Happy Birthday Joni!

aleza

Thu, Nov 07 2013, 6:28 pm

greenfire wrote:

happy birthday cake

is it me or is her voice very different - both enjoyable

A person's voice changes after 30 years, and all the while smoking (something she always defended). And the arrangement is different. Not to mention her life experience... she really has looked at both sides now. That's why I selected these two clips. Would she ever think she would become the woman she did, when she was that beautiful thin wisp of a girl with the angelic voice. Would any of us ever imagine our lives as they are now, when we were young. Or if we are still young, how do we imagine our lives to come?

If you haven't guessed, I'm a huge Joni fan.

greenfire

Thu, Nov 07 2013, 7:12 pm

did my homework - almost died at age 8 from a polio outbreak - wow smoking at age 9 ... had a baby secretly that she gave up for adoption at 19 [found her in 1997] ... seemed to be disillusioned by a lot growing up ... was a girlfriend to james taylor at one point - that's kool ...

aleza

Thu, Nov 07 2013, 8:37 pm

Yes, greenfire, I wasn't going to pester you so I'm glad you looked her up... Joni & her daughter finding each other after 30 years was quite something. (Can you imagine being an adult woman looking for your biological parents and finding out your mother is Joni Mitchell!) "Little Green" brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it, but so many of her songs do.

I don't remember her being James Taylor's gf but it was her romance with Graham Nash that was very significant... he wrote the song "Our House" for her... and how/why they broke up... her fear of losing herself as she felt her own grandmother had, in marriage. Not all the clips in this link work, but the text is informative:
http://flowerandthevine.wordpr.....nash/

Blue is my favorite album.

Here's CSN singing "Our House" in concert... listen carefully at the start, Graham says, "G-d bless you Joni": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZtJWJe_K_w

Thank you for letting me share my commemoration of Joni with you.

aleza

Thu, Nov 07 2013, 8:42 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

I can't open the youtube but she also did Pave Paradise, didn't she?

There is definitely something about that type of music that is moving. Folk music might be the last kosher music....

Yes, she wrote/sang Big Yellow Taxi ("they paved paradise and put up a parking lot").

To me it's more than just folk music.... there's a narrative & complexity in her music that goes way beyond the familiar to the deep and soulful.

PinkFridge

Fri, Nov 08 2013, 8:51 am

aleza wrote:

So sad. Life doesn't need to be so complicated. But Joni's concerns call to mind the book Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl. (It was reissued with a much more understanding title, can't remember.)

(I think I knew it was called Big Yellow Taxi. But when I googled Pave Paradise I saw it was her song and didn't read far enough to get the title. I have an appreciation for JM but haven't followed her too closely.)

Oh, and to hijack anything but today Bonnie Raitt turns 64.