From: les@jmdl.com (onlyJMDL Digest) To: onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Subject: onlyJMDL Digest V1 #38 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: les@jmdl.com Errors-To: les@jmdl.com Precedence: bulk onlyJMDL Digest Monday, May 10 1999 Volume 01 : Number 038 TapeTree #8 is ready to roll. To sign up go to: http://www.jmdl.com/trading ------- Join the Joni Mitchell Internet Community Glossary project. Send a blank message to for all the details. ------- The Official Joni Mitchell Homepage is maintained by Wally Breese at http://www.jonimitchell.com and contains the latest news, a detailed bio, original interviews and essays, lyrics, and much more. ------- The JMDL website can be found at http://www.jmdl.com and contains interviews, articles, the member gallery, archives, and much more. ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: Joni sings Doobies ["Eric Taylor" ] Re: Joni sings Doobies [RMuRocks@aol.com] joni trivia [john noble ] Mother's Day [Zapuppy@webtv.net (Rick & Penny Gibbons)] Two More Members of Lost Tribe Reunited in Seattle ["Travis Moser" ] Before The Gold Rush#7 ["Ken (Slarty)" ] Before The Gold Rush#8 ["Ken (Slarty)" ] Before The Gold Rush#9 ["Ken (Slarty)" ] Before The Gold Rush#10 ["Ken (Slarty)" ] Before The Gold Rush#11 (Final) ["Ken (Slarty)" ] Re: Joni's recording trivia [Randy Remote ] Re: Joni's recording trivia [CaTGirl627@aol.com] gracias ken [katej ] Re: gracias ken ["Kakki" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 03:42:33 -0400 From: "Eric Taylor" Subject: Re: Joni sings Doobies (the Rev) Vince informs us: <> I adore the Doobies & can't think of a better song for Joni to cover! I can almost hear it now - a cross between what she did with Cool Water & Here's To You. What is the status on the Joni tribute anyway? E.T. NP: Radiohead, Airbag ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 07:45:03 EDT From: RMuRocks@aol.com Subject: Re: Joni sings Doobies In a message dated 5/9/99 2:43:02 AM Central Daylight Time, ewwtaylor@adelphia.net writes: << I adore the Doobies & can't think of a better song for Joni to cover! >> Ah yes, the Doobies, my used-to-be favorite-band (also my first concert). Matter of fact, "Toulouse St." is in the car changer even as we speak. Although I always liked Tom Johnston's voice better than the poppier Michael McDonald, Joni has said that she adores Michael's voice and they sang together on "Good Friends". I'm sure she was invited to participate on the project as a result of that earlier collaboration. Doobies Hat Trick: Toulouse St/The Captain & Me/What Were Once Vices Are now Habits... Bob ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 10:22:45 -0700 From: john noble Subject: joni trivia Hi all, My name's Tucker and I'm new to the list. re: The album "The World of Joni Mitchell" that Helen referred to. I have it. Found it in the mall in Albuquerque about 1983. Great photo of Joni on the cover. That was the main reason I bought it, since all the songs I already had of course. I've been a Joni fanatic since 1969. Have all the albums, songbooks, magazines, you name it. Enjoying the digest! My best to you all, Tucker ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 13:14:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Zapuppy@webtv.net (Rick & Penny Gibbons) Subject: Mother's Day Happy Mother's Day Joni!! I teared up last year at The Gorge, a week after Mother's Day, wondering if that special day was a part of the reason you were beaming so. Happy Mother's Day to the rest of you lister moms too! Blessings, Penny ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 13:26:06 -0700 From: "Travis Moser" Subject: Two More Members of Lost Tribe Reunited in Seattle On Friday, April 30th (which also happened to be the 45th anniversary of my birth) I had the great pleasure and priveledge to meet somebody who has been a contributor to this list from the very beginning, none other than Leslie Mixon. Leslie pretends to be a musician/photographer/executive from Santa Cruz. However, I am convinced that she is an international woman of mystery (probably a spy or CIA operative or some such thing) and that excitement & danger follow her wherever she goes. She is also an all-round good sport, as you will all see. On that full moon Friday night (although you couldn't see it in cloudy downtown Seattle) I met Leslie at her hotel. She was gracious, warm and friendly. She gave me a wonderful b&w photo of Joni, Larry, Brian Blade & Greg Liesz (Joni looking radiant & beautiful as always) taking a bow after their San Jose show last May. Leslie took this photo herself in her capacity as official JMHP photographer. She also allowed me to peruse the incredible book of poetry, lyrics and artwork that Joni hand-published as gifts to friends back in....was it '71, Leslie? I am very envious of Leslie for her acquisition of this book. Joni herself crossed out the original inscription in the front of the book, inscribed it to Leslie and signed it when Leslie had the good fortune of meeting her. We proceeded to the Blowfish restaurant, a popular and well-reviewed pan-Asian restaurant in the Paramount