From: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org (onlyJMDL Digest) To: onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Subject: onlyJMDL Digest V2014 #568 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Website:http://www.jonimitchell.com Unsubscribe:mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe onlyJMDL Digest Sunday, April 5 2015 Volume 2014 : Number 568 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: Joni Article in The Guardian (UK) ["Allison Crowe Music" ] List Pollution [lcs4bike@yahoo.com] Re: gathering on 4/11 [Victor ] RE: gathering on 4/11 ["mep chorus.net" ] An update on JoniMitchell.com ["Mark Scott" ] Joni Covers 214 - Still I sent up my prayer [Bob Muller ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 00:36:12 -0700 From: "Allison Crowe Music" Subject: Re: Joni Article in The Guardian (UK) With fans like that, who needs enemies seems fitting rejoinder to this weekend's piece in the Guardian. Like the unctuous fellow who nearly drowned in his self-absorption vis-a-vis Joni Mitchell in a Canadian newspaper some months ago, this writer appears oblivious to the fact they really don't know Joni at all. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2015 19:05:01 -0700 From: Scott Price Subject: Re: Joni Article in The Guardian (UK) Do we, should we, separate the artist from her art? She disdains the confessional label but she reveals so much its like shes inviting all of us in to scrutinize and analyze and at that point the melding of the art and the artist is complete. Has there ever been deeper soul-baring than the achingly-transparent Blue? As Joni has said, not a single false note on that entire album. I dont know if Linda Grant would cringe if her essay in The Guardian was characterized as confessional but she expresses things that I have thought about and pondered and fussed and worried about. These emotions that Joni captures so well which serve as the magnet that draws us in to her art are our common denominators, and Ms. Grants writing shows that not only does she get it, she gives it too, in the form of transparency and honesty and raw feelings. Just as Joni would do. Scott ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 07:44:00 -0500 From: lcs4bike@yahoo.com Subject: List Pollution Please, try not to repeat whole posts in list after list even if it is Joni related. I'm asking because with repeated posts, articles, or whole digests inside of digests it makes it very hard sometimes to find the new content when scrolling through lengthy old content. Thanks! Laura Sent from my iPhone ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 12:02:58 -0700 From: Victor Subject: Re: gathering on 4/11 That sounds divine. Wish we were just a little bit closer. Though 950 miles is definitely an improvement from 2150. Victor in Bend NP: John Coltrane "Chasin' the Train" Sent from my iPhone > On Apr 4, 2015, at 11:38 AM, Dave Blackburn wrote: > > Dear Joni friends, > > Robin and I would like to host a minifest potluck gathering at our home in > Fallbrook on Saturday afternoon from noon (April 11th) for any members of this > list who would like to come together to visit, play music and give ourselves > some strength during this time of worry about Joni. Please email me, or Robin, > robinadler52@att.net offlist if youbd like to join us. The weather looks > fine and there are inexpensive motels nearby, if needed. > > thanks, > > Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 08:33:31 -0500 From: "mep chorus.net" Subject: RE: gathering on 4/11 Dave Blackburn wrote: Dear Joni friends, Robin and I would like to host a minifest potluck gathering at our home in Fallbrook on Saturday afternoon from noon (April 11th) for any members of this list who would like to come together to visit, play music and give ourselves some strength during this time of worry about Joni. Please email me, or Robin, robinadler52@att.net offlist if youb d like to join us. The weather looks fine and there are inexpensive motels nearby, if needed. thanks, Dave Me: so where's Fallbrook?? ;-) Mary P. