OTB Latenight – Joni Mitchell

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Dodd Harris
About Dodd Harris
Dodd, who used to run a blog named ipse dixit, is an attorney, a veteran of the United States Navy, and a fairly good poker player. He contributed over 650 pieces to OTB between May 2007 and September 2013. Follow him on Twitter @Amuk3.

Comments

  1. sam says:

    I think Joni’s earlier version is better, at least I like her voice better in this earlier version, probably because that’s the voice I always remember. She was much younger and so was I:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcrEqIpi6sg&feature=related

    BTW, there’s a website called “Savedvid.com” that will allow you to download youtubes to your harddrive. I’ve only encountered one youtube that I couldn’t dl–Ryan Bingham’s “Bread and Water.” I used savedvid to get my favorite Joni song, a live version of “Nights in the City.”

  2. Eric Florack says:

    Didn’t know she did an earlier version. I know she wrote this, bit didn’t Judy Collins have the hit with it?

    I interviewed Collins, years ago on the Talk radio outfit I was with at the time. Sadly, we never got much into the area of Joni’s writing. She was in town for a concert with a local philharmonic and most of the material as I recall leaned twenty the classical. In reality, her tastes in music were all over the board.

    As for Mitchell, Her tastes were also varied… a little more varied than “court and spark”, for example, would have let on. Look at the difference in sound between that album, let’s say, and “Blue”, which is a personal favorite of mine. (I will never understand why “How do you stop” wasn’t a major single)

    I suppose her latest…(“Shine”, recorded about a year and a half ago) would be another datapoint along that line, (She covers “Big Yellow Taxi”… The Original on 1970’s “Ladies of the Canyon” so a direct a to b comparison is possible) though frankly I don’t have a copy of Shine. Yet.

  3. Mr. Prosser says:

    I like her voice on this one, She’s aging just like those of us who enjoyed her for years. I’m well over sixty and just savor the living in this version. “I was a free man in Paris . . .”

  4. Janis Gore says:

    Girl sounds like she’s been drinking plenty of whisky and water and hanging out in smoky jazz clubs.

    I like the voice, but somehow dragging it out the way she does here makes the song sound as banal as it was.

    Sort of like “Memories” from Cats.

  5. sam says:

    As for Mitchell, Her tastes were also varied

    .

    I’ll say. Your comment reminded that she’d collaborated with Charlie Mingus (!) shortly before his death. Her wiki page gives a nice snapshot of her musical geography.