Happy Birthday Joni

74 tomorrow, Happy Birthday to our icon (whom I met in 1972, when we were both in our twenties, as per previous reports at label), Joni Mitchell, we trust she  is improving and keeping well. 
Good to see her out and about, if in a wheelchair, at various music events, with her peers and people she knows. Wonder if she is still smoking. 

The ultimate Joni guide

Nice to find a specialist Joni Mitchell magazine when shopping at the local out of town major superstore, one of the UNCUT magazine specials on major music artists. 

This is a terrific on on our major favourite, Joni, to add to the collection. It cover all the albums - 20 plus - in detail, with lots of info and comment and fitting in Joni's remarkable career too, from the mid 60s onward, including all the rarities, the art, the dvds, etc, 

It just makes one want to go back and play them all again,   Lot of Joni of course at label, including (yes, Martin, once again), the time I met her in Kings Road, Chelsea in London in 1972, when we were both in our twenties, and walked along having a great conversation with her, 

Not the best Joni song, but we love this late 80s video with Joni dancing around the kitchen, doing the dishes and playing with her cat. 

We have now revised our list of Joni's top songs:- Here's 30+:

Tin Angel  (I love that line: "dark with darker moods is he …") /Be Cool / Man to Man / Chinese Café / Goodbye Pork Pie Hat / Let The Wind Carry Me / A Strange Boy / Barangrill / Car On A Hill / Down to You / The Same Situation / Just Like This Train / The Last Time I saw Richard / A Case of You / You Turn Me On I'm a Radio / Off Night Back Street / Talk To Me / Night Ride Home / Night in the City / Chelsea Morning / Urge For Going / The Circle Game / Both Sides Now / Michael From Mountains / Marcie / Songs to Ageing Children Come / Edith and the Kingpin / The Hissing of Summer Lawns / Good Friends / My Secret Place / Number One / Shiny Toys / God Must  be a Boogie Man.

Brian sings Joni

One of our favourite singers Brian Kennedy sings Joni Mitchell songs on a recent CD (which I had to acquire on eBay from Australia) A LOVE LETTER TO JONI. 

Great to hear a (gay) man singing "Night Ride Home", "A Strange Boy", "Michael From Mountains", "Free Man in Paris", "You Turn Me On I'm A Radio", "Amelia", "River", "A Case Of You" etc.

Other Joni songs that would work well in this context would include "Be Cool", "Man to Man", "Night in the City", "Chelsea Morning", "Car On A Hill", "Talk To Me", "Barangrill" etc. 

Good to hear Brian is well again after cancer treatment, and it was enjoyable hearing him on Michael Ball's radio show last week. He has a new 2 CD compilation out too. His "On Song" CDs are good too on current and old Irish songs I know well, he has of course also toured extensively with Van Morrison. His Joni tribute disk is as good as Ian Shaw's Joni disk DRAWN TO ALL THINGS, or Herbie Hancock's THE JONI LETTERS, or George Michael's great version of "Edith and the Kingpin".  

Two other CDs I had to get recently (not being on Spotify, Martin!) are a brilliant new recording of Tchaikovsky's PATHETIQUE by Seymon Bychkov, and, on its way to me, Daniel Hope's FOR SEASONS, a new take on Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" and with songs for each month - Weill's "September Song" for instance. Can't wait to hear it. 

Joni, out and about again ...

Adele and Beyonce may have been the headline-grabbers at the Grammys this year, but it was good to see our Nr 1 favourite Joni Mitchell at Clive Davis's pre-Grammy party, after her major illness in 2015. Thanks to Mike in San Francisco for the photo. Lots on Joni at label ....

Her website says:

Joni made a rare public appearance last night, attending Clive Davis' annual Pre-Grammy Gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, where she was escorted by writer and filmmaker Cameron Crowe and author Daniel Levitin (pictured with Joni).

Joni was honored as one of the greatest songwriters whose work has touched everyone in the music industry.

She had a good time and was particularly moved by Chance the Rapper and Mary J. Blige’s performances. Herbie Hancock came by and said an extended hello, as did many other well-wishers, including Stephen Stills and Clive Davis.

For the weekend ....

