"I couldn’t tell what I had created, really. The initial response I got was critical, mostly from the male singer-songwriters. It was kind of like Dylan going electric. They were afraid. Is this contagious? Do we all have to get this honest now? That’s what the boys were telling me. 'Save something of yourself, Joni. Nobody’s ever gonna cover these songs. They’re too personal.'"
From "Joni Mitchell opens up to Cameron Crowe about singing again, lost loves and 50 years of ‘Blue’" (L.A. Times).
Much more at the link — where I was able to read without a subscription by putting my browser in "reader view." There's the backstory on Cary ("Carey") (was he really "a mean old daddy"?) and the snuggliness of her relationship with Graham Nash ("Sometimes I get sensitive or worried, and it might bother the man I was with. But not Graham. He just said, 'Come over here to the couch; you need a 15-minute cool-out.' And then we would snuggle" (very much not a mean old daddy)).
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8 comments:
Heartless/Surfed writes:
"In our weekly guitar pulls the girls would bring their Joni Tunes and us guys would noodle along. The guys were particularly good good at figuring out the open tunings Joni used. It is as a fun musical time. To this day I still have a number of her tunes in campfire rotation 59 years down the timeline... The girls still know all the words..."
So I guess the "Nobody’s ever gonna cover these songs" warnings really meant: No males will be able to sing any of these songs.
But Prince covered "A Case of You."
Robert Downey Jr. covers "River.".
Wikipedia says "The Last Time I Saw Richard" was inspired by Patrick Sky, who said to her: "Oh, Joni, you're a hopeless romantic. There's only one way for you to go. Hopeless cynicism."
(Sky died a few weeks ago.)
James Taylor does "River."
Ted writes:
As long as you're posting Joni Mitchell covers, I'd like to offer this version of "Carey" by I'm With Her, a casual "supergroup" made up of three well-known Americana / modern-bluegrass artists -- Sara Watkins, Aoife O'Donovan and multiple Grammy-winner Sarah Jarosz. (They chose their poorly timed band name a year or so before Hillary Clinton started using the same phrase as her campaign slogan.)
What's striking, apart from their effortless harmonies, is how much these women clearly love performing a song they all grew up with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFhh0E8KYbA
J writes:
First time I heard "River" I recalled a New Hampshire winter so cold
that the Oyster River, running through Dover and emptying into Great
Bay, was solidly frozen over with ice three-feet thick. I was a
junior-high student at the time.
With a friend, I put on skates, stepped onto the Zamboni-smooth ice,
and glided down-river four miles toward the Bay and back---no one else,
just we two, enjoying an exhilarating one-time experience. (The river
was never again so thickly frozen.)
I'm generally a meat-and-potatoes guy, but when I heard Joni's song
years later and recalled my feelings that day, I was reduced to a state
of blubbering nostalgia. My wife was alarmed, but I told her it was "all
good.
Charlie writes:
I like Nash as much as the next guy…...I own many CSN and Hollies recordings and enjoy them. But never has a guy with such a thin resume been turned into a ROCK STAR. He wrote a couple of good tunes and he can sing high harmonies (sometimes) but that’s pretty much the extent of it. He happened to be in the right place at the right time. Seems like a nice fellow, BTW.
Yes, reading between the lines -- Joni's lines -- he seems not to have been an exciting enough lover.
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