From: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org (onlyJMDL Digest) To: onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Subject: onlyJMDL Digest V2007 #242 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Archives: http://www.smoe.org/lists/onlyjoni Websites: http://www.jmdl.com http://www.jonimitchell.com Unsubscribe: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe onlyJMDL Digest Friday, August 10 2007 Volume 2007 : Number 242 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Euro Fest 2008, ENGLAND.. All who are interested, or who have booked please read. [Lucy Hone ] SONG TO JONI [Vacheresse Joseph ] Re: Shine Cover Art [J Kendel Johnson ] Re: the blue strip [LCStanley7@aol.com] Re: Euro Fest 2008, ENGLAND.. All who are interested, or who have booked please read. [missblux@] Re: the blue strip [J Kendel Johnson ] Re: the blue strip [Jerry Notaro ] SV: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 ["Marion Leffler" ] RE: SONG TO JONI [Vacheresse Joseph ] Re: Shine Cover Art [Smurf ] Re: Shine Cover Art ["Randy Remote" ] Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 ["Randy Remote" ] Re: Shine Cover Art [Motitan@aol.com] Best CD since Modern Times [Jerry Notaro ] Re: Shine Cover Art [tejas4x4@aol.com] SV: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 ["Marion Leffler" ] Jimmy Webb Sunday AM- Joni Mention [PassScribe@aol.com] Re: Best CD since Modern Times [Smurf ] Re: Best CD since Modern Times ["Randy Remote" ] Re: Best CD since Modern Times [Jerry Notaro ] Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 ["Randy Remote" ] RE: Shine Cover Art i like it ["WATTS, LESLI" ] Re: Best CD since Modern Times [RoseMJoy@aol.com] SV: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 ["Marion Leffler" ] Best cd since Modern times ["Marion Leffler" ] Re: Best cd since Modern times [merk54@aol.com] SV: Best cd since Modern times ["Marion Leffler" Subject: Euro Fest 2008, ENGLAND.. All who are interested, or who have booked please read. Dear All Thank you for all your deposits. I have had these from: Ashara x 2 Bob Muller x 1 Catherine McKay x 3 Mike Pritchard x 1 Donna Binkley x 1 Oddmund Kaarevik x 1 Laree Martin x 5 Dave Blackburn x 2 Garrett McDermott x 2 Adrianno Lucatello x 2 Chris Marshall x 1 Jeff Hankins x 1 Paul Headon x 1 All of you are confirmed as staying on site, either in camping, as already advised to me, or in rooms which are shared, or in doubles as already confirmed. Who is where will be confirmed soon. Anyone who has been advised off list about camping, knows they are camping. ALL WHO BOOK FROM NOW ON WILL EITHER BE CAMPING OR IN B & B. Local addresses for these B and B's will be confirmed soon. Those who stay in B and B will be asked to pay a #30 a day attendance fee and this is a charge that is out of my hands. Bear with me and I will be back to you with fuller details, including the sleeping plan very soon. Work is rather hectic at the moment and I am out of the house for a miminum of 11 hours a day so getting clear time is rare. OK so that is the update. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:57:58 -0400 From: Jerry Notaro Subject: Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 Having listened again to HISL > recently, does anyone else think it might be a drug-induced album? When I first heard it I certainly thought she had been on something! Joni had always been honest about the drug use of that era but has also played down their influence on her music. Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:46:30 -0400 From: Vacheresse Joseph Subject: SONG TO JONI JOEL'S SONG TO JONI JONI, MY MESSIAH JONI, MY JOY AND MY PRIDE. TIME NOR THE SEASONS CAN FADE YOU OR CHANGE WHAT I FEEL DEEP INSIDE O, JONI, YOU BRING TEARS TO MY EYES WHEN YOU SING THOSE SAD, SWEET SONGS OF LOVE RUN DRY JONI, HOW COULD ANYONE LEAVE YOU FOR I WOULD LOVE YOU 'TIL I DIE. JONI, MORE PRECIOUS THAN DIAMONDS JONI, MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD YOU BRING ME TRUTH AND INSPIRATION SWEET SILVER SONG IN MY SOUL O, JONI, YOU BRING TEARS TO MY EYES --- ETC JONI, THANKS FOR THE ROSES THANK YOU FROM THIS BLUE, AGING CHILD HE KNOWS I LOVE HIM BUT SOMETIMES HE SEES ME LONGING TO RUN FREE AND WILD O , JONI, WOMAN OF HEART AND OF MIND HOW COULD MY LOVE FOR YOU EVER RUN DRY JONI, HOW COULD ANYONE LEAVE YOU FOR I WOULD LOVE YOU 'TIL I DIE. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:18:19 -0700 (PDT) From: J Kendel Johnson Subject: Re: Shine Cover Art I was just looking at the monstrosity reported to be the Shine cover art again this morning, and I was struck with this guess about it... The big blue stripe is probably NOT part of Joni's original album cover design. The album cover, sans the big blue stripe and big font repeat of "Shine" and "Joni Mitchell" is most likely printed on the shrink wrap or a special band wrapped around the CD package that was added by Hear Music and/or the Starbucks retail display designers who think the titling on her original design is to jump out at patrons. The Amazon employee creating the sales page for Shine probably just scanned the cover without removing the superimposed big blue band & titling -- or it may also be something graphically created at Amazon for reasons similar to my theories above. Otherwise, the repeat titling just doesn't make sense. I know Joni loves photography just about as much as painting, but, even without the big blue band, I am struggling, like so many, to believe this is really "it". Perhaps when the band is gone, the composition of the photograph(s) will redeem the cover, but even the font choice is difficult accept. I'm also wondering if Joni approved the big blue band