George sings Joni / Jimmy revisits "Smalltown Boy" in 2014 / Joan's "Back To The Night" in 1975. I have just bought a vinyl album of that, one of her essentials with those great early songs, but somehow it is not on cd, unless for very silly money ...

RIP, continued ...

Leonard Cohen (1934-2016), aged 82, Canadian singer, songwriter, poet, novelist. What a year for music departures, starting with David Bowie back in January, and then Prince and an Eagle - now Leonard Cohen leaves the scene at 82, after - like Bowie - just releasing a late great album "You Want It Darker". I must admit I do not know it yet, but my friend Martin has raved. It will be an essential. 
For me, Cohen is always associated with that late Sixties era, those songs like "So Long Marianne", "Suzanne". "The Sisters of Mercy" etc during that hippie era, and his mournful soundtrack for Altman's McCABE & MRS MILLER in 1971. He of course had that great late renaissance in his Seventies as his work was discovered all over again and his tours were extremely popular. His muse Marianne died some months ago and it was reported Cohen told her he would be following her shortly ... "Dance Me To The End of Love" indeed.

Mose Allison (1927-2016), aged 89. Another music legend departs. Mose was a deeply loved jazz and blues pianist, singer and songwriter, from the Mississippi Delta, a white man who had the blues, I first discovered him as a teenager, with this EP of 6 of his recordings, songs like "Please don't talk about me when I'm Gone", "I don't worry about a thing", "I love the life I live", "The Seventh Son", "Parchman Farm". "Young Man's Blues".  His live recordings capture him perfectly too. 
He was increasingly popular and influential in his old age, doing an annual 3 week residency in London each year, and influencing and being covered by the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Van Morrison, Georgie Fame, Pete Townshend. He was a social critic before Dylan, and a satirist before Randy Newman. We love Mose. 

Robert Vaughn (1932-2016), aged 83. Prolific American actor, if never quite front-rank. He was the last survivor of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, which we loved back in 1960. He co-starred again with Steve McQueen in BULLITT, and other credits included THE TOWERING INFERNO and even a stint on British TV's CORONATION STREET a few years ago, and he made that credible too. He was of course one of THE MEN FROM U.N.C.L.E. for years in the 1960s,and also star of the long running BBC series HUSTLE, and was a very stylish guy. 

Raoul Coutard (1924-2016), aged 92. Legendary French cinematographer who lensed many New Wave classics, including Godard's BREATHLESS, PIERROT LE FOU, UN FEMME EST UNE FEMME, Demy's LOLA, Truffaut's JULES ET JIM etc, He and Henri Decae and Nestor Almendros must have shot all the French classics of the 60s onwards. 

Sir Jimmy Young (1921-2016), aged 95. Another veteran BBC broadcaster departs at a great age. One has to salute his achievements and longevity as one of the longest broadcasting disk jockeys

Girls & guitars, 2 . . .

Three of our favourite girls - since the 1960s - and their guitars. They go on, decade after decade ...

Marie Laforet  (our favourite from PLEIN SOLEIL/PURPLE NOON) in ST TROPEZ BLUES, 1961

Francoise Hardy  (my teenage crush) 

Joni Mitchell - evergreen.     More on all them at labels. 

I remember watching Joni waiting to go on at The Royal Festival Hall in 1970, the hippie princess with her guitar, standing at the side of the stage, not thinking I would be talking to her 2 years later in Kings Road, Chelsea .... as detailed previously. 

Joni is back!

How nice to check Joni Mitchell's site and see that she is back and out and about again after that fall and illness last year. Here she is a month ago, in August, at a concert in L.A. with Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. So pleased to see her well again. 

Lots on Joni at label. 

1971: Golden year for music?

A new tome on the key albums of 1971 should be worth investigating - as long as it is not as heavy as that recent book on 1966 (which I reviewed a while back). The author here, music jounalist David Hepworth, makes a good case for 1971 being a golden year, and looking at the key albums of that year I tend to agree - I was 25 then and deeply into music as vinyl record albums were entering their golden period.

