Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

I like the earlier stuff more, these days.  
  

    

more than I used to like it, that is.  
  

    
I'm sure Joni would hate me.  I still consider "Blue" her career peak,
and find the later stuff pretentious and unrewarding (although there's
a lot of it I haven't listened to).
  

    
The thing I admire most about Joni is (or was) her inability to stay in
one place.  Most commercial artists would have made "Court and Spark II,"
or at least "Help Me Again," and I'm sure the pressure on her to do so
was enormous.

The run from "Court and Spark" to "Mingus" is both perverse and
wonderful. I can well imagine she lost lots of shallow fans and her
integrity must have cost her some sleepless nights, but give me failed
pretensions over stasis anytime. (Neil Young comes to mind.) Which is
not to say I agree that her work is pretentious.
  

    
I have stuck with Neil through many strange changes (I even liked "The
Shocking Pinks!") but Joni lost me after "Hejira."
  

    
Scott: I think that's what I most admire, too. Joni has never pandered
to commercial interests--the experimental Hissing of Summer Lawns was
not the expected follow-up to the immensely successful Court and
Spark--and has been true to every creative muse that came along,
creating the music she wants whether or not people embrace it.   

So in some ways she's earned the right to her self-confidence, which
is roughly equivalent to, I don't know, Muhammad Ali's.  Of course I'm
ambivalent about some of her comments.  Every time she's quoted as
saying something about Dylan being a plagiarist, or how her only peers
are Picasso and Miles, I cringe in anticipation of the reception.
(Though having spoken with her, I'm keenly aware of how
misrepresentative these soundbytes can be, as they're plucked from the
long, complex, strings of thought that are her conversational
trademark). At the same time it's refreshing to hear such swagger
coming from a woman artist.  
  

    
Michelle, is there a relationship between Mitchell's development in
this autobiographical period and the expansion of her sound and musical
development from "Blue" to say "Hejera"?

I'd love to answer this completely, John. That would take more time
than I have just now.  Here's just one example of that relationship. 
More later.    

After Blue and For The Roses, many fans were experiencing a
near-rapturous identification with Joni's songs. But Joni herself was
getting tired of being so closely identified with her lyrics.  The
speculation about which boyfriend might have sparked a particular song
and so forth. Also, when she went on tour with Jackson Browne in 1972,
she was envious that for all his personal songwriting, Browne was
viewed as an artist separate from the persona in his songs.  

That probably had something to do with her next move, along with
having a genuine interest in a new musical direction.  Anyway, she made
a radical change.  The first single released off her next album, Court
and Spark, was "Raised On Robbery."  Totally different than her
previous music.  The song rocks. And rolls.  In the 50s sense.  She has
backing band, Robbie Robertson on electric guitar & lots of studio
production.  

She moved away from the autobiographical singer-songwriter setting,
away from performing as a lone girl with guitar or piano.  This new
musical style, combined with a different approach to lyrics, distanced
Joni's personal identity from the work. "Raised on Robbery" is the
story of an imagined character, a prostitute or lady of the night, who
tries to pick someone up but fails. There may have been some fans who
still assumed Joni was singing about her personal experience on the
track. It's pretty clearly not her, though.   

Of course there's plenty of autobiographical material on Court and
Spark, too. Chrys asked about Joni's performances of personal material
with a band.  It's a good question.  Maybe I'll have a fresh listen to
Miles of Aisles, the live album from the Court and Spark tour. See if
any ideas turn up.   
  

    
Any questions or comments about my previous posts? I've touched on
lots of different topics and am curious about your thoughts.  
  

    
Did Joni consider The Hissing of Summer Lawns to be experimental? 
It's always struck me as her most cinematic record - it plays like the
soundtrack to some early '70s movie, and tells extremely visual stories
of the upper middle class - but not radically experimental.  Musically
it isn't radically different from Court & Spark.

What felt different about Hissing was the subject matter.  Mitchell
had taken her razor sharp powers of observation and turned them on her
generation instead of herself.  I think that engendered something a
backlash, not the minor tweaking of her musical style the album
represented.

It's probably my favorite Mitchell record, along with Hejira and Blue
and Court & Spark.
 
>I have stuck with Neil through many strange changes (I even liked 
>"The Shocking Pinks!") but Joni lost me after "Hejira."

Really?  Because I've always thought of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
as Hejira Part II.  I don't think it's as good a record, but if you
like Part I then I can't see how Part II would lose you.  Mingus maybe,
although even it isn't as radically different as the (over)reaction
would lead one to believe.

The album where she lost me was Wild Things Run Fast, which just felt
like pandering to New Wave and then-current adult contemporary
sensibilities.  It's easily her most dated work I think - there's an
ineptness about the production that grates.  The songs themselves
weren't that bad though, as I learned when I got Travelogue, where the
orchestral versions of her Wild Things tracks are some of the
highlights.

Does Joni regret any of her records, Michelle?
 
  

    
This came over the radar today:

Joni Mitchell and Don Alias

<http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=41782>
  

    
Hi, Dan. Hissing of Summer Lawns: "The Jungle Line" has a moog
synthesizer, etc, in a big drone of sound over a sample of Burundi
warrior drums. That was innovative and yes, experimental in 1975. It
pushed boundaries. When she decided to drop some Burundi action into
the mix, the outcome was unforseeable. She's said (I'm not saying this)
that with this track she started World Music without ever being fully
credited for it, so I assume she considered it to be experimental, too.
Yes, agreed, the album's other significant shift was a lyrical one,
into character sketches and social commentary.  Though as I noted in my
previous post, that shift began on Court and Spark with "Raised on
Robbery."   

As for her regretting any particular album, I've never asked Joni that
question directly. My research didn't extend that far. The focus of my
book wasn't Joni's entire musical career but rather her "Blue Period."
 

David: It looks like it might be worth picking up Don's book. I linked
to that excerpt on AAJ in an earlier post.  
  

    
>>She's said (I'm not saying this) that with this track she started
World Music without ever being fully credited for it

You're too well-informed to say something like that! Hell, it probably
started with the Bulawesi Sweet Boys' "Skokiaan," in 1954, unless you
want to consider Ukranian or Yiddish "world music." What she did was
grab the sample before Malcolm MacLaren did.
  

    
Right! And what's Bela Bartok, chopped liver? If we cast our net a bit
wider, finding the first use of "world music" gets even more
complicated.   

"World Music" is one of those deeply problematic terms. It's someone
else's local music. As I understand it, "World Music" as a term didn't
get much play til the 80s, when the marketers got hold of it. Paul
Simon's Graceland album would have demonstrated just how big the market
for it could be.   
  

    
It was coined in a pub by some people I knew -- Joe Boyd, Ben
Mandelson, Jumbo van Rijnen, and some others -- because they needed a
name for the records, largely African, they were releasing on their
little labels. Early '80s, as I remember. Joe's writing a book about
it.
  

    
Fascinating.  Can't wait to read that book. 

I can see how "world music" might have trumped "Hot Hindustani Sounds
of the Subcontinent" for ease of identification.   

And I'll admit to using the term at times. In the interest of brevity.
 
  

    
<39> Was that 3Mustaphas3?
  

    
Ben had gone from Orhestra Jazira to the Mustaphas, but the main focus
was his GlobeStyle Records, which he and Rockin' Roger Armstrong did
via Ted Carroll's Ace label. They did field recordings in Tanzania and
Kenya and licensed Congolese stuff and, most successfully, Ofrah Haza's
return to her Yemeni Jewish roots after a career as the Israeli
Streisand. The Mustaphas, however, were perfect "world music," blending
indigenous music like 17 Hippies do today. 