or if it's been added later without her knowledge. Anything less than total control over her cover design would be totally inconsistent with her behavior so far. Maybe she WANTS the big blue band covering the photo(s) so that her creation is "unvieled" by each purchaser? Whatever the case, if it is not something that has been added at the retail level, then I don't know what to think. All I will be left with is "Very weird..." J NP Long by Brazilian Girls ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:26:02 EDT From: LCStanley7@aol.com Subject: Re: the blue strip Cassy described: > The moon hanging > over dancers who are "mooning"; everyone "shining". > LOLLLLLL ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:04:16 +0200 From: missblux@googlemail.com Subject: Re: Euro Fest 2008, ENGLAND.. All who are interested, or who have booked please read. Lucy, I'm sorry but I can't make Pay Pal work. It keeps changing my country to the UK, and I don't know what to do about it. It also tells me I used to have an account but when I sign up to be emailed info about that account nothing happens. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow, otherwise I'll have to wait until I'm back in the UK in mid-October, then I can make a bank transfer (I have a barclay's account) or make someone send you a cheque (I have no cheque-book!). Sorry about this! Bene On 8/10/07, Lucy Hone wrote: > Dear All > > Thank you for all your deposits. I have had these from: > > Ashara x 2 > Bob Muller x 1 > Catherine McKay x 3 > Mike Pritchard x 1 > Donna Binkley x 1 > Oddmund Kaarevik x 1 > Laree Martin x 5 > Dave Blackburn x 2 > Garrett McDermott x 2 > Adrianno Lucatello x 2 > Chris Marshall x 1 > Jeff Hankins x 1 > Paul Headon x 1 > > > All of you are confirmed as staying on site, either in camping, as > already advised to me, or in rooms which are shared, or in doubles as > already confirmed. Who is where will be confirmed soon. > > Anyone who has been advised off list about camping, knows they are > camping. ALL WHO BOOK FROM NOW ON WILL EITHER BE CAMPING OR IN B & B. > > Local addresses for these B and B's will be confirmed soon. > > Those who stay in B and B will be asked to pay a #30 a day attendance > fee and this is a charge that is out of my hands. > > Bear with me and I will be back to you with fuller details, including > the sleeping plan very soon. > > Work is rather hectic at the moment and I am out of the house for a > miminum of 11 hours a day so getting clear time is rare. > > > > > OK so that is the update. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:17:10 -0700 (PDT) From: J Kendel Johnson Subject: Re: the blue strip That would be great fun, and would actually make total sense! J LCStanley7@aol.com wrote: Cassy described: > The moon hanging > over dancers who are "mooning"; everyone "shining". > LOLLLLLL ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:36:44 -0400 From: Jerry Notaro Subject: Re: the blue strip I don't think I've seen it written here, but it appears to be from the ballet where the dancers are choreographed to Night Ride Home. Can anyone who were lucky enough to see the ballet confirm this? Jerry > That would be great fun, and would actually make total sense! > > J > > LCStanley7@aol.com wrote: Cassy described: > > >> The moon hanging >> over dancers who are "mooning"; everyone "shining". >> > > LOLLLLLL ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:46:33 +0200 From: "Marion Leffler" Subject: SV: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 Joni's use of drugs, like her smoking habits, are her own business entirely, imo, even if I find the idea disturbing, as I would with anybody. But - I wonder if any of Joni's albums can have been created under the direct influence of drugs? I don't know from personal experience how drugs work but I have seen people react to drugs, and they were either drowsy and incomprehensible or they were very speeded and chatty but talking nonsense, really. The only thing I can compare to is alcohol, and it has similar effects, it certainly does not help you create or think but rather dulls you. So if Joni was using drugs I imagine she did it on her leisure time and maybe worked through some of that experience later in her lyrics and music. Then again, given my inexperience with drugs, I might be entirely wrong. Anyhow, it seems to me that drugs have always been associated with artists and writers and romanticized in a way they probably don't deserve. For as far as I know, the average drug user is not a creative artist but suffers from a prosaic addiction. Marion - -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fren: owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org [mailto:owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org] Fvr Jerry Notaro Skickat: den 10 augusti 2007 13:58 Till: Randy Johnson; Joni List Dmne: Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 Having listened again to HISL > recently, does anyone else think it might be a drug-induced album? When I first heard it I certainly thought she had been on something! Joni had always been honest about the drug use of that era but has also played down their influence on her music. Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:49:28 -0400 From: Vacheresse Joseph Subject: RE: SONG TO JONI - -----Original Message----- From: Vacheresse Joseph [mailto:Joseph.Vacheresse@B2B-TRUST.COM] Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 8:47 AM To: 'JONI@SMOE.ORG' Subject: SONG TO JONI JOEL'S SONG TO JONI JONI, MY MESSIAH JONI, MY JOY AND MY PRIDE. TIME NOR THE SEASONS CAN FADE YOU OR CHANGE WHAT I FEEL DEEP INSIDE O, JONI, YOU BRING TEARS TO MY EYES WHEN YOU SING THOSE SAD, SWEET SONGS OF LOVE RUN DRY JONI, HOW COULD ANYONE LEAVE YOU FOR I WOULD LOVE YOU 'TIL I DIE. JONI, MORE PRECIOUS THAN DIAMONDS JONI, MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD YOU BRING ME TRUTH AND INSPIRATION SWEET SILVER SONG IN MY SOUL O, JONI, YOU BRING TEARS TO MY EYES --- ETC JONI, THANKS FOR THE ROSES THANK YOU FROM THIS BLUE, AGING CHILD HE KNOWS I LOVE HIM BUT SOMETIMES HE SEES ME LONGING TO RUN FREE AND WILD O , JONI, WOMAN OF HEART AND OF MIND HOW COULD MY LOVE FOR YOU EVER RUN DRY JONI, HOW COULD ANYONE LEAVE YOU FOR I WOULD LOVE YOU 'TIL I DIE. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:45:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Smurf Subject: Re: Shine Cover Art Perhaps the dancers' bottoms are bare, and the Starbucks Corporation has deemed full-backal nudity inappropriate for coffee-drinking children. Joni's artwork (i.e., her recent photo show) has been fresh and exciting lately. I hope that this cliched image of hands reaching out to a celestial entity is not final art. --SoB J Kendel Johnson wrote: I was just looking at the monstrosity reported to be the Shine cover art again this morning, and I was struck with this guess about it... The big blue stripe is probably NOT part of Joni's original album cover design. The album cover, sans the big blue stripe and big font repeat of "Shine" and "Joni Mitchell" is most likely printed on the shrink wrap or a special band wrapped around the CD package that was added by Hear Music and/or the Starbucks retail display designers who think the titling on her original design is to jump out at patrons. The Amazon employee creating the sales page for Shine probably just scanned the cover without removing the superimposed big blue band & titling -- or it may also be something graphically created at Amazon for reasons similar to my theories above. Otherwise, the repeat titling just doesn't make sense. I know Joni loves photography just about as much as painting, but, even without the big blue band, I am struggling, like so many, to believe this is really "it". Perhaps when the band is gone, the composition of the photograph(s) will redeem the cover, but even the font choice is difficult accept. I'm also wondering if Joni approved the big blue band or if it's been added later without her knowledge. Anything less than total control over her cover design would be totally inconsistent with her behavior so far. Maybe she WANTS the big blue band covering the photo(s) so that her creation is "unvieled" by each purchaser? Whatever the case, if it is not something that has been added at the retail level, then I don't know what to think. All I will be left with is "Very weird..." J NP Long by Brazilian Girls - --------------------------------- Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's Comedy with an Edge to see what's on, when. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:47:14 -0700 From: "Randy Remote" Subject: Re: Shine Cover Art Am I the only one who is greatly relieved that the cover is not yet another flat, one-dimensional self portrait? I don't see what's so bad about this one. RR, army of one >I was just looking at the monstrosity reported to be the Shine cover art >again this morning, and I was struck with this guess about it... > J ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:43:40 -0700 From: "Randy Remote" Subject: Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 > Joni's use of drugs, like her smoking habits, are her own business > entirely, > imo, even if I find the idea disturbing, as I would with anybody. But - I > wonder if any of Joni's albums can have been created under the direct > influence of drugs? I don't know from personal experience how drugs work > but > I have seen people react to drugs, and they were either drowsy and > incomprehensible or they were very speeded and chatty but talking > nonsense, > really. The only thing I can compare to is alcohol, and it has similar > effects, it certainly does not help you create or think but rather dulls > you. Cocaine doesn't make you drowsy! Quite the opposite. There are lots of classifications of drugs; stimulants like coke, cigarettes, caffiene (yes, pepsi is a drug!), psychedelics, depressants like alcohol, pills, heroin, hypnotics like Prosac and television. Drugs are everywhere in various forms. It's funny that people have such a naive attitude about musicians and drugs, or have this virginal picture of Joni. Like you say, artists and writers have been using mind altering substances for centuries. Often alcohol (Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, etc), so if something better came along, (and most drugs are better than alcohol, don't ask me how I know), why wouldn't they try it? And she did. You can bank on it. RR So if Joni was using drugs I imagine she did it on her leisure time and > maybe worked through some of that experience later in her lyrics and > music. > > Then again, given my inexperience with drugs, I might be entirely wrong. > Anyhow, it seems to me that drugs have always been associated with artists > and writers and romanticized in a way they probably don't deserve. For as > far as I know, the average drug user is not a creative artist but suffers > from a prosaic addiction. > Marion > > -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- > Fren: owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org [mailto:owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org] Fvr Jerry > Notaro > Skickat: den 10 augusti 2007 13:58 > Till: Randy Johnson; Joni List > Dmne: Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 > > Having listened again to HISL >> recently, does anyone else think it might be a drug-induced album? > > When I first heard it I certainly thought she had been on something! > Joni had always been honest about the drug use of that era but has also > played down their influence on her music. > > Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:54:05 EDT From: Motitan@aol.com Subject: Re: Shine Cover Art As was mentioned, someone suggested that perhaps Joni is finding inspiration in ballet and in the dancers themselves. That is a good point. When you think about it, Joni has said many times in previous interviews how she herself loved/loves to dance. She also has many positive, glowing references to "dancing" in her lyrics. - -Monika ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:52:56 -0400 From: Jerry Notaro Subject: Best CD since Modern Times Joni Mitchell: The legendary singer-songwriter is back Pierre Perrone is the first to hear her long-awaited album By Pierre Perrone Published: 10 August 2007 Joni Mitchell: The legendary singer-songwriter is back Joni Mitchell says that she's not ready for retirement after all Ten years ago, it looked like Joni Mitchell's life had gone full circle. This most archetypal of singer-songwriters was inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame along with her old friends Crosby, Stills and Nash. But, more importantly, she was reunited with the daughter she'd given away for adoption after becoming pregnant in the mid-Sixties, and her musical and personal journey - which had taken her from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to Laurel Canyon, California via Greenwich Village, New York - seemed complete. "In some ways, my gift for music and writing was born out of tragedy and loss," she told the documentary-maker Susan Lacy. "When my daughter returned to me, the gift kind of went with it. The songwriting was almost like something I did while I was waiting for my daughter to come back." In 1998, Mitchell released Taming The Tiger, her last album of new material, and toured the US and Canada that year, and again in 2000. After that, as she explained during a two-part Radio 2 documentary broadcast earlier this year, she spent most of her time painting, watching old movies and listening to talk radio. "I came to hate music," she admitted to her friend the British songwriter Amanda Ghost. Indeed, in 2002, as she issued Travelogue, a double CD on which she revisited her repertoire with orchestral backing, Mitchell announced she'd had enough of "the corrupt cesspool, the pornographic pigs" of the music industry and would be a recording artist no more. "Nothing sounded genuine or original. Truth and beauty were passi. I got the picture. I quit the business," she said. And, despite working with Rhino, the reissue arm of Warners, on a couple of thematic compilations of her oeuvre, she was as good as her word. Until last year, that is, when Jean Grand-Mantre, the artistic director of the Alberta Ballet, contacted Mitchell for permission to use her compositions in a ballet. Rather than simply let him choose songs to fit what would have been a "somewhat autobiographical" piece called Dancing Joni, she helped the project evolve into The Fiddle and the Drum, which premiered in Calgary, Canada, in February. She contributed some of her politically charged paintings to the set design and also delivered a couple of new songs she'd been working on, an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "If" - - her favourite poem - and "If I Had A Heart". These compositions are now two of the pivotal tracks on Shine, Mitchell's new album to be released via Hear Music, the Starbucks-owned label, in the US and Canada, and the Concord Music Group/ Universal in the UK and the rest of Europe at the end of September. A listen to the 10 tracks last week confirmed that Shine lives up to Mitchell's assertion that it's "as serious a work as I've ever done". In fact, I'll go further: aside from the accordion-driven reinterpretation of "Big Yellow Taxi", her only British hit single and her second most-covered song (190-plus versions and counting but still way behind "Both Sides Now"), which is obviously aimed at radio programmers, this is the best album by an artist of her generation since Bob Dylan's Modern Times. As she had barely picked up a guitar in 10 years, Mitchell started at the piano with "One Week Last Summer", a dreamy, chill-out instrumental reminiscent of her beloved Debussy, as well as Brian Eno's ambient music. What she calls "the piano-dominant songs" form the core of Shine, the most bare album she has made since the early Seventies. The jazzy feel of "This Place", "Hana" and the anti-war "Strong is Wrong" is deceptive and all the more effective as the stark lyrics sink in, while the haunting "If I Had a Heart" and "Bad Dreams are Good" sound like laments for planet Earth. Starbucks customers caught unawares might gulp on their lattes, but what should they expect from the woman who presciently wrote, "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot" in 1970? In fact, in the context of what is a mission-statement album, the reinterpretation of "Big Yellow Taxi" makes perfect sense. "Shine", the floating, ethereal title track, and "If", the album closer adapted from Kipling's poem, feel like hopeful elegies and chinks of light at the end of the tunnel. Even if Ken Lombard, the Hear Music supremo and president of Starbucks Entertainment, used the Radiohead rumours as a smokescreen on his recent visit to the UK, the announcement that Mitchell had followed in the footsteps of Sir Paul McCartney and signed to the Starbucks-owned label shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Getting involved