Music fans of course will have their own golden period (that 1964-67 period was terrific for me too) - that time of their first immersion into pop culture, for younger people it may be the punk or disco years of the late 70s, but that singer-songwriter was at its peak in the early '70s as music by black artists like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack and Sly Stone evolved and caught the changing times. Led Zeppelin and The Who also released some of their best work - the Zepps were not for me, but I loved The Who's WHO'S NEXT - and of course The Doors L A WOMAN (having seen them at that all-nighter in 1968, as mentioned before) then there were The Rolling Stones ... and Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton did some great stuff too and Rod and Elton were at their early best. Joni and Carole dominated the year too with their enduring albums - Carole is even doing TAPESTRY in full at a concert in London's Hyde Park this July, 45 years after recording the album ...

How about this lot all from 1971:  A golden year indeed! I had them all at the time .... and a lot still now. One could say in 1971 rock was still inventing itself, we did not realise how lucky we were to be living through it at the ideal age - but we do now. Of course the next year 1972 brought us Stevie Wonder's TALKING BOOK and seeing and meeting Joni again - see label - and '73 ushered in Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON as the long-playing vinyl album took over the world - see Music-1 label. 

• Marvin Gaye – Whats Going On
• Sly & Family Stone – There’s A Riot Going On
• Carole King – Tapestry
• Joni Mitchell – Blue
• James Taylor - Mud Slide Slim
• David Bowie – Hunky Dory
• Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
• Doors – LA Woman
• John Lennon – Imagine
• Janis Joplin – Pearl
• Carly Simon - First album 
• Elton John – Madman Across The Water
• Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells A Story
• Cat Stevens – Teaser and the  Firecat
• Nilsson – Nilsson Schmilsson
• Traffic – Low Spark of High Heel Boys
• Jeff Beck – Rough and Ready
• Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey
• Led Zeppelin IV
• Who – Who’s Next
• Emerson Lake & Palmer – Pictures at an Exhibition
• The Band – Cahoots
• Barbra Streisand – Stoney End, Barbara Joan Streisand

An album I love: Joni's "Wild Things Run Fast"

The latest issue of MOJO magazine has an interesting feature on Joni Mitchell's foray into jazz in the 1970s, featuring those albums THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS, HEJIRA, DON JUAN'S RECKLESS DAUGHTER (a double album) and MINGUS, followed by her SHADOWS AND LIGHT tour which was also another double gatefold album and is now a concert dvd with some marvellous concert footage of Joni with those great musicians Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny. The albums also featured jazzmen Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. It was great to be introduced to the work of Jaco and his amazing bass guitar - I had to get his solo album as well. 

These albums are endlessly fascinating and for me have stood the test of time (I simply love that live version of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat"), following on as they did from Joni's great early '70s string of singer-songwriter albums like LADIES OF THE CANYON, BLUE, FOR THE ROSES, COURT AND SPARK and that first double album, the MILES OF AISLES concerts, with fascinating new versions of her songs. (We had seen Joni in 1970 and 1972 in London (where I also met her then - as per previous reports, see Joni label - no Martin, I won't rehash all that again...) and then saw the new jazzy Joni at the New Victoria theatre in 1974 after rushing back from Milan and Paris by train ....

Her next album then was WILD THINGS RUN FAST in 1982, another vinyl gatefold - this was a new Joni too, perhaps she had gone as far as she could with jazz progressions - some people had not cared for the DON JUAN double, but I loved it - and she had now married, to musician Larry Klein and its a new happy Joni here as she explores love and memory. We love "Chinese Cafe" and those songs "Be Cool" and "Man to Man" appealed to me - a lot. Other great tracks here are "Solid Love" and "Love" and "You're So Square Baby I Don't Care" - happy, upbeat and great. 
Let's quote some stuff from MusicStack:

"Down at the Chinese Cafe, we'd be dreaming on our dimes/We'd be playing 'Oh my love, my darling' one more time," sings Joni Mitchell of the old times. The way Mitchell threads lyrics from the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody" through her own "Chinese Cafe" signifies the passing of time that is central to Wild Things Run Fast. "Caught in the middle, Carol, we're middle-class," she sings in that opening cut. "We're middle-aged/We were wild in the old days."

Joni Mitchell's music has taken dramatic turns over the past fourteen years, and she has produced a classic in each of three styles: folk (Blue), pop-rock (Court and Spark) and pop-jazz (Hejira). Lyrically, love has been Mitchell's main concern–the word gets fifty-seven mentions on this LP–and her shifts have been more subtle: from the arched but intimate innocent to the Hollywood high-lifer and, finally, to the romantic on the run from experience.