Hotel in downtown Seattle. I know for a fact that I had phoned and made a dinner reservation for 2 people but when we got there, much to my embarassment and mortification, the hostess could not find us on the list . We did manage to get a table in the bar and proceeded to order more food than the two of us could ever possibly have eaten. We talked, sang bits of Joni songs, looked at Joni's book some more and were having fun getting to know one another. The last bite of our shared dessert was on the plate between us, the leftovers boxed up and ready to go, when suddenly a siren-like alarm went off and a light started revolving and flashing somewhere in the bar. After some confusion there was an announcement on the pa system with instructions on evacuating the hotel. So we ended up walking back to Leslie's hotel in the rain after our unintentionally complimentary dinner. At some point Leslie made the comment that we 'ate real good for free' and we both cracked up. We also sang 'Night in the City' and other Joni songs while we went on laughing with no-one to meet.... Back in Leslie's room we were once again surprised by the sounds of police sirens and some kind of commotion from the street below us. A whole block of 5th avenue seemed to be closed off and we could hear police talking through bullhorns. We couldn't actually see or hear what was happening so we tried to turn on the tv. The tv was behaving in a very strange manner. It was turning itself off and on without either of us touching it or the remote control. There was nothing on the local news when we finally did get the tv to work so we went up to the restaurant at the top of the hotel but couldn't see anything more from there. It turned out that there had been some kind of high school dance contest at the 5th Avenue Theatre and that a fight had broken out. Later Leslie also found out that there had been some kind of smoke or fire in the ventilation system at the top of the Paramount Hotel where we had eaten dinner. Leslie (nervy lady that she is) actually went back to the Blowfish for lunch the next day. On Sunday morning Travis & I picked Leslie up and took her to brunch at Anthony's at Shilshole bay. This time everything went smoothly - no alarms, no flashing lights - just good food and good company and a nice view of Puget Sound. On the way back downtown we tried to find a book store that Leslie had spotted on the way to the restaurant but it somehow had mysteriously disappeared. Just one more bit of unexplained phenomena. The cosmos must have been disrupted by the convergence of so much Joni energy. So we drove back downtown with 'Taming the Tiger' playing in the car tapedeck, Leslie & I singing along with our favorite singer/songwriter. We dropped her off, exchanged hugs and Travis & I went on our way. The fates, however, had one final little joke to play on us. As we were getting into the car after buying some groceries, I discovered Leslie's wallet on the floor. So I called her and arranged to meet her at the Seattle Convention Center where she was representing her employer at the Health Expo. She came down and met me and we said goodbye again. All in all it was kind of a whacky adventure for all concerned but it was fun and I am certainly glad to have met Leslie and hope to see her again soon. She is one very special lady. We're making tentative plans to travel to Boston in September. I can't wait to find more members of the Lost Tribe of Mitchelljonia! You never know what might happen but I'm sure it's bound to be interesting and fun! Mark in Seattle (PS: I didn't flag this as NJC as it seems to me that meeting a fellow list member and sharing our love of Joni is very much JC and hopefully of interest to all.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 17:54:12 -0400 From: "Ken (Slarty)" Subject: Before The Gold Rush#6 During the spring of '65, while Chuck and Joni were touring the 4D circuit, Joni started adding some of her own material into her sets, including "Both Sides Now," a song she'd written about growing up. One night, after playing at Winnipeg's 4D, a tall kid with a Beatle haircut shuffled up, introduced himself as Neil Young and told her he'd written his own com- ing-of-age song. Later, as the cafe was closing, Neil played Joni the bitter-sweet "Sugar Mountain" which he'd written on his nineteenth birthday. Moved by its tale of a boy too old for the fairground, Joni wrote a response-"The Circle Game." In her song, which cleverly echoes the carnival imagery of "Sugar Moun- tain," she assures the boy that "there'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty." In August 1965 Joni took her new material to Mariposa, held for the first time at Innis Lake north-west of Toronto. On a weekend hit by heavy thunderstorms, she made her last appearance as Joni Anderson, sharing the stage with Ian & Sylvia, Phil Ochs, bluesman Son House and The Dirty Shames. (During a power failure one night, Ochs had to sing through a megaphone while illuminated by car headlights.) Joni went over well, both in concert and at a songwriters' workshop. But she insisted on singing only her own songs, which, at that point, were precious few apart from "Both Sides Now" and "The Circle Game." Some people complained, Estelle Klein recalled. "They said, 'She's really nice, but she's singing the same thing over and over again.' So when I invited her back for the next year, I said, 'Joni, I really like what you do, but could you expand your repertoire a little?"' ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 17:57:11 -0400 From: "Ken (Slarty)" Subject: Before The Gold Rush#7 In the car ride back to Toronto from Mariposa in August 1965, Joni wrote a new lyric, "It's like running for a train that left the station hours ago / I've got the urge for going." Although she has explained that the song was written about the changing folk scene and the need for moving on, it also reflected what was happening in her relationship with Chuck. "It was not a marriage made in heaven," she admitted. "He was relatively well-educated and in contempt of my lack of education. I was developing as an original, unschooled thinker [with] the gift of the blarney [and] the gift of metaphor. But he ridiculed me in the same way that Pierre Trudeau ridiculed his wife Margaret when she wrote her book. [Trudeau] said, 'My wife is the only writer I know who's written more books than she's read.' So there was this edu- cated pride versus the uneducated and the marriage didn't last very long." Still, Chuck did give Joni some- thing other than a married name. He advised her to protect her songwriting by forming her own publish- ing company, something she still gives him credit for. Her marriage on the rocks, Mitchell ran into more chauvinism in October when she appeared on CTV's "Let's Sing Out" program with U.S. folk singers Dave Van Ronk and Patrick Sky. Mitchell felt inferior alongside these experienced performers and was look- ing to them for encouragement. But as she recalled, she didn't get it. "Van Ronk was saying things like 'Joni, you've got groovy taste in clothes, why don't you become a fashion model?"' she said, "and Sky was say- ing 'It sucks."' But, she added, "David did like 'Urge for Going' and he asked me for it, I remember. I won- dered what ulterior motive he had in mind after saying all those dreadful things to me. I thought, 'He must just want to laugh at it or something.' I was that inse- cure about my writing." Despite that insecurity-or maybe because of it- Mitchell threw herself into songwriting with a vengeance. At the same time, other artists began recording her songs. First "Urge for Going got a country treatment by George Hamilton IV followed by versions by Tom Rush, Judy Collins and Van Ronk. Then Ian & Sylvia and Buffy Sainte-Marie covered "The Circle Game." Suddenly, Joni Mitchell's name was known on the U.S. coffee-house circuit, and her songs were earning her a tidy income to boot. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 18:32:12 -0400 From: "Ken (Slarty)" Subject: Before The Gold Rush#8 Joni Mitchell faced a much more receptive crowd at Mariposa that summer(1966). In fact, Mitchell returned to the festival as one of its most popular attractions, joining a line-up that included Lightfoot, Doc Watson and The New Lost City Ramblers. Dressed in paisley and accompanied by guitarist David Rea, Mitchell captivated audiences at both her evening and afternoon performances. This time, she brought a suitcase full of new songs, including "Both Sides Now" and "Night in the City" which she told her audience was inspired by Yorkville. "Music comes spilling out into the street," she sang, "colours go flashing in time." Mitchell's appearance was a resounding triumph. "This girl has everything," enthused Ruth Jones (the Mariposa founder) in Hoot, the Canadian folk magazine, "looks, charm, personality, an inventive mind, excellent guitar and above all, a voice, which ranges from gutsy to sublime. My guess is that she will be a name to reckon with-and soon." Only two years earlier, Mitchell had come to Mariposa to hear her heroine Bufly Sainte-Marie. Now, she was one of the festival's major stars. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 18:43:27 -0400 From: "Ken (Slarty)" Subject: Before The Gold Rush#9 In November '66, Joni Mitchell made her debut at Bernie Fiedler's Riverboat-on the stage, not in the kitchen. It was a triumphant performance, estab- lishing Mitchell as an artist in her own right and a songwriter whose material possessed a distinct Canadian quality. Songs like "Urge for Going," "Winter Lady" and "Come to the Sunshine" that she performed that week were rich in imagery. Each painted a vivid portrait of the changing seasons and owed much to her origins on the Saskatchewan Prairies. Like Tyson and Lightfoot before her, Mitchell was writing songs with a unique sense of place. Her Riverboat performance was a turning point. Afterwards, Mitchell left her husband and moved to New York where, she hoped, bigger things lay in store. Settling in Manhattan's Chelsea district, she turned her one-bedroom apartment into what she called her "magic princess" retreat, with bedroom walls covered in tinfoil and door frames lined with crepe paper. There she began writing as many as four songs a week, including the buoyant "Chelsea Morning" (for which U.S. president Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, later named their daughter). "I Had a King" detailed her marriage break-up with its lines about the man who "carried me off to his country for mar- riage too soon." With $400 in the bank, she told Rolling Stone, she thought she was "filthy rich." But Mitchell was about to become much richer, very quickly. While performing for $15 a night at New York's Cafe Au Go-Go, then the hottest club in the city, her new friend Bufly Sainte-Marie brought along her manager Elliott Roberts to see her. Although Roberts remembers Mitchell as "a jumble of creative clutter with a guitar case full of napkins, road maps and scraps of paper-all covered with lyrics," he was aston- ished at her talent-so much so that he promptly quit managing Buffy to handle Joni exclusively. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 19:36:54 -0400 From: "Ken (Slarty)" Subject: Before The Gold Rush#10 Yet Cohen, who would not record his debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen until later that year, stole the show at Newport from Joan Baez and Pete Seeger with his poetic ballads of romantic despair. Meanwhile, backstage, there was an instant attrac- tion between Cohen and Mitchell. Their love affair lasted for part of the summer as their paths criss- crossed on the festival circuit. Ultimately Mitchell would write two songs about their brief affair-"The Gallery" and "That Song About the Midway"-both of which would appear on Mitchell's Clouds album. On "Midway," Mitchell wrote of Cohen, "You stood out like a ruby in a black man's ear." She would later refer to Cohen, along with Dylan, as her only real "pace- runners" when it came to songwriting. Mariposa was something of a love-in itself that summer. Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen continued their not-so-secret affair there at Innis Lake north of Toronto. With Mitchell, Cohen, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Murray McLauchlan (making his Mariposa debut), there was a heavy emphasis on Canadian singer-songwriters, now becoming a strong national tradition. After the summer of '67, Joni Mitchell left behind her "magic princess" castle in Chelsea to become a lady of California's Laurel Canyon. Immediately, she began work on her first album, with singer David Crosby producing. Crosby remembers "a willowy blonde with blue eyes and high cheekbones, singing art songs in a bell-like soprano with a Canadian accent and accompanying herself on acoustic guitar and dulcimer. ..not anyone's idea of the next big thing." But Joni surprised everyone. The self-titlded album was a quiet, sparsely produced chronicle of the past year of her life. Side one was titled "I Came to the City" (meaning New York), while side two, featuring songs like "The Dawntreader" about life on Crosby's boat, was called "Out of the City and down to the Seaside" (presumably the Pacific Ocean). The album established Mitchell as an artist in her own right. In December she performed at the Miami Pop Festival before 100,000 people, on a bill with Marvin Gaye, Fleetwood Mac, Canned Heat and Three Dog Night. The same month, Judy Collins's version of Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" became a major hit. Nor did Joni Mitchell perform at the Woodstock weekend. Mitchell, who'd released her second album, Clouds, featuring songs that others had already made famous, was scheduled to appear on Dick Cavett's popular talk show in Manhattan and her manager didn't think she'd have time to get back for the show's Monday taping. Mitchell did, however, capture the event in her song "Woodstock," which became a number-one hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 19:45:22 -0400 From: "Ken (Slarty)" Subject: Before The Gold Rush#11 (Final) With 1971's Blue, Mitchell created her master- piece. Deeply haunting, the album defined a whole new genre of music-confessional songwriting. Mitchell had dramatized her relationships, writing about Graham Nash in "Willy" and James Taylor whom she had met at Mariposa '70 in "Blue." Her love affairs became a source of constant fascination for her fans, who hunted for evidence of them in her lyrics like sleuths on the trail of some tabloid-style scandal. The tawdry speculation about her romantic relationships with famous musicians hit rock bottom in 1971 when Rolling Stone voted her "Old Lady of the Year" and "Queen of El Lay." It would be a decade before Mitch- ell would speak to the magazine again. THE END ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 16:58:41 -0700 From: Randy Remote Subject: Re: Joni's recording trivia Yes I have one I got in an import bin years ago. It says New Zealand on the back. The label looks like a regular Reprise Records orange label of the period, but it has been hand stamped "(P) 1971". I bought it for 11 bucks from Village Music in San Anselmo, I think it was sealed when I got it. An interesting curio. I've seen a few for sale since, here and there. RR "Helen M. Adcock" wrote: > Some Joni trivia you may, or may not be aware of. "Hits" and "Misses" were > not the