with the Starbucks Hear Music project in 2005 had already helped change her gloomy outlook. Mitchell allowed the coffee company to issue a Selected Songs compilation of her catalogue, cherry-picked by the likes of Elvis Costello, Dylan and Chaka Khan, and also assembled her own favourite music - tracks by Debussy, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry, Steely Dan, Deep Forest, Edith Piaf, Etta James, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Dylan, Leonard Cohen and The New Radicals - for their Artist's Choice series. "I reviewed the songs and compositions that, over the course of my life, really got to me. I needed to remember what it was that I had once loved about music," she reflected. Having badmouthed the majors and US radio, this iconic artist also knew she had to figure out a way of getting her new music to her original Sixties' and Seventies' fanbase and possibly reach out to a younger demographic. The Starbucks tie-up couldn't be more timely, since singer-songwriters of both genders currently dominate radio formats around the world. Mitchell's eagerly awaited comeback could also help put in perspective her unique achievements and demonstrate how much she has inspired and influenced everyone from Suzanne Vega and Beth Orton to KT Tunstall via Morrissey and Prince - who swears that The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Mitchell's 1975 album, is "the greatest record ever made". Even Madonna is a fan. "I worshipped her when I was in high school. I knew every word to Court and Spark," Madonna has said. "Blue is amazing. I would have to say that, of all the women I've heard, she had the most profound effect on me from a lyrical point of view." Born Roberta Joan Anderson on 7 November 1943 in Fort McLeod, Alberta, the girl who began calling herself Joni in her early teens is the only child of William Anderson, who managed a grocery store after he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, and Myrtle "Mickey" McKee, a schoolteacher. Looking out of the window at the wheat fields, the wide open landscape, the railtracks and the highway outside the homes they lived in first in Maidstone, then in North Battleford and finally in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, she already felt a "permanent longing to set off and go somewhere." She took piano lessons for a year and a half but got her knuckles wrapped for improvising her own tunes. When she contracted polio aged nine, she spent weeks in hospital, but made it home by Christmas, defying the nuns' expectations and the doctor's diagnosis. "I walked. So polio, in a way, germinated an inner life and a sense of the mystic. It was mystical to come back from that disease," she later recalled. At 13, she joined the local choir. Arthur Kratzman, her English teacher, encouraged her painting and writing to such an extent that she subsequently dedicated her debut album to him. The teenage Joni used all the money she'd made modelling for a department store to buy a $36 ukulele because the acoustic guitar she really wanted was too expensive. With the help of a Pete Seeger method, she taught herself a few chords and started singing in coffee houses while studying at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. "In the beginning, I thought of myself as confident mimic of Joan Baez and Judy Collins," she said. "As a painter, I had the need to innovate. As a musician... at that time, it was just a hobby. I didn't think I had the gift to take it any further." Losing her virginity and becoming pregnant in 1964 by fellow student Brad McGrath set off a chain of events as the couple first moved to Toronto to hide her pregnancy and then split. She still played the occasional gig while working in a department store and gave birth to Kelly Dale Anderson on 19 February 1965. A month later, she met folk musician Chuck Mitchell and they married because she hoped to create a family unit for the daughter she had put in a foster home, but he went back on his promise and she gave Kelly up for adoption. They moved to Detroit, though the ill-matched acoustic duo they formed didn't last, her husband unable to understand that the guilt Mitchell suffered had made her wise beyond her years. "I started writing to develop my own private world and also because I was disturbed," she admitted. "I feel grateful for every bit of trouble I went through. Bad fortune changed the course of my destiny. I became a musician." Tom Rush stopped by the couple's Detroit apartment, instantly understood where "Day After Day", "Both Sides, Now" and "Little Green" came from, and recorded Joni's composition "Urge For Going". "Tom would say, 'Do you have any new songs?' I'd play him a batch and he'd say, 'Any more?' I always held out the ones that I felt were too sensitive, or too feminine, and those would always be the ones he chose. Because of Tom, I began to get noticed," she remembered. As Dave Van Ronk and Buffy Sainte-Marie also began performing her songs, Mitchell left her husband in 1967 and moved to New York. She found herself more at home in Greenwich Village and made her first visit to the UK where the American producer and guru of the underground scene Joe Boyd introduced her to the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention, who recorded her composition "Chelsea Morning" in 1968. With Judy Collins including a definitive rendition of "Both Sides Now" on her Wildflowers album, Mitchell became the most talked-about singer-songwriter without a recording contract. This was rectified when she met manager Elliot Roberts, who secured her a deal with Reprise Records as she hooked up with David Crosby. The former member of