After reports that her death was imminent in 2015 after she had an aneurysm, Joni Mitchell has risen, phoenix-like, to resume a somewhat normal life and even make public appearances, although she has difficulties walking.
Through Rhino Records, Mitchell has now embarked on the most ambitious and thus far fruitful archival reissue series of her long and illustrious career. She has never been a fan of greatest hits or archival releases, as she feels they can lead to a halt in sales of individual albums.
The initial batch of archival releases included Live At Canterbury House 1967 as a three-album vinyl set, recorded in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Early Joni as a single vinyl album; and Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963–1967), which included radio, television, live recordings, tapes, demos, and more previously unreleased material as well as the Live at Canterbury House 1967 performances available as a 5-CD set. There has also been the “Joni Mitchell Blue 50 (Demos & Outtakes)” Digital EP Flac release, which includes five previously unreleased recordings from the 1971 Blue sessions.
The latest release