From: les@jmdl.com (onlyJMDL Digest) To: onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Subject: onlyJMDL Digest V1 #108 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: les@jmdl.com Errors-To: les@jmdl.com Precedence: bulk onlyJMDL Digest Wednesday, July 7 1999 Volume 01 : Number 108 The Laborday JoniFest is happening this fall! For information: send a message to Join the mailing list at: ------- 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 Songbooks ["Kakki" ] STAS - vinyl variations [MP123A321@aol.com] Re: setlists [RMuRocks@aol.com] Smoe news [Les Irvin ] Furry Sings the Blues (long) [Bolvangar@aol.com] Re: STAS - vinyl variations ["Kakki" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 19:11:16 -0700 From: "Kakki" Subject: Re: Joni Songbooks Catherine wrote: >It may have been called something as highly imaginative as "The Joni Michell > Songbook" (Imagine that!) It had on the front cover the picture from > "Clouds" and inside it had songs and music from both "Clouds" and "Song to a > Seagull" as well as a number of unpublished songs such as "Carnival in > Kenora" and "A melody in your name". It's "The Music of Joni Mitchell" and has been frequently available at a low price on eBay.com lately. I have a well-worn copy that I treasure. > "Can you still remember how it all began > with clipper ships and pink electric trees? > Dawnlight on a rooftop, bridges span, > Streetlight on a [something] melody. > Then it was me, and spring came, > Breathing a song of spring rain. > A melody in your name." This is my very favorite of the unrecorded songs. My dream is to find a recording of it one day. > As usual, this book used the standard guitar tunings, so none of it really > sounded like Joni's version, but it was a good start. It seems to me the > piano arrangements weren't bad. Your memory is perfect - the piano arrangements are very true to the original. > Surely to goodness, there are enough of us out there/out here? who want such > a thing as a REALLY DECENT Joni songbook that has ALL of her stuff in it - > and with proper guitar stuff in it. The ideal book would have both standard > tunings (for those who are confused by the open tunings) and the proper open > tunings (for those of us who love that sound, when we can work ourselves > around to constantly retuning the guitar.) Wouldn't that be something? Do > you suppose there's some publishing company whose back we could get on about > this? That would be a dream to have it all in one songbook. Check out the guitar pages on the JMDL website - Marian, SueMc, Howard, Mark and Jim have all worked on providing the open tunings. Unfortunately, I must stay retro with modified standard tunings since my barr finger met with a gory mishap in my youth ;-( Kakki NP: Heather Nova - Throwing Fire at the Sun ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 23:42:53 EDT From: MP123A321@aol.com Subject: STAS - vinyl variations I recently missed out on buying a promo white label vinyl copy of Joni's - SongTo A Seagull that the seller states was a mono pressing. Does anyone own (or have seen) a mono version of this LP on the list? Stock (regular release) or Promo? Any other Mono Joni LPs? If so, I need a tape or at least some info, plenty to share in return. a shot in the dark... thanks, Maurice ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 00:03:59 EDT From: RMuRocks@aol.com Subject: Re: setlists In a message dated 7/6/99 8:50:20 PM Central Daylight Time, jpelerin@aei.ca writes: << I'm new to this list and I need help.I have several Joni's shows on tape and I'm looking for the setlists.Where can I find such information. >> Hello Jean-Pierre and welcome to the list! If the shows were from Joni's 98 tour you can find the setlists on Wally's site. Otherwise, just listen to the tapes and write down what she's playing...sounds pretty foolproof to me! :~) I'd love to know which ones you have, maybe I've got 'em too and I can send you the setlists... Bob ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 22:19:51 -0600 From: Les Irvin Subject: Smoe news Joniphiles - The following note is from Jeff Wasilko, the wonderful guy at Smoe that hosts this list for free. I'm passing it on for all those who might be interested in some of the behind-the-scenes news. Jeff writes: smoe.org's cable modem connection that normally handles the outgoing mail failed earlier today due to a fiber cut near my house. Mail was going out over our other connection (a 56K ISDN line), but it is much slower than the cable modem so mail was being delayed. Later today, an electrical storm disrupted our ISDN line (which handles web traffic and incoming email), but things were back to normal by 9pm tonite... In other news, I'm in the middle of changing jobs, and as part of that I will be relocating to Northern Virginia. As part of that relocation, smoe.org will take up residence in my new employer's data center. This means smoe.org will enjoy a much better network connection. smoe.org's move to Virgina will probably take two days. During that time, I'm planning on provide a 'read-only' copy of all web sites during the move. I'll send out more information when I have it... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 01:10:57 EDT From: Bolvangar@aol.com Subject: Furry Sings the Blues (long) Hi all, If I might jump in with an (almost) completely new topic here (though there *were* some posts about this song not long ago): Listening to _Hejira_ on Sunday night while driving down the highway, watching the fireworks in the distance over Denver, I got to pondering why I have never liked "Furry Sings the Blues" as much as the other songs on the album: why it doesn't completely work for me, even though there *is* much to admire in it, as with most Joni songs -- I like the "gold tooth caps" line especially (as others have said), and the harmonica, and Joni's singing, and sometimes I think I briefly understand what she was aiming for overall in this song and then I like it a lot. One reason for its incomplete success I think is that Joni does not entirely locate herself in relation to the song's story and framework. It seems that the descriptions and images are Joni's, but she states them in an oddly abstract third-person way -- not much of the song is in the first person -- there is an issue of "voice" in the song. It's (arguably) not exactly explained what she's doing there, or why she's there, or what her feelings about the destruction of old Beale Street are. I think there's a distance in "Furry" between us, and what she's describing and her feelings about what she's describing -- a distance rooted in Joni's own distance from what she is describing. Her location, her role in the story and in telling the story (two different issues), are (until the last verse) uncertain, maybe to her as well as us: I think the last verse -- the best, in my opinion -- addresses her uncertain relationship to Beale Street. "Why should I expect that old guy to give it to me true?"; "While our limo is shining on his shanty street/old Furry sings the blues..." -- these lines sum up her "outsider" status. On one level the theme of "voice" in telling the story (a theme perhaps reinforced in the song by her vocal imitation of Furry) is fascinating to me, is very successful, and is really honest of Joni. But on another level that distance, despite Joni's awareness of it, creates a really basic problem for the song because it makes her unable to bring old Beale Street completely to life enough for us -- me, anyway -- to understand and share her feelings about it, which is (seemingly?) crucial. In this sense "Furry" may be an ambitious, perceptive study in limitations. I once read a review (I forget where) which said that the line about "history falls/to parking lots and shopping malls" sets up a dichotomy between "history" and "malls" -- that for Joni contemporary shopping malls are not part of "history" and (implicity) are inherently less valid or authentic or less "real" than old Beale Street. That has stuck with me as an interesting observation. Since Joni necessarily writes from a contemporary viewpoint, is this another problem of her location, that she identifies with neither the era she's describing nor the era she's writing in? On another note.....it's been observed that as her lyric-writing style became more conversational (starting around _Blue_), she began cramming more and more syllables into the lines of verse ("I don't want nobody coming over to my table/I got nothing to talk to anybody about" leaps to mind) -- which I think is a Good Thing, or at least something that she can make work brilliantly and with great originality (I love "The Last Time I Saw Richard"). But I think that "Furry" is one of her more extreme, and less successful, examples of this -- as in "Everybody laughs as if it's the old man's standard joke" or "And I'm not familiar with what you play/but I get such strong impressions of your heyday" (though I do love that repeated rhyme) -- it all makes the song very dense, and not in a good way. And I think that there's an odd tension or instability between the music, which is relatively down-tempo and loose and with a slow harmonic rhythm (i.e., less frequent chord changes), and this rapid-fire lyric overload, with its barrage of images, that for me doesn't work; it's like the lyrics and music are pulling in two different directions. I think the music (the chord changes) is dense, too, though in a different way from the lyrics - -- kind of murky. Some of the chord changes in the other songs, by contrast, each sound fresh and clear and give the song direction -- "Coyote," "Black Crow," "Hejira," "Refuge" -- and especially "Amelia," where every chord change has a kind of wonder for me that is just practically luminous. Maybe the other songs on the album show up these relatively minor weaknesses of "Furry" more than it really deserves. Thoughts? - --David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 22:01:47 -0700 From: "Kakki" Subject: Re: STAS - vinyl variations Maurice wrote: > Does anyone own (or have seen) a mono version of this LP on the list? Stock > (regular release) or Promo? I just checked my two STAS vinyls and they are both stereo. However, long ago I posted about finding a mint condition one in a used record store that sounded incredibly better than usual (and the improvement seems to be attributable to more than it just being a mint copy). I recall the threads and David Crosby's comments about how the original engineer passed away and the master got wrecked and how there is distortion in the album that's not supposed to be there, etc. (I always thought it was supposed to sound that way until I read the story). I am curious if you or anyone else has any obscure information regarding the pressings. The one I originally bought in the 60s has the following exactly engraved in the run-out: (Side One) 30753RS629A - 1H and (Side Two) 30754RS6293B - 1G The mint one that sounds so incredible has the following: (Side One) RS6293 30754-4 and (Side Two) T BS6293(30753)-3 I know this is kind of nerdy but I would really appreciate any more information if anyone knows. Thanks, Kakki ------------------------------ End of onlyJMDL Digest V1 #108 ****************************** The Song and Album Voting Booths are open! Cast your votes by clicking the links at http://www.jmdl.com/gallery username: jimdle password: siquomb ------- Don't forget about these ongoing projects: Glossary project: Send a blank message to for all the details. FAQ Project: Help compile the JMDL FAQ. 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