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 01:16:40 -0700 From: "Mark Scott" Subject: An update on JoniMitchell.com http://jonimitchell.com/news.cfm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 13:00:17 +0000 (UTC) From: Bob Muller Subject: Joni Covers 214 - Still I sent up my prayer As we read the good news about Joni's health we can celebrate the weekend. And add to it another new batch of Joni covers for icing on the cake! Lots of special ones here, look out it might just make you a covers fan. Claire Martin's lovely Two Grey Rooms, Lou Beckerman's STAS, Coyote with a country flair, BSN in Flemish, Hejira in Dutch, a cover of Joni's FIRST EVER song Day After Day, and lots more. The vast majority are 2014 recordings. I was, however, very excited to get (2) pieces of rare vinyl in this week so there's still some older stuff out there coming up soon. https://www.yousendit.com/download/UlRRNHA0eDMxUUM1eDhUQw 1. Lou Beckerman - Song To A Seagull 2. Dee Dee Lavell - Big Yellow Taxi 3. Claire Martin - Two Grey Rooms 4. Ian Hildebrand - Both Sides Now 5. Soul Pattern Project - Court and Spark 6. Colleen Rennison - Coyote 7. Nina Omilian - I Had A King 8. Che & Charlie - River 9. Els De Schepper - Else Kant (Both Sides Now/Flemish) 10. Kadoos - Vlucht (Hejira/Dutch) 11. Big Yellow Taxi - Day After Day 12. Tierney Sutton - Big Yellow Taxi 13. Peter Herbert - Moon At The Window 14. The Fureys - Both Sides Now 15. Alice Kristiansen - Woodstock 16. Jessie Reeves - All I Want 17. Deborah Ledon - Help Me 18. Silvia Infascelli - Blue 19. Kathy Johnson - Both Sides Now 19 songs, 19 hits. Enjoy. Bob NP: Kadoos - Vlucht ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 00:06:25 +0000 (UTC) From: Catherine McKay Subject: Re: Joni Article in The Guardian (UK) I understand Kevin's point of view. I found the mention of Joni possibly dying kind of disconcerting. But, apart from that, I found that the article pretty much summed up how I fell in love with Joni's music when I was in my early teens and how she has been part of my life ever since. Yes, I get a bit discouraged by her complaining, but I don't blame her for feeling that way. Interviewers tend to ask her the same stupid questions over and over again and I guess she sticks to certain stories, but I care more about her music than all of that. From: Garret To: Kevin Foehr Cc: "joni-digest@smoe.org" ; JMDL Sent: Saturday, April 4, 2015 6:40 PM Subject: Re: Joni Article in The Guardian (UK) Oh gosh. I disagree entirely.B I thought thw article summed up my feelings and my experience exactly. EachB to their own. Now let's go and listen to the music as that's what brought us all here in the first place :) Garret On 4 Apr 2015 22:17, "Kevin Foehr" wrote: > Hi, > That Guardian article was horrible. B Talking about her death was in very > poor > taste and complaining abut everything from the music biz to Joni herself > was > very tiresome. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 19:47:07 +0100 From: Joe Jones Subject: Re: Joni Article in The Guardian (UK) Hi Anita, Agreed, pretty bleak - Joni's music brings me joy mostly - with more than a hint of admiration. I met some Saskatchewanites on a London - North Wales train recently - asked them who was easily the most famous Saskatchewanite in the world - - they didn't have a clue - but agreed when I said Joni ;-) I think I'll put "Live at The Hague", 1983 on now. Cheers - Joe On 4 April 2015 at 16:48, Anita Gabrielle wrote: > Blimey, Joe I thought 'He's in a really bad way" until I realised you'd also > cut and pasted the article. The bit at the end which says: > > "I don't think she knows how much she' s venerated. Or maybe she knows and > it doesn't t matter. It fulfils nothing. It makes no difference. She's as > alone with her music as we are." > > > Pretty bleak, huh? Linda Grant - You Should Join JMDL!!! :-))) > Anita > > > > > On 4 Apr 2015, at 10:36, Joe Jones wrote: > > http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/04/not-easy-to-be-joni-mitchell-fan-but-illness-devastates-me > > Itb s not always easy to be a Joni Mitchell fan, but her illness > devastates me - Linda Grant > > Joni Mitchell is one of the greats, indisputably, and her increasingly > frail health is, to a superfan like me, a terribly sad thing to see b > however angry, bitter and paranoid she seems to have become > > I donb t think Joni Mitchell knows how much sheb s venerated. Or maybe > she knows and it doesnb t matter, writes Linda Grant. > > Saturday 4 April 2015 08.00 BST > > For a long time I have worried about where I will be when I hear the > announcement of Joni Mitchellb s death. I donb t want it to be when I am > in transit, or about to do a literary festival or attend a family > celebration. I need to be on my own. I need to close down the > internet, draw the curtains and spend the next two days repeatedly > listening to the albums Hejira, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Court and > Spark and Blue. I am going to be traumatised. This wonb t be just a > death; it is going to feel like an emotional amputation. No other > artist has meant as much to me, or has taught me so much about myself. > This week the news broke that Mitchell, now 71, had been found > unconscious and was in intensive care. A childhood survivor of polio, > her health has not been good for a long time. She has, by her own > admission, wrecked her voice through smoking and is suffering from a > mysterious skin