The Byrds had seen her in a club in Florida and produced her eponymous debut, the one most fans call Song to a Seagull. Mitchell was the muse of Laurel Canyon, the poster girl of the hippie generation. She wrote the era-defining "Woodstock", anticipated green concerns with "Big Yellow Taxi", her breakthrough hit, in 1970, and recorded the must-have albums Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, Blue, For the Roses and Court and Spark. Over the next two decades, she refused to be pigeonholed as the folkie with the sweet soprano voice and flaxen hair, and moved into pop, rock, jazz, and what wasn't yet called world music and electronica. From the mid-Seventies, Mitchell's back story seemed to affect people's perception of her, yet she kept moving into more challenging territory, recording with the jazz stalwarts Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius and Charles Mingus, who made the most of her unusual chord structures. "For years everybody said, 'Joni's weird chords, Joni's weird chords'," she has said, "and I thought, 'how can chords be weird?' Chords are depictions of your emotions, they feel like my feelings. I called them Chords of Inquiry, they had a question mark in them," she explained. "There were so many unresolved things in me that those suspended chords I found by twisting the knobs on my guitar, they just suited me." But Mitchell always had a hard time coming to terms with fame, and first talked about quitting live performances during a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1970. "I never liked the roar of the big crowd. I could never adjust to the sound of people gasping at the mere mention of my name. It horrified me," she confessed. "And I also knew how fickle people could be. I knew that they were buying an illusion, and I thought maybe they should know a little more about who I am. I didn't want there to be such a gulf between who I presented and who I was. David Geffen [her agent, her roommate and her label boss in the Seventies and Eighties] used to tell me that I was the only star he ever met who wanted to be ordinary. I never wanted to be a star. I didn't like entering a room with all eyes on me." She disappeared to the wilds of Canada at regular intervals and kept questioning the mendacious workings of the music business, as far back as the For the Roses album with "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio" in 1972. Having announced her retirement in 2002, Mitchell enjoyed her new role as mother and grandmother and really thought she wouldn't go back to making music. All this has changed now with this unexpected burst of creativity and a renewed sense of urgency and concern about the state of the world. As she told The Word magazine earlier this year: "I'm not interested in escapist entertainment when the planet is at red alert. We're busy wasting our time on this fairy-tale war when nobody's fighting for God's creation. I realised I wasn't ready for retirement." With a mixed media exhibition due to open in New York in the autumn and Shine, Joni Mitchell is back. What a long strange trip it's been. 'Shine' is out on Concord/Universal on 24 September ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:59:40 -0400 From: tejas4x4@aol.com Subject: Re: Shine Cover Art RR - Your not the only...you can only have so many self portraits. Im with you on this one! FG - -----Original Message----- From: Randy Remote To: joni@smoe.org Sent: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 9:47 am Subject: Re: Shine Cover Art Am I the only one who is greatly relieved that the cover? is not yet another flat, one-dimensional self portrait?? I don't see what's so bad about this one.? RR, army of one? ? >I was just looking at the monstrosity reported to be the Shine cover art >again this morning, and I was struck with this guess about it...? > J? ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:20:56 +0200 From: "Marion Leffler" Subject: SV: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 Yes Randy I don't doubt she used drugs, everybody in the pop business did so why should she be an exception. What I wonder about is if she could have written her lyrics/music under the direct influence of drugs. I know different drugs have different effects, some are uppers and some are downers, but as far as I have been able to observe, none of them makes you cleverer, more creative, more beautiful. Marion - -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fren: owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org [mailto:owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org] Fvr Randy Remote Skickat: den 10 augusti 2007 18:44 Till: joni@smoe.org Dmne: Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 > Joni's use of drugs, like her smoking habits, are her own business > entirely, > imo, even if I find the idea disturbing, as I would with anybody. But - I > wonder if any of Joni's albums can have been created under the direct > influence of drugs? I don't know from personal experience how drugs work > but > I have seen people react to drugs, and they were either drowsy and > incomprehensible or they were very speeded and chatty but talking > nonsense, > really. The only thing I can compare to is alcohol, and it has similar > effects, it certainly does not help you create or think but rather dulls > you. Cocaine doesn't make you drowsy! Quite the opposite. There are lots of classifications of drugs; stimulants like coke, cigarettes, caffiene (yes, pepsi is a drug!), psychedelics, depressants like alcohol, pills, heroin, hypnotics like Prosac and television. Drugs are everywhere in various forms. It's funny that people have such a