.com JMDL Digest Saturday, March 7 2015 Volume 2014 : Number 1842 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Joni and her Yosemite Sam [Michael Sentance ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2015 12:58:47 -0500 From: Michael Sentance Subject: Joni and her Yosemite Sam I apologize for this rant. Ibve had nearly ten feet of snow since January 30th that has resulted in two new experiences: shoveling my roof and falling off my roof while shoveling it. I know some of you folks in Canada and Ithaca are used to this but in the Boston area, this is overwhelming. So my rant is: whatbs going on with Joni Mitchell and David Crosby? The KCRW interview triggered my curiosity. At about 07:26 in the interview, this exchange occurred -- Liza Richardson: In fact, youbve always produced all of your own records. Were you advised not to or encouraged to do so? Joni Mitchell: No, no. Ybknow, Crosby produced my first album and hebs not a producer. And he screwed up the sound terribly. Ibve got to re-release that album at a certain point with it corrected. How you can mess up a voice and a guitar and I donbt know but he did. And also he kind of --- and hebd go [Imitating Crosby]: bShouldnbt we get a real piano player, man?b Ybknow, I just canbt have this. This follows what Joni said to Malka Marom in 2012 as related in her marvelous, bJoni Mitchell. In Her Own Wordsb: JM: [Talking about a nameless producer for a box set] Okay, on the first album, I want to give me a recording with no opinion on it. I want to hear whatbs on the tapeb& I never heard whatbs on the tape, because that album was all screwed up, Crosby fucked it up. But Joni said in Crosbybs first biography bLong Time Goneb: bWhen it came time to record my record, David did me a solid favor for which I am eternally grateful, because the way you enter the game in this business is usually the way you stay. It takes a lot to break typecasting and the way you come into the game is crucial, which is something I didnbt realize at the time. In retrospect, I realize the importance of it.b (1988) I have no idea whether the album is mixed correctly. I have listened to it for more than 40 years and never thought it was a hatchet job. But then again, I am not a musician. I have looked at all of the reviews that were contemporaneous and none discussed the production other than describing it as bspareb. A November 2012 review on the Pitchfork.com web site by Jessica Hopper wrote bThe delicate album suffers under Crosbybs intrusive production.b The Joni/Croz break continues on a more personal level. If I were to have that bMidnight in Parisb moment, other than Paris in the 1920s, it would be Laurel Canyon in late b67 when things started coming together there. Now I thought I understood the saga: David Crosby heard Joni Mitchell playing in Florida, was entranced by the music and the beauty, pitched woo and won. The biography on the Joni web site is circumspect on the details of the relationship: b[Crosby] was quite taken with herb. It was the beginning of life in Los Angeles and the experiences thereafter. But there was this from the February 2015 Vanity Fair article on Laurel Canyon: *JONI MITCHELL:* David Crosby and I were never a couple. We spent time together in Florida and he was off drugs and very enjoyable company at that time. We rode bicycles through Coconut Grove and went boating. But David's appetites were for young harem girls who would wait on him. I would not be a servant girl. I had a child-like quality that made me attractive to him and my talent made me attractive. But we weren't an item; I guess you could call it a brief summer romance in Florida. Um, what? Again from Crosbybs bLong Time Goneb, Elliott Roberts is quoted thus: ER: David Crosby was responsible for my coming to California. When I first met him, he was going with Joni Mitchell; Joni was my only client. And then there is Joni from the same source: JM: [After meeting Graham Nash again in L.A.] I took him home and was looking after him and I got attached b here was a mess. What was I going to say? Ibm kind of going with David and we sort of staked claims, but Ibd written all these independent songs, trying to explain my position to him: that Ibm still in an independent mode. But I really got attached to Grahamb&b I could cite numerous other examples from the various biographers but her words and the words of trusted friends are more powerful. David Crosby has been an unwavering supporter of Joni from his introducing her to the L.A. music scene to the present. The most recent example is the April 2015 bUncutb magazine piece on Jonibs 30 greatest songs that concluded with an essay from Crosby: DC: At the time when I first met her and brought her back to California we were going together, and I donbt know if it lasted a year but it lasted a long time. It was good, but it was dauntingb&. Shebs probably the best writer of us all, and I still think that. Now if you donbt follow @thedavidcrosby on Twitter, youbre missing a treat. Hebs the unvarnished Crosby, commenting on music, politics while answering questions. He loved Laura Antoniolibs Joni album, hates Kanye and loathed Jim Morrison. But something has happened: Q: Do you still talk to Joni? DC: Hung up on her the last two times. And Q: Why is Joni so crabby? DC: Shebs nuts. So just as the apparent break with Judy Collins was disappointing, I find this very sad. Perhaps webll have to wait for her four volume biography. Or perhaps itbs just this simple (apologies to Stephen Vincent BenC)t): All things except the heart The heart she kept herself, that answers all. For here was someone who lived all her life In the most fierce and open light of the sun, Wrote letters freely, did not guard her speech, Listened and talked with every sort of man, And kept her heart a secret to the end From all the picklocks of biographers. As for falling off the roof, I cannot recommend it as an experience. Gravity still works b with alarming speed. ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2014 #1842 ****************************** ------- To post messages to the list,sendtojoni@smoe.org. Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------