It seems quite a brave thing to do in this era of declining CD sales to bring out a 10-disk box set of Joni Mitchell's first ten albums (particularly as all her die-hard fans will have them already), but I am delighted to see it being available later this month and at the very good price of £26 for the set, which averages out at over £2.50 per album - great for those who do not know them, and may well introduce her work to a newer generation.
I have written about Joni a few times here before (see label), including the time I met her in 1972 and walked along Kings Road in Chelsea here in London chatting to her, she was very friendly and approachable - unlike today's stars! - again, it was 40 years ago when we were in our mid-20s.
I have all the albums so do not really need them again, first on vinyl - quite a few are gatefold albums with great imagery and art work, and then again on CD... so really I do not need to buy them a third time, but the box set does look rather appealing and it would be nice to have them all in one place ..... Will we get a later set of her '80s and '90s albums too and that great 2000 "Both Sides Now" - the live albums "Miles of Aisles" and "Shadows and Light" (which I played a lot) are not here, but are still available as is all her back catalogue. We return to these albums a lot - the late '60s dreamy hippie trio, that early '70s trio when "Blue", "For The Roses" and "Court and Spark" were the soundtrack to my life then, and then that trio of essential jazzy late '70s: "Hissing of Summer Lawns", "Hejira" and "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" were also marvellous and introduced us to Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny etc. and also the 1979 "Mingus". Wonderful to discover these again or for the first time ... She seems to be retired now after some repackaging of her later albums ("Songs of a Prairie Girl", "Dreamland" etc) and more focused on her art, I wonder if we will hear anything new from her, after her last studio album "Shine" ? I also loved her '80s albums like "Wild Things Run Fast" and the '90s one "Night Ride Home"...
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