naive attitude about musicians and drugs, or have this virginal picture of Joni. Like you say, artists and writers have been using mind altering substances for centuries. Often alcohol (Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, etc), so if something better came along, (and most drugs are better than alcohol, don't ask me how I know), why wouldn't they try it? And she did. You can bank on it. RR So if Joni was using drugs I imagine she did it on her leisure time and > maybe worked through some of that experience later in her lyrics and > music. > > Then again, given my inexperience with drugs, I might be entirely wrong. > Anyhow, it seems to me that drugs have always been associated with artists > and writers and romanticized in a way they probably don't deserve. For as > far as I know, the average drug user is not a creative artist but suffers > from a prosaic addiction. > Marion > > -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- > Fren: owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org [mailto:owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org] Fvr Jerry > Notaro > Skickat: den 10 augusti 2007 13:58 > Till: Randy Johnson; Joni List > Dmne: Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 > > Having listened again to HISL >> recently, does anyone else think it might be a drug-induced album? > > When I first heard it I certainly thought she had been on something! > Joni had always been honest about the drug use of that era but has also > played down their influence on her music. > > Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:37:15 EDT From: PassScribe@aol.com Subject: Jimmy Webb Sunday AM- Joni Mention Hi, all, If anyone would like to check this out, WFUV is having an "interview with & performance by" songwriter Jimmy Webb, Sunday morning during the 8 to 11 AM "Sunday Morning Breakfast" show. Jimmy is supposed to be telling personal stories about him and people like Sinatra, Elvis and Joni. It's on WFUV 90.7 FM (out of the Bronx, NY) or streaming online (available through your computer) at WFUV.org. Kenny B ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:44:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Smurf Subject: Re: Best CD since Modern Times Pierre Perrone wrote: "Mitchell's eagerly awaited comeback could also help put in perspective her unique achievements and demonstrate how much she has inspired and influenced everyone . . ." 'Comeback'! I hate that word! It's a 'return'! --Joni Desmond - --------------------------------- Need a vacation? Get great deals to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:52:32 -0700 From: "Randy Remote" Subject: Re: Best CD since Modern Times Thanks for posting this, Jer... Intriguing to me is: > the most bare album she has made since the early Seventies. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:53:35 -0400 From: Jerry Notaro Subject: Re: Best CD since Modern Times We can only hope! > Thanks for posting this, Jer... > Intriguing to me is: > >> the most bare album she has made since the early Seventies. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 12:20:38 -0700 From: "Randy Remote" Subject: Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 From: "Marion Leffler" Subject: RE: Shine Cover Art i like it hi folks! back from oaxaca where i was studying---- i've been increasingly frustrated by the reductions of large paintings scanned down to fit the cd format. the pictures on dreamland were a good beginning, but i 'd rather buy a book of the paintings or go to an exhibit and feel the strokes. so, i too think it's wonderful that the cover doesn't have yet another miniscule exploration or her own face! Yes to exploring the changes but on every, every cover? i've been waiting for this. thanks guys for helping me verbalize what i've been kicking around in my mind. a bit like what joni does for us , don't cha think? the fact that joni is working in as a collaborator, even to the point of putting the dancers on the cover, in my mind, highlights another dimension of joni the artist, seeker and maturing soul. the whole concept behind green flag song-- the carnage of war is outward - helping a struggling company - outward! go joni! but, ( please forgive me), her never ceasing self promotion is not neglected - the ballet film is coming out is it not? AND and i like the image. it might be a clichi but it could also be called a classic pose. i love dance, many long years ago i danced and the tension in a movement like this was thrilling to me. we don't know or do we? that this photograph wasn't taken by joni. so it may indeed be her art. one can hope and i for one hope to see more. just my take , love to all lesli ________________________________ From: owner-joni@smoe.org on behalf of tejas4x4@aol.com Sent: Fri 8/10/2007 10:59 AM To: guitarzan@hughes.net; joni@smoe.org Subject: Re: Shine Cover Art RR - Your not the only...you can only have so many self portraits. Im with you on this one! FG - -----Original Message----- From: Randy Remote To: joni@smoe.org Sent: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 9:47 am Subject: Re: Shine Cover Art Am I the only one who is greatly relieved that the cover? is not yet another flat, one-dimensional self portrait?? I don't see what's so bad about this one.? RR, army of one? ? >I was just looking at the monstrosity reported to be the Shine cover art >again this morning, and I was struck with this guess about it...? > J? ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:44:37 EDT From: RoseMJoy@aol.com Subject: Re: Best CD since Modern Times Wow and WOW, thanks Jerry for posting the review. I am really getting psyched. Speaking of Modern Times, I really miss this CD. I left it behind at Jonifest. rosie in thankfully drenched NJ ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:28:11 +0200 From: "Marion Leffler" Subject: SV: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 Okay, so what are you saying, Randy? That drugs have no negative effect on creativity? That good stories about drugs are valid? Well, they might be if you are a rich superstar who doesn't have to go to work at 8 in the morning but can sleep as along as she/he wants and have a doctor at your call if something should go wrong with this gorgeous trip anyhow. Thats a far cry from your average addict trying to get his/her fix and having to do all sorts of not so nice things to get it. And I still don't believe that drugs expand your mind - but I would have to try them to be sure, and I won't do that! Marion, fair and square - -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fren: owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org [mailto:owner-onlyjoni@smoe.org] Fvr Randy Remote Skickat: den 10 augusti 2007 21:21 Till: joni@smoe.org Dmne: Re: JMDL Digest V2007 #313 From: "Marion Leffler" Subject: Best cd since Modern times Thank you Jerry! Can't wait - but was disturbed when reading that it won't be released in Europe until the end of September. So we will have to wait longer than you lucky ones in the US and Canada? And what about the proposed release party in the chat room? Does this mean it's going to have to be a North American exclusive? Boohoo. Marion ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:59:19 -0400 From: merk54@aol.com Subject: Re: Best cd since Modern times Marion, If I read this all correctly, it actually comes out in Europe a day earlier than the US.? The US release date is Sept. 25, while Europe is Sept. 24. Jack - -----Original Message----- From: Marion Leffler To: 'Jerry Notaro' ; joni@smoe.org Sent: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 3:40 pm Subject: Best cd since Modern times Thank you Jerry! Can't wait - but was disturbed when reading that it won't be released in Europe until the end of September. So we will have to wait longer than you lucky ones in the US and Canada? And what about the proposed release party in the chat room? Does this mean it's going to have to be a North American exclusive? Boohoo. Marion ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 23:15:01 +0200 From: "Marion Leffler" Subject: SV: Best cd since Modern times Thanks Jack! I dont know what made me read a later date  sheer apprehension maybe? Anyhow, Im relieved to be wrong! Marion _____ Fren: merk54@aol.com [mailto:merk54@aol.com] Skickat: den 10 augusti 2007 22:59 Till: marionleffler@telia.com; notaro@stpt.usf.edu; joni@smoe.org Dmne: Re: Best cd since Modern times Marion, If I read this all correctly, it actually comes out in Europe a day earlier than the US. The US release date is Sept. 25, while Europe is Sept. 24. Jack - -----Original Message----- From: Marion Leffler To: 'Jerry Notaro' ; joni@smoe.org Sent: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 3:40 pm Subject: Best cd since Modern times Thank you Jerry! Can't wait - but was disturbed when reading that it won't be released in Europe until the end of September. So we will have to wait longer than you lucky ones in the US and Canada? And what about the proposed release party in the chat room? Does this mean it's going to have to be a North American exclusive? Boohoo. Marion _____ size=2 width="100%" align=center> AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:44:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Mags Subject: passion, opinions and finding the cost of Shine Debra Shea raised some very good thoughts when she wrote: Joni fans sure are passionate! Another way Joni fans show their passion, Christian, is to look closely, really closely, at whatever she does and have an opinion about it. That opinion may not always be 100% favorable. Every artist knows that once the work goes out into the marketplace, it's up for grabs. Thank goodness that after decades in the marketplace, Joni still has fans that are paying such close attention. And, you're right, Christian, the music is her most important gift. Brace yourself, though. There will probably be less than 100% favorable reactions to that too. and now me: In the past, I, too, have taken the opines of others somewhat personally, when it comes to Joni and her muse-ic. For me, it was often a knee jerk reaction, as if *i* was being attacked. (oh silly woman~). Perhaps, similar to Joan, I'm a sensitive scorpion :-P. That said, I've mellowed out a lot over the years, (for the most part ;-). Agreed, when Joni brings us new work to the table, many of her fans will take out the magnifiying glass, as well as taking a look through the retrospectoscope, an opportunity to critique and compare to their hearts content. I don't know how I feel about the new cover. I look forward to seeing it in the palm of my hand, no matter what. nice find there Catherine, re: the left coast restaurant and Joni's painting. Tres cool. Having read through one of the many reviews posted of late, I couldn't help but giggle at the description of Joni going up to the Wilds of Canada ;--) Mags, one of the wild women. npimh: it doesn't matter what it means to me, what does it mean to you? ~JM p.s. as for the cost of Shine, I was in McNally Robinson bookstore this afternoon, and was told that Shine will be sold there for $14.99, (Canuckian), due to some deal with Universal Records. all that's all she wrote. - --------------------------------- Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! 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