first compilation albums released by Joni - I rediscovered this fact > while browsing a record-store today, although I had been previously aware of > it! > > I'm not exactly sure when it was released (and the album cover didn't say) > but there was a compilation album called "The World of Joni Mitchell" > released on vinyl only in New Zealand (the land of compilations!), in (I > would guess) the early-mid 70's. The track list is as follows. > > Side One: Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock, All I Want, Both Sides Now, Chelsea > Morning, I Had A King; > Side Two: Carey, The Circle Game, California, Song To A Seagull, That Song > About the Midway, Night in the City. > > I didn't buy it, since it was only in "average" condition, and I'm trying to > cut down on buying vinyl (I also have all those songs on the original > albums) but I was very tempted, if only to say I owned an official Joni > release that probably no-one else has! > > Has anyone else heard of it, or does anyone own a copy? I may still go back > and get it, just for the hell of it! > > Helen > > NP - Crosby, Stills & Nash (first album -digitally remastered) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 21:08:58 EDT From: CaTGirl627@aol.com Subject: Re: Joni's recording trivia In a message dated 5/9/1999 2:46:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time, hell@ihug.co.nz writes: << I'm not exactly sure when it was released (and the album cover didn't say) but there was a compilation album called "The World of Joni Mitchell" released on vinyl only in New Zealand (the land of compilations!), in (I would guess) the early-mid 70's. The track list is as follows. Side One: Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock, All I Want, Both Sides Now, Chelsea Morning, I Had A King; Side Two: Carey, The Circle Game, California, Song To A Seagull, That Song About the Midway, Night in the City. I didn't buy it, since it was only in "average" condition, and I'm trying to cut down on buying vinyl (I also have all those songs on the original albums) but I was very tempted, if only to say I owned an official Joni release that probably no-one else has! Has anyone else heard of it, or does anyone own a copy? I may still go back and get it, just for the hell of it! >> Helen, March right back to that store and BUY it!!!!! Funny you should post this...I was done on South Street on Sat and was checking out the JOni vinyle,this is what I found... STAS Clouds MOA HOSl-2 of them WTRF I was tempted to get them and offer them for the Joni fest weekend as door prizes but wasn't sure if any one was interested. They were all quite cheap averaging around $3-$4. I can go back this weekend if anyone is interested in any of them. Let me know! Alos, for christmas last year my husband found me this CD at Ross Store for like $4.00. It was made in Holland and it came out in 1996. Tracks include... Big yellow taxi Woodstock Ladies of the Canyon Rainy Night House Blue Boy Morning Morgan Town- that was how it was spelled on the CD Conversation For Free The Arrangement This is the order and yes it sounds like LOTC. However the picture is of her with a guitar by her face and she is wearing a hat. It is missing Willy, The Priest and Circle Game. Interesting. I love getting anything by her so Helen, if you don't want the album. Buy it for me and I will pay for the cost of the album and shipping! Catgirl..obsessed with Joni and loving every minute of it!!! LOL ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 22:38:49 -0600 From: katej Subject: gracias ken Thanks, Ken, for all the excerpts about Joni's earlier life. I've read various articles, but this offered some new details and I appreciate the strain on your itty bitty fingers. Got any more? I can't get enough.... Curious Kate ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 21:43:08 -0700 From: "Kakki" Subject: Re: gracias ken > Thanks, Ken, for all the excerpts about Joni's earlier life. I've read > various articles, but this offered some new details and I appreciate the > strain on your itty bitty fingers. Got any more? I can't get enough.... I second that emotion. I never knew many of these details, either. Thank you Kate also for scribing the excerpts from Murray's book. This stuff is great and almost better and more detailed than what's been written in Joni's own two biographies! Kakki ------------------------------ End of onlyJMDL Digest V1 #38 ***************************** There is now a JMDL tape trading list. Interested traders can get more details at http://www.jmdl.com/trading ------- The Song and Album Voting Booths are open again! Cast your votes by clicking the links at http://www.jmdl.com/gallery username: jimdle password: siquomb ------- Don't forget about these ongoing projects: FAQ Project: Help compile the JMDL FAQ. Do you have mailing list-related questions? -send them to Trivia Project: Send your Joni trivia questions and/or answers to Today in History Project: Know of a date-specific Joni fact? -send it to ------- Post messages to the list at Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe onlyjoni-digest" to ------- Siquomb, isn't she?