It is almost a great record, on a par with For the Roses and Clouds. It alternates rhythmically scratchy rock with cocktail jazz keynoted by Larry Klein's elastic bass and Wayne Shorter's soprano sax. Similarly, it splits lyrical concerns between what happens at people's parties and what goes on in Mitchell's solitary salon."

Joni was less prolific in the '80s and '90s - doing 3 albums each decade (as opposed to 9 in the '70s) - after WILD THINGS came DOG EAT DOG in 1985 and CHALK MARKS IN A RAINSTORM in 1989, each had good tracks on them, and in the '90s: NIGHT RIDE HOME, TAMING THE TIGER and TURBULENT INDIGO, and in 2000 that great album of covers including some of her own: BOTH SIDES NOW, followed by some interesting compilations (SONGS OF A PRAIRIE GIRL, TRAVELOGUE, DREAMLAND and the 4-disk LOVE HAS MANY FACES in 2015) and that new album in 2007 SHINE. One hopes she is recovering well after recent illness.  
Meanwhile Carole King is now - finally, 45 years later - playing her 1971 album TAPESTRY in full at a concert in London's Hyde Park on July 3, while her 'jukebox musical' BEAUTIFUL starts its second year. Lots more royalties for Carole who, according to an interview today, lives quietly in a log cabin in the woods; and Carly Simon is still promoting her tell-all memoir ... 

Top 60 female singer/songwriters ....

Our "Daily Telegraph" compiled a list of the top 60 (that many?) female singer/songwriters and I was pleased to see Joni Mitchell came out on top ....

1: Joni Mitchell. Canadian Roberta Joan Anderson (aka Joni Mitchell) began her career busking in Toronto but went on to become one of the leading figures in folk music in the Sixties and Seventies. For her pure vocals and thoughtful lyrics, which range from socially conscious to deeply confessional, Mitchell is seen as one of the voices of her generation. Her 1971 album BLUE often ranks well on lists of the greatest albums of all time.

The others? In order from Nr 2 onwards:

Kate Bush / Patti Smith / Dolly Parton / Carole King / Kirsty MacColl / Chrissie Hynde / Nina Simone / Adele / Amy Winehouse / Bjork / Janis Joplin / Madonna / 

14: Peggy Lee. Arguably America's first female singer-songwriter, Peggy Lee entered the public consciousness at a time when it was highly unusual for commercial singers to write their own material. Born into a poor North Dakota family in 1920, Lee began her career at a local radio station, where she sang in exchange for food. She would collaborate on original songs with Duke Ellington and Quincy Jones, but is best known for her equally inventive cover-versions. Lee heavily rewrote Little Willie John's hit song, Fever; her lyrics are now more famous than those of the original. Lee later wrote the co-songs for Disney's The Lady and the Tramp. With her blonde hair and outspoken manner, "Miss Peggy" was reportedly the inspiration for The Muppet Show's Miss Piggy.

Stevie Nicks / Taylor Swift / Sandy Denny / Lady Gaga / Barbra Streisand / P J Harvey / Edith Piaf /

22: Joan Armatrading. Born in Saint Kitts in the Caribbean, 64-year-old guitarist and singer Joan Armatrading moved to Birmingham with her family when she was three. She left school at 15 and was sacked from her first job at a tool manufacture for playing her guitar during tea breaks. Armatrading released her first album in 1972, and went on to have hits in the Seventies by blending jazz and folk, and in the Eighties with a more commercial pop sound. She won an Ivor Novello Award for her songwriting in 1996.