condition called Morgellons disease. She is not in > great shape, and I worry that our long ride together may soon come to > an end. > > You start out being a fan of some teenybop star when you are 12 or 13 > and then grow out of it. You cringe and shudder when you remember > those hot, passionate feelings for the little doe-eyed boy-man, deny > that you ever had a Smash Hits centrefold of Donny Osmond or One > Direction on your bedroom wall. But what if you started to listen to > someone when you were 17, someone who was one of the greatest of their > generation and of the century, who articulated that particular moment > when opposing longings for love and for artistic self-expression are > waging war in you? And nearly 50 years later, you are still a fan, and > the person whose music means everything to you is hospitalised and in > danger and youb re holding your breath; youb re ready to be heartbroken. > Joni Mitchell treated in intensive care at Los Angeles hospital > > Mitchell is one of the greats b as great as Bob Dylan, maybe greater, > but itb s not a contest; she just means more to me than he does. If she > means nothing to you, too bad, your loss. Just donb t persecute her. > One element of my devotion is anger at the raw and rawer deal she has > received from the music press, since the contemptuous awarding of the > title b Old lady of the yearb by Rolling Stone, as if she were more of > a groupie than a great lyricist. Mention Joni Mitchell today and you > may still be greeted by a sarcastic falsetto imitation of her song > Woodstock, from the early years before the cigs introduced gravel into > her voice. She was at her height in the early 70s, a decade of bad > clothes and celebrity sex pests, of overblown prog-rock and a general > political malaise. Punk came along and kicked in anything with nuance, > sophistication, feeling, lyricism. She was shunted into the same > derisory cul de sac as, say, Peter, Paul and Mary or Donovan b hippy > and drippy b when she was a jazz singer, a consummate composer, a poet > and a thinker. > > What she always lacked, to oppose all that dismissive contempt, was > the obsessiveness of the male fanbase: the Deadheads and Dylanologists > who catalogue and compete for record-collection kudos among a > fraternity of admirers. Where are the dry, 1,000-page volumes of > musical Joni-trivia, the conferences, the PhD dissertations? We just > locked the door and listened on our own. On hearing the news of her > hospitalisation, the crime writer Val McDermid tweeted: b Distraught to > hear Joni Mitchell in intensive care. Her music inhabits my heart, my > very soul.b > > I accept that Mitchell has not been the easiest star to love. She > gives little back to her fans and her views on feminism have been > disheartening to say the least. She seems to have lately rejected > everything her generation stood for, from its ideals to its clothes. > There is a tendency to think that if you could only meet the person of > whom you are a fan, you would inevitably become friends. For a long > time I imagined that I would be hitchhiking one day and Joni would > pick me up and web d drive along under a limitless sky talking about > the men we had loved and the trap of marriage and the perhaps > unavoidable tendency of romantics to become cynics, and the desire for > Paris gowns and lacy dresses and skating on a frozen lake in a snow > storm b& and I wouldnb t need to tell Joni a thing about me. She already > knew. Sheb d written my emotional biography. b I am a woman of heart and > mind / With time on her hands / No child to raiseb . b Sharon, I left my > man / At a North Dakota Junction / And I came out to the Big Apple > here / To face the dreamb s malfunction.b And, definitively, b Nothing > is capsulised in me / On either side of town / The streets were never > really mine / Not mine these glamour gowns.b If I could express any of > that in a novel, so succinctly, I would have done. But sheb s the > genius, not me. > > I hate the media and the music business for their disgraceful > treatment of an artist of her stature. And I have to concede, when I > read interviews with her, that these blows have not been borne > graciously. They have not been borne at all. She seems lonely, angry, > bitter, paranoid and afraid. I worry about her. Had she been a man, > she would be on her third or fourth considerably younger partner, with > a new young family, that complacent second act that women are denied. > Maybe if sheb d been a Buddhist or got into some faith system, been > born again into a cult or the church, sheb d have found peace. But in a > recent interview in the Sunday Times, she laid into hippies, all > contemporary music, Bob Dylan, and again, feminists. She nixed a > biopic starring Taylor