Joni Mitchell A Life Story: Woman of Heart and Mind

March 25, 2021 1:50 AM

One of the great talents of her or anyone else's generation gets the royal treatment with this superb documentary. It's all here (via interviews, including conversations past and present with Mitchell herself, photos, generous helpings of concert footage, and more): her Saskatchewan childhood, her lovers, her painting, her reunion with the daughter she had left behind at age 19... and, of course, her music, the songs, recordings, and performances, so intensely personal yet so universally accessible, that comprise one of the most extraordinarily original and significant (if not always wildly popular) bodies of work any artist has ever produced. Even true fanatics are likely to find revelations here; the rest of us can simply rejoice in the life and artistry of Joni Mitchell. --Sam Graham
posted by dancestoblue (15 comments total)

She is so important and special for me, watching now. Thank you. Listening to Joni, I feel Canada so strongly.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:58 AM on March 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

I only listened to her late 70's albums at first, when I was a teenaged Jaco stan, and only later checked out her earlier work. And I said, wow, you're dumb, why haven't you been listening to this beautiful, intelligent, idiosyncratic, honest, personal music? There's really no one like her.

For that matter, I have neglected her later albums.I loved her 90's album "Night Ride Home" but I have not much idea what happened after that, other than some live shows I saw on video.
posted by thelonius at 5:02 AM on March 25, 2021 [6 favorites]

Looking forward to seeing this. Mitchell had a very strong run of albums from Blue through Hejira--one of the best for the '70s singer-songwriters--with a few gems thereafter, but her post-Mingus material left me cold. So, I'll be curious as to whether her later material gets equal weight here.

I'll also be curious as to whether her problematic attitudes toward race get explored. That she's managed to avoid being "canceled" for straight-up blackface and statements such as "When I see black men sitting, I have a tendency to go – like I nod like I’m a brother. I really feel an affinity because I have experienced being a black guy on several occasions." is remarkable.

Thanks for posting.
posted by the sobsister at 9:05 AM on March 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

I was crossing the High Level Bridge in Edmonton one night and my partner at the time sang "A Case of You" to me and that was positively the peak of romance in my lifetime.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:11 AM on March 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

That was wonderful. Thank you. What a brave woman--that was what struck me most.
posted by agatha_magatha at 10:13 AM on March 25, 2021 [1 favorite]

posted by dancestoblue

eponysterical
posted by otherchaz at 10:20 AM on March 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm 68, and I've loved Joni since I was 15. Some of her songs can still bring me to tears (esp "Willy")
posted by Sassenach at 11:42 AM on March 25, 2021

That was great--thanks for sharing.
posted by Sublimity at 12:04 PM on March 25, 2021

40, loved her since I was a teenager. My best friend and I always sing "Travelling" at our campfires (in Edmonton - hey there elkevelvet!). One of absolute my favorites is "He Played Real Good For Free." Breaks my heart that I'll never get to hear her in person. But as a smoker and someone with her own mental health issues, I get it.
posted by kitcat at 1:31 PM on March 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

Is anyone else struck by how much her daughter's voice is like Joni's?
posted by klanawa at 4:18 PM on March 25, 2021

I was very happy to see the reunification at the end with her daughter. Lovely for both of them.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:40 PM on March 25, 2021

No one finds the lonely chords that fit perfectly quite like Joni.
posted by hypnogogue at 9:43 AM on March 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

My high school years were filled with Blue. Such an amazing record and lyrics that so spoke to me. One of my all time favorite performances of Joni's was Coyote (a great song about Sam Shepard) with The Band from the Last Waltz tour. If you watch carefully you can see the bassist trying to figure out Joni's playing which was very non standard. What a musician.
posted by bluesky43 at 11:31 AM on March 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Thank you.
posted by peacay at 9:54 PM on March 28, 2021

Court and Spark, Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira might have been the three best consecutive albums of all time.

I rediscovered Mitchell when I was searching (in vain) for a 70s tune I had heard on the radio and accidentally came across "Help Me." A song I had loved as a kid but had forgotten as it fell out of circulation on radio. I ended up buying most of her albums from the 60s/70s but those three are the ones I love the most. One fellow in the comments to one of her songs on youtube said it best--- he said when he was in college in the 70s he and his friends would play those three on repeat, over and over, always something new to be found even to this day.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:38 AM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]