Joan Baez / Billie Holliday / Rickie Lee Jones / Loretta Lynn / Debbie Harry / Sinead O'Connor / Kate and Anna McGarrigle / Cyndi Lauper / Carly Simon / Lauryn Hill / 

33: Aretha Franklin. Soul legend Aretha Franklin began her musical career as a gospel singer in church, and was later taken on tour by her preacher father. The Tennessee native became a star in the Sixties singing jazz and Motown standards. Her 1967 re-working of Otis Redding's Respect - which was adopted as an anthem for change by the civil rights movement - gave her a number one in the US in 1967, and she followed this with further hit singles Chain of Fools and Say A Little Prayer. In the Seventies, Franklin began to write more of her own songs, including Call Me and Rock Steady. The 70-year-old became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Patty Griffin / Lucinda Williams / Tori Amos / Siouxsie Sioux / Tracy Chapman / Regina Spektor / Erykah Badu / Bonnie Raitt / K D Lang /Gillian Welch / Emmylou Harris /  

45: Sade. British-Nigerian singer Helen Folasade Adu is better known as Sade, the lead singer of the Grammy and Brit Award-winning soul, jazz and R&B band of the same name. As the group's chief songwriter, Adu was the driving force behind hit singles Your Love is King and Smooth Operator. The band have sold over 110 million albums worldwide, making Adu one of the most successful British female musicians ever. In 2002, she received an OBE for services to music and dedicated it to "all black women in England".

Roberta Flack / Gretchen Peters / Alicia Keys / Aimee Mann / Dar Williams / Laura Marling / Shania Twain / Ani Difranco / Odetta / Cat Power / Norah Jones / Judee Sill / Beth Orton / KD Tunstall / Sarah McLachlan.

Phew! I know and like most of these of course - ok, there are a few I am not familiar with - but it almost seems a list of 60 female singers, but of course Peggy Lee wrote a lot of songs, and singers like Barbra and Aretha have song-writing credits too.  The only omissions I can think of are Laura Nyro, Janis Ian and Francoise Hardy. Has Annie Lennox written songs? 

The full list can be explored here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/the-60-greatest-female-singer-songwriters-of-all-time/joni-mitchell/

Vanity Fair 2016 Hollywood

But first. another look at that 2001 cover for their first music issue.  Interesting seeing David Bowie and Joni Mitchell side by side here - flanked by Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Emmylou Harris etc. (Joni it seems is now doing well, according to Chaka Khan who is doing a tribute album on her). 

The 2016 Hollywood issue is not quite as good as their previous, but has a few good features, including one on those Sixties British movies like BLOW-UP, THE KNACK, ALFIE, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT - nothing new, but nice to see them featured, and also a history of THE MALTESE FALCON. The layout, again by Annie Leibovitz, features a collection of Hollywood ladies - including this year's Oscar nominees, box-ended by Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton - who seems to have been photoshopped in at the end - I'm afraid Diane hasn't been in anything relevant for years .... again one wonders if all 13 ladies were there at the same time, maybe 3 or 4 at a time perhaps as part of a composite whole ?

Nothing though tops their 2001 issue, where Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve, Meryl and Vanessa were the highlights surrounded by those newer girls: Blanchett (who gets to be a lot of covers), Winslet, Paltrow (ditto), Kidman, Cruz .....

Happy birthday, Joni.

72 today We trust Joni is well after her collapse and anuerism back in May. Even her official website (jonimitchell.com) is not very forthcoming on how she actually is.  I did though find this info, from Judy Collins:

Official news about Joni is as hard for us to get as it is for anybody else. But Judy Collins has recently posted the following encouraging note to her Facebook page:"I have just heard from a close mutual friend that Joni is walking, talking, painting some, doing much rehab every day, and making good progress -- I have another friend who went through something similar - it does take a long time, three years for my friend, who has really totally recovered professionally and personally. I will try my best to see our songbird when I am in LA in the coming weeks." 
She is presumably no longer smoking ...

Continue to send your well-wishes to Joni at WeLoveYouJoni.com.

Joni and Tom ... and Aretha, Dusty and Janis too

I did not realise Joni Mitchell had appeared on our UK "The Tom Jones Show" back in January 1970, but while browsing the revamped Joni website (looking for an update on her health situation) I came across these. She also did some BBC recordings about the same time. I first saw her later that year at the Royal Festival Hall, in November, when she was the reigning hippie princess. Then (as per my other Joni posts) I got to meet her in 1972, and saw her again in 1974 when she was the new jazzy Joni.

Tom of course had them all on his shows - here he is with Janis Joplin, also 1970, her last year - and Dusty Springfield, and also with Aretha Franklin in 1970 Gosh, wouldn't it marvellous to see these again now - and here they are ! Sorry, no Tom and Joni clip.

Sir Tom of course is one of our elder statesmen of musc now, he has been great on the BBC series of "The Voice" adding some necessary gravitas and he is still rocking in his 70s. Way to go,

1970: Fire and rain

Many thanks to Colin for sending me this treat: the very readable FIRE AND RAIN, or to give it its full title: FIRE AND RAIN, THE BEATLES, SIMON & GARFUNKEL, JAMES TAYLOR, C S N Y AND THE LOST STORY OF 1970. Its a fascinating 2011 tome by David Browne chronicling that fascinating year in music (and movies and popular culture) 1970 as he focuses on the inter-twined fortunes of these musicians and their latest opuses. Other characters like Joni Mitchell flit in and out too ... 

These iconic acts of the '60s are at last wrapping up major new releases. The Beatles assemble one more time to put the final touches to LET IT BE. Crosy Stills Nash and Young finish their highly anticipated DEJA VU. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel finally complete their masterpiece BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER. (Paul referred to the title track as his "Yesterday"). Meanwhile on the sidelines, a shy upstart singer-songwriter named James Taylor is trying to write one more song to finalize an album called SWEET BABY JAMES. Over the course of the next twelve months, the lives of these remarkable musicians  - and the world around them - will change irrevocably. 

Acclaimed journalist David Browne sets the stories of those rock legends - and legends-to-be - against an increasingly chaotic backdrop of end-of-the-'60s events that sent the world spinning throughout that tumultuous year. The first book on the musical, political and cultural changes of 1970 FIRE AND RAIN tells the story of four landmark albums, the intertwining personal ties ties between the legendary artists who made them, and the ways in which their songs and journeys mirrored the end of one era and the start of another. Browne avoids sentimentality and nostalgia, aiming instead at a fresh look at the bands and their milieu. Some of the period details are almost astonishingly apt. says the blurb.  Below: Joni's album art for the CSNY album:

I was 24 then and in the thick of it all. 1970 was quite a year for me too - all that music, those movies still around like FELLINI SATYRICON and ZABRISKIE POINT. There were lots of Trash movies too, like Helmut's DORIAN GRAY. I was sharing a large flat with two friends in South London - here I am on the balcony leading down to the garden, plus some other shots from that year ..... My best friend Stan and I left the flat that summer to travel in Europe - my first trip to Paris, we walked all over the city and yes, slept under the bridges, then the train south and into Spain .... on return to London I rejoined my hippie friends (whom I saw The Doors & Jefferson Airplane with in 1968) in their rambling apartment until I left and found my own place for 1971. 

So it goes. 1970 was also the year I was at the British Film Institute cinema, the NFT, a lot, meeting and seeing and talking to Lee Remick and Dirk Bogarde among others, and standing next to Leonard Whiting in the gents urinal! plus seeing The Burtons and Joseph Losey on stage at the "Sunday Times" Cinema City Exhibition. I had also discovered Joni Mitchell by then, we liked her first two albums, and then saw her at her Royal Festival Hall concert later that year, from where I was sitting I could see the hippie princess waiting in the wings to go on - that was a fantastic evening too of course, little did I know I would be talking to her two years later when I met her purely by chance in the Kings Road (as per Joni label).

This book though captures it all - I loved the James Taylor album, and its follow-up MUD SLIDE SLIM, I was not really into CYNY but loved Young's voice and solo albums. We also had the Simon & Garfunkel and Beatles albums of course - this was the time When Albums Ruled The World! This of course was before the internet and social media, when the music spoke for itself. This is a fascinating rock book as Browne unearths a wealth of new material on performers one thought one knew more than enough about, for instance fascinating reading again on the mutual antagonism between Simon and Garfunkel. The Rolling Stones though do not get a look-in here. Left: Joni and James recording backup vocals on Carole King's TAPESTRY. 

Joni moments ....

I love this Joni Mitchell video for her "Dancing Clown" where she is having fun with her cat and doing the dishes - I had it on the video cassette of hers COME IN FROM THE COLD. 

Plus some Joni moments I had not seen before ....