Swift because all the young star could offer > was cheekbones. Her reunion with the daughter she had given up for > adoption went sour. Her tone is autocratic, arrogant and angry. She > reminds me, in a way, of Philip Roth, another raging titan of the > American arts. > > She has called herself b a scientist of loveb ; how to love is what > sheb s trying to get to the bottom of. Like Jean Rhys, she has drawn > the anatomy of a womanb s heart, the men we fall for, the loneliness, > the fatal choices. The accretion of age, the disappointments of > living, are part of the journey web ve all been on with her, so this > life-long fandom canb t have a happy ending. Or even a happy middle. > Pity the poor children with an indelible online record of the day they > wept when they heard Zayn Malik was leaving One Direction. Perhaps the > lifelong experience of being a fan, an admirer, an acolyte or a > student of an artist will turn out to have been a fluke, a small > window of privilege, and from now on careers will burn up in a year or > two, the experience fleeting for the adorer and the adored alike. I > donb t think she knows how much sheb s venerated. Or maybe she knows and > it doesnb t matter. It fulfils nothing. It makes no difference. Sheb s > as alone with her music as we are. > > Joe Jones (St. Asaph) > > np - Late For The Sky - Jackson Browne > > -- > -- > Joe Jones > +44 7831 914094 - -- - -- Joe Jones +44 7831 914094 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2015 09:15:57 -0500 From: "mep chorus.net" Subject: Re: Joni Article in the Guardian (UK) Personally, I didn't mind the article, and even appreciated it. Was it in bad taste to speak publicly of Joni's eventual death at this time? Maybe, but the fact is that every single one of us, including me and including Joni, is going to die. In considering that eventuality, Linda Grant wasn't raising anything that I haven't thought myself, or that list members haven't considered, privately and publicly, since we heard the news of Joni's illness last week. And, while Grant's view of Joni is a bit bleak, it's a bleakness shot through with love and appreciation. It also strikes me that Grant is as unflinching in her view of some of Joni's more controversial characteristics as Joni herself has been about any number of things. Is that bad? Not to me: in fact, I welcome it. There are, however, a couple of places at which I part company from Grant. First, she seems to regard Joni's fan base as mainly female, not very organized collectively, and traipsing off to listen to Joni's music in solitude without sharing it with anyone. To wit, Grant writes: "What she always lacked, to oppose all that dismissive contempt, was > the obsessiveness of the male fanbase: the Deadheads and Dylanologists > who catalogue and compete for record-collection kudos among a > fraternity of admirers. Where are the dry, 1,000-page volumes of > musical Joni-trivia, the conferences, the PhD dissertations?" To which I answer: they're right here!!! Well, maybe not the PhD dissertations, but just about everything else. Seriously: has Linda Grant every visited jonimitchell.com? Ever posted to the JMDL? Ever checked out Bob Muller's fantastic and far-reaching collection of covers? Ever attended a Jonifest, or other gathering of the admirers (male, female, and other) which have sprouted up out of this incredible community, which has been going strong for nearly twenty years? And there *have* been scholarly examinations of Joni's work, both posted on jonimitchell.com and emanating from academia. Before criticizing Joni's fans for not reaching out, Grant should do a little reaching herself. The other thing Grant misses is that Joni's interviews consistently don't capture her warmth, earnestness, and fundamental honesty, unless they're videotaped. I have had the great privilege of meeting Joni twice, and both times, she was absolutely charming. She could say something like, "All of (fill in major city) is about to be subsumed in a mudslide," and I'd probably nod in happy agreement, due to what she communicates in-person by gestures and facial expressions that just can't be caught in the interview format. I've often thought that Joni, more than most artists, has been short-changed by the fact that print interviews, by their nature, give us only words, and little of the spirit behind them, which Joni often communicates by other means. That means readers of her interviews are getting only a very small glimpse into who she really is. OK. Off my soapbox, and off to Easter brunch! ;-) Mary P. ------------------------------ End of onlyJMDL Digest V2014 #568 ********************************* ------- Post messages to the list by clicking here:mailto:joni@smoe.org Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe