Joni Mitchell—Court and Spark

Joni Mitchell—Court and Spark (1974)

Court and Spark—Coming off the pensive, adventurous For the Roses (1972), Joni Mitchell had the world at her fingertips. That album was the fourth in a series of increasingly huge hits, and critics and even other major musicians worshiped her. Roses, while not exactly orchestral, was her most carefully produced album yet. For the follow-up, she sought out an even wider range of musicians who could play even more intricate parts. Court and Spark was teased with the "Raised on Robbery"/"Court and Spark" single, a rock-and-roll A-side that charted respectably (#51 in Canada, #65 in the United States) but failed to make the same impact as Roses' "You Turn Me on, I'm a Radio." This proved to be insignificant, as Court and Spark went on to hit #1 in Canada, #2 in the U.S., and Top 40 in several other countries following its January 1974 release.

The keynote address, "Court and Spark," details the wariness that comes with seeking romance. A street performer has an epiphany that leads him to throw it all away in pursuit of love. Mitchell (or Mitchell as the singer) notes her instant connection with him, but also her apprehension, seemingly both in general and in waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I cleared myself/I sacrificed my blues/And you could complete me/I'd complete you," he promises; Mitchell concludes, "The more he talked to me /The more he reached me /But I couldn't let go of L.A./City of the fallen angels" (with the slick addition of bells in the background), indicating she is not willing to give up her lifestyle fully as her subject has. The smooth, self-deprecating "Help Me," her biggest hit, similarly notes the difficulties of commitment ("We love our lovin'/But not like we love our freedom"). The liberative "Free Man in Paris" is a cheeky tribute to her friend David Geffen (head of her label, Asylum), poking fun at his complaints about working in the industry. "People's Parties" is a short statement on social anxiety and struggling to fit in. It medleys into "The Same Situation," another commitment song that sees would-be lovers striving to reconcile the failings of one another.

"Car on a Hill," in which the singer waits for their lover to come pick her up, suggests the fear and disconnected feelings that come with having a more outgoing partner. The contemplative, symphonic "Down to You" is the album's musical capstone, and is more lyrically broad, examining personal transformation and loneliness. "Just Like This Train" is comparatively less weighty, even contented: "Lately I don't count on nothing/I just let things slide." Its wisdom ("Jealous lovin'll make you crazy/If you can't find your goodness/'Cause you lost your heart") stands in opposition to the uncertainty of the rest of the album; Mitchell confidently relaxes and observes those around her against the semi-metaphorical backdrop of a train ride. The brash "Raised on Robbery," the album's finest moment, is a witty raid on the daily grind in which Mitchell identifies with a prostitute. The sax-twinged "Trouble Child" is about being stuck in life, unable to connect to anyone, romantically or otherwise, and not yet having the strength to move past yourself or listen to advice. Of the rare cover, "Twisted" (featuring Cheech & Chong), Mitchell once explained, "I hope you enjoy your craziness, 'cause it can be a lot of fun" (stage banter from August 22nd, 1974 performance).

Widely regarded as a triumphant success, Court and Spark's only substantive criticism is that Joni Mitchell sold out on it. While it was indeed loaded with more radio-ready songs than its predecessors, Spark is also more heterogeneous in nature and takes more risks than For the Roses, which is arguably her most difficult album to crack. Her previous albums had all ultimately been arranged uniformly as folk albums, even if the instrumentation varied from time to time; on Spark, she ventured fully into jazz for the first time and made a Dylan-esque move by fully embracing rock, if only for a moment. In the process, she made an album with universal appeal that didn't sacrifice her songwriting, which remained cerebral, droll, and piercing.

More Joni Mitchell reviews by The Old Noise:

Song to a Seagull (1968)
Clouds (1969)
Ladies of the Canyon (1970)
Blue (1971)
For the Roses (1972)
Court and Spark (1974)
Miles of Aisles (1974)
The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975)
Hejira (1976)
Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977)
Mingus (1979)
Shadows and Light (1980)
Wild Things Run Fast (1982)
Dog Eat Dog (1985)
Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm (1988)
Night Ride Home (1991)
Turbulent Indigo (1994)
Taming the Tiger (1998)
Both Sides Now (2000)
Travelogue (2002)
Shine (2007)

Joni Mitchell—Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

Joni Mitchell—Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977)

"I was the only black man at the party." —Joni Mitchell (The Hissing of a Living Legend, Neil Strauss, October 4th, 1998)

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter—In 2014, the then-president of the Spokane, WA chapter of the NAACP, Rachel Dolezal, generated controversy around the claim that she was transracial. Though it was a hot issue for a time, the public eventually forgot about her, as with most things. People probably also don't remember that Joni Mitchell posed as jive cool-cat Art Nouveau on the cover of her ninth LP, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter.

Cultural appropriation has become a contentious issue in the 2010s, but it's mostly brought up in situations where money or power are at stake—majority groups have been incorporating minorities' musical conventions into their own across time, and because music is purely expression, there are rarely any accusations of wrongdoing thrown around. When Joni Mitchell began to assimilate jazz and world music into her unique brand of folk and pop, it wasn't seen as dubious. For one, she'd already hit the big time both as a songwriter and performer by her first forays into jazz; she'd begun to utilize jazz musicians on For the Roses (1972) only after scoring numerous hits, so it can't reasonably be said it was a move made to capitalize on a cold market (and in fact, her sales only dropped as she moved farther away from white folk music). Two, she seemed to truly identify or at least genuinely seek to empathize with the alien and sometimes bygone cultures she explored in her music. On one of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter's inner LP sleeves, Art Nouveau exclaims, "Mooslems, Mooooslems! Heh, Heh, Heh." It's a phrase so ridiculous one must assume satire was Mitchell's intent, and so it follows that the artist either intended an examination of bias and discrimination or simply did not see the same impassable boundaries between cultures that so many build and perpetuate.

The original Don Juan's Reckless Daughter LP is unusual in that the records were produced with side pairings 1/4 and 2/3. Sides 1 and 4 are more or less typical pop songs, several of which were already parts of Mitchell's live sets, most notably "Jericho," which appeared commercially as early as Miles of Aisles (1974). Sides 2 and 3 are experimental—the extended, impressionist cut "Paprika Plains" and a makeshift suite of disparate styles, respectively. Mitchell said, "This record followed on the tail of persecution, it's experimental, and it didn't really matter what I did, I just had to fulfill my contract" (Biography: 1976-1977 Refuge of the Roads, Wally Breese, January 1998). Whether she meant to be somewhat dismissive toward the record is unclear, but a sizable amount of work and planning definitely went into it. The arrangement of the record sides must be intentional—it could be that one LP is meant to be the accessible one, but it still begs the question of the side numbers. Apparently, the record set is meant to distinguish the second and third sides—the "dream" music, which comes to the artist in the middle of the set, bookended by ego fascinations—as a sort of id manipulation with a cohesive element to it. The listener must change records to reach the middle sides and again to get out of them, suggesting a discrete and centric quality.

A quiet, moaning, atmospheric overture precedes "Cotton Avenue," an ode to nightlife. Mitchell and her army of guitars are accompanied only by drummer John Guerin and bassist Jaco Pastorious, who returns from Hejira (1976) as her primary collaborator. "Talk to Me" seems to lead out of this scene, describing the coming-down from a night out ("There was a moon and a street lamp/I didn't know I drank such a lot/'Til I pissed a tequila anaconda/The full length of the parking lot") but is really about sexual frustration. Mitchell sings, "Any old theme you choose/Just come and talk to me," belting out a laundry list of possible discussion points (as well as a deadly funny Shakespearean aside), both idealizing her subject and criticizing him for his conservatism. The melodic "Jericho" is about apprehension, only loosely fitting into the schema.

"Paprika Plains," the piece that caught the attention of the legendary Charles Mingus, is the main attraction. It's straightforward for the first four-and-a-half minutes—just Mitchell and her piano plus strings—she describes a dreamy version of her memories from a party. The people watch the rain from indoors, and sit in a haze of clashing aromas: "Liquid soap and grass/And Jungle Gardenia crash/On Pine-Sol and beer." "Back in my hometown," she begins again (presumably referring to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, but perhaps also an imaginary, idealized hometown from her dream world), "They would have cleared the floor/Just to watch the rain come down." She describes the urbanization of humans ("And they cut off their braids/And lost some link with nature") and eventually glides off into full-on fantasy: "I dream paprika plains/Vast and bleak and God forsaken/Paprika plains/And a turquoise river snaking."

The next portion of the song deals with unspoken imagery tethered to Mitchell's visionary poetry, which is included with the rest of the song's lyrics. She sees herself flying over Paprika Plains in a helicopter, where "Only a little Indian band/Come down from some windy mesa/No women to make them food and child/No expressions on their faces." She wonders why she sees all of it, the disparity between the poverty of the tribe and the "flying machine/Of earth and air and water." One of the tribesmen raises his fist to the skies, and an atomic blast forms over the horizon. Her visions then turn to a beach ball, which becomes Earth. She cuts it with her fingernail to open and reveal Paprika Plains once again. Then, the song returns to its vocal delivery, and she is back at the party, where she finds herself floating back to a nameless individual, hinting at fate and inevitability.

Side three, beginning with the escapist "Otis and Marlena," continues the abstract direction of the previous side; Marlena dreams about her summer getaway "while Muslims stick up Washington" (which had actually happened around the time of the song's release). "The Tenth World" is a Spanish rumba led by Manolo Badrena and backed by other members of Weather Report, Mitchell, and Chaka Khan. Another romantic shuffle, "Dreamland," closes out the side, this time with just the latter two vocalists and a percussion section.

The remaining side returns to more introspective music. The arch, streaming "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" is the final side opener: an ambivalent self-examination. Mitchell examines her conflicting sides ("Restless for streets and honky tonks/Restless for home and routine") and her confrontation with a version of herself from the past ("Last night the ghosts of my old ideas/Reran on channel five/And it howled so spooky for its eagle soul/I nearly broke down and cried"), anthropomorphizing the days, people, spirits, and even virtues. The jangling "Off Night Backstreet," ironically about a Don Juan, is a highlight, backed by members of the Eagles. Closer "The Silky Veils of Ardor" is a cautionary gloaming folk tale that ties together the stories on the first and fourth sides, while also adding, "But I have no wings/And the water is so wide/We'll have to row a little harder/It's just in dreams we fly."

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter was Joni Mitchell's longest regular release (outside live albums and Travelogue [2002], which contained no new songs), and among expansive record sets, only the best of the best get special attention. It's a daunting task to sit through a double or triple album when there's more than a couple bad cuts. Unfortunately, despite its overall great quality, Don Juan has been mostly forgotten, generally regarded as respectable but also an indulgent mess. Some did not appreciate Mitchell's further retreat from pop and folk music, while others simply could not surmise her intent or appreciate the music for what it is rather than what she could have been doing instead. It doesn't feel right to call the album a masterpiece, but it's one of the artist's most worldly and thought-provoking, important to her evolution, and pleasing to the ear, if flighty—though flighty was supposed to be one of her most celebrated characteristics.

Joni Mitchell—Blue

Joni Mitchell—Blue

Blue—During the 1960s, Joni Mitchell was known more as a songwriter by repute than recognizance. Her songs "Both Sides Now" and "Chelsea Morning" had been performed by several artists, most notably by Judy Collins, who won a Grammy for her recording of the former. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performed the best-known version of "Woodstock" on their album Déjà Vu, among others. But Mitchell's own Song to a Seagull (1968), Clouds (1969), and Ladies of the Canyon (1970) were received with increasing acclaim; when the next decade rolled around, Mitchell's star began to grow, and she became known more for being a performer in her own right. However, she lacked a signature record, as her first two were produced uniformly as middle-of-the-road folk, and her third played more like a collection of disparate tunes than anything that spoke to a concept.

Following Ladies of the Canyon, Mitchell took time off to travel, interrupted only by a performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, when she played eight songs from Clouds and Ladies, as well as three new songs: "California," "A Case of You," and "My Old Man." Those three upbeat, optimistic songs came about with the onset of Mitchell's relationship with a young James Taylor, both as lovers and musical comrades; aside from touring together, Taylor would play guitar on the studio recordings of the three aforementioned songs, while Mitchell would provide backing vocals on Taylor's Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. But the restless Mitchell and the troubled Taylor would only last about a year together, and the split would send them in different directions. Taylor would go on to further his highly successful if uneven career, while Mitchell would return to Los Angeles to record Blue, her bright outlook now marred by a string of failed (and well-publicized) romances.

The frolicking opener "All I Want" exhibits Mitchell's free-wheeling spirit in contrast to the reserved approach of contemporary female artists. "I want to wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive," she proclaims while simultaneously acknowledging the hurt that has arisen from her missteps and the hints of self-criticism that she allows only so briefly ("I love you when I forget about me"). "My Old Man" details the ups and downs of new love, how "He's the warmest chord I've ever heard," and "when he's gone/Me and them lonesome blues collide/The bed's too big/The frying pan's too wide." The cozy "Little Green" predates the rest of the album; it became known decades later that Mitchell wrote it about her daughter, whom she gave away in 1965. The joyous "Carey," the album's most colorful song, is about a real person she met in Matala, Crete, the self-proclaimed "best cook in the area" with a "flaming red personality" (source). The encapsulating dirge "Blue" addresses directly the melancholy that peppers the album—around half the songs mention the color by name, sometimes in more intriguing ways like her daughter's eye color ("Little Green") or the glow of a television screen ("A Case of You").

"California" opens the second side with the same sort of whimsy as the first, with Mitchell contrasting her adopted home of California with the places she'd seen in her travels, sometimes with amusing anecdotes that suggest her resilience ("I met a redneck on a Grecian isle/Who did the goat dance very well/He gave me back my smile/But he kept my camera to sell"). The vortical "This Flight Tonight" represents her burning desire for a lover she's just left behind, but also the turbulence ("I hope it's better when we meet again, baby"). "River," a masterstroke, morphs "Jingle Bells" into a threnodic admittance of self-disdain, hopelessness, and escapism. "A Case of You" is a deceptively cute song about knowing the tragic flaws in a relationship will someday be too much to overcome, having evolved from an earlier incarnation as a simpler maritime analogue. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" sees Mitchell refuting a cynic, only to later find herself in the situation he forewarned; nevertheless, she assures herself, "Only a phase, these dark cafe days," ending the album on a curious but poignant note of optimism.

Joni Mitchell generally kept a healthy distance between herself and her music for the most part until Blue, choosing more to embrace the holistic ways of the folk scene. With Blue, she broke that barrier, reemerging from her hiatus with an evolved approach that continues to be emulated. It may not sound like such at times, but Blue was the most major work by a woman in the rock era—at the time most certainly, and it possibly still is.