She is in her element here, and looks great, making music with those jazz guys like Herbie Hancock ... The 1996 interview is interesting too - the annoying on screen text stops after 10 minutes! 
We love that long (one side of the vinyl double album) "Paprika Plains" too, from DON JUAN'S RECKLESS DAUGHTER in 1978. As the comments say: "In this concert for piano and orchestra there are so many sounds, images, colors. It evokes so many places of brilliant light. This composition has one of the greatest endings I ever heard. The last four minutes with Jaco on bass is paradise".

We hope she is well and improving after her recent illness and hospitalisation. There has been little information about her condition since she entered a Los Angeles hospital on May 26th, but David Crosby has told "Rolling Stone" magazine that it seems she suffered from a brain aneurysm when she collapsed at home and was not found for some time, and cannot speak, but hopefully she will be responding to treatment.  
More Joni of course at label, including the time I met her in 1972. 

Joni Mitchell unwell ...

News today that Joni Mitchell, our favourite singer-songwriter-musician, is unwell and in hospital, after collapsing on Tuesday. 

We hope this is not life threatening and that Joni, 71, will be well again soon. She may have to cut down on those cigarettes! 

She has been feted a lot recently, as per recent posts, - see label - as the grand old woman of music, after that start in the mid-'60s .... there's over 20 albums we love, plus some live concerts, and compilations, including her recent 53-track collection with her essay on same. She has been interviewed a lot lately too, I just got that NEW YORK magazine from February, with her on the cover. And I am awaiting a new cd, of an 1982 concert of hers in Japan, when she was touring with that great band and it was a great era for her. Get well soon Joni. (and yes, for those who don't know, I met her in 1972 ....). I'd like to think Joni is a tough old bird with that Canadian prairie upbringing, from Saskatoon, so she should soon be ok again, if a little frailer. 

Joni now - James Dean then ...

Joni Mitchell is certainly at the revered stage now. At the age of 71 she is the new muse for the  Saint Laurent fashion label, as per the photos in that recent issue of NEW YORK magazine (9 February - a copy is on its way to me, via eBay !). She looks rather severe here but still looks iconic.

There is another great new interview too - as per the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/09/joni-mitchell_n_6644494.html

This follows on from the recent magazine features on her, and that recent 53-track compilation, as per posts at Joni label. 

There is Joni merchandise too: tote bags, tee-shirts, phone covers with iconic images of Joni. Also winging its way to me is a Joni tee-shirt, with this rather hippie design (right):

Joni used James Dean iconography in her 1980 concert film SHADOWS AND LIGHT - utilising that clip from REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE - Jimmy in the red jacket fighting with his parents - for the song "In France they kiss on main street".

As it happens I have now got a new batch of 35 old "Films & Filming" magazines from the 1950s - before my time, I only started getting it in 1962, when I was 16, but have been collecting back copies, and found a delicious batch on eBay, reasonably priced, a few days ago. they arrived today:  Here is their tribute to James Dean in their November 1955 issue, which would have been out in October, just after his death: (I was 10 at the time and can just about remember the fuss about his death, and seeing his movies for the first time).

James Dean - Neurotic Angel 

James Dean, aged 24, was killed in a car crash a few days after completing his role in GIANT. The youngster might have been a giant among screen actors, if only he had heeded the studio warnings about his love for fast cars.

He was born in Fairmount, Indiana, and won the Indiana State Dramatic Medal as the best high-school actor in the state. Then he studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, later moving to New York where he gained promising notices for his stage performance in SEE THE JAGUAR. It was after he appeared as the Arab boy in THE IMMORALIST, adapted from Gide, that Elia Kazan gave him the lead in EAST OF EDEN. So he joined the group of Kazan discoveries, led by Brando and Clift.

Click image to enlarge ...

Whatever the shortcomings of EAST OF EDEN - and it had a mixed critical reception - Dean was established as an artist of major significance. Warner Brothers immediately put him into REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, a film about delinquents, yet to be seen in Britain, and GIANT. He was due to play the part of the boxer in SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME. 

The news of his death reched the GIANT unit during the screening of rushes. Both Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson were visibly shocked.

Dean defied convention - he turned up to an important press conference in jeans and a dirty sweat-shirt - but, unlike many stars, took his art seriously. He performed Mozart, Bach and Beethoven with amateur ensembles. He was an avid reader.

His slight build made him look almost fragile. Yet the strength of his personality permeated everything he did. To many he will be remembered as the neurotic angel.