This drift has been in honor of my good pal Ben Mandelson, who turned
me on to Orchestra Super Mazembe's absolutely perfect "Shauri Yako,"
Sam Mangwana's "Maria Tebbo" (still the ringtone on my phone), and much
else. We return you now to our interview with the charming and
talented Michelle Mercer.
  

    
Once again, Well drift adds to my ever-growing list of music to
explore.
  

    
Michelle, you've certainly given us a good deal to consider.

I'm finding it interesting in reading along that some people are able
to define a point where they stopped following along with her career,
one album or another was enough of a change for them to drop away.

For me it brings up ideas about the nature of the contract between
artist and audience, ideas I'm still fumbling with to be able to
articulate here.

One thing it does raise in my mind that I'd like to talk a bit is
this: For me, by the time I was fully able to appreciate "Blue",
Mitchell was already doing "Shine". Not only was the "Blue" album long
done, it was a defining moment in her career and rightly or wrongly a
point of comparison for her work. 

But for me the listener, I could buy "Blue" and "Court and Spark" and
"Hejira" all at once and come to each for the first time in one
sitting. So there it was, in a sense, her development all laid out for
me which is a far different experience than catching on at the start of
Mitchell's "Blue" period and growing in my appreciation for the work
as she developed.  

Any thoughts to the differences in listening experiences? Is there
something about this with Mitchell that might be different than with
another artist? 
  

    
The term "World Music" was coined by ethnomusicologist Bob Brown, who
ran the floating school "Center for World Music" which started at
Wesleyan in the early 1960's and, after several years on its own in
Northern California can to rest, as did he, at San Jose State - I
didn't have to look that up in wikipedia, where it's correctly
attributed, I studied with and worked for him in the mid 1970's - 
Re: Paul Simon - he beat Joni to the "hey let's record our own work
over an 'ethnic' track" with his 1960's pop hit "El Condor Pasa" ...
  

    
back to Ms. Mitchell - 
RE: Music as a physical space - I like the section where you speak of
that in the book - about your own discovery - as a musician - this
isn't allegorical or metaphorical - this is reality - it IS space! -
When I play with a good bass player, it's not *like* I'm on solid
ground, - it's the difference between walking (or running) on smooth
dry ground and slogging through mud or treading water - 

RE: the ambiguity in Joni's chords of inquiry (and if this was posted
elsewhere, earlier, forgive me) there's a great story of an exchange
between Herbie Hancock and Joni where he says "Joni, there can't *all*
be suspensions!" to which she says "Why not?" and Herbie (and the zen
sages would say) attained enlightenment in that moment ...(or at least
had no good answer).
  

    
Wanted to check in to say that I am reading and following here and
looking to see if/when we get to a book discussion of how Joni got
hooked up with Carlton, Metheny, Pastorius, etal.  After Blue but what
I think was her most blooming period and certainly the records which
made me listen closer.
   These guys were well regarded studio players and I m wondering who
picked whom.  
  

    
"The Jungle Line" was I suppose fairly experimental, but synths and
African drumming weren't *terribly* exotic by 1975.  Stevie Wonder had
already deployed some pretty heavy synth riffs on chart-topping albums
by that point.  Steve Miller too, for that matter.  

Maybe new to Joni's core audience.

And that was only one track.  "Shadows & Light" would be the other
somewhat experimental track I suppose, although again she'd done sparse
/ no accompaniment before ("The Fiddle & The Drum").
 
  

    
Via e-mail:

Hello music lovers.  I'm struck by all the male comments here. I seem
to remember my older sister being mad for Joni's words and messages
through this "strung out on another man" era.  

Was my sis a freak, or did Joni strike a meaningful emotional chord to
her female peers?  Also, are there many women at the well these days? 
Thanks, guys.
  

    
I'll leave Michelle to get to the larger part of that question, but
remark that it's been interesting how many men have been a part of this
discussion so far. One tends to think of female singer-songwriters as
kind of "girly" acts for the most part, but there definitely is
something about Mitchell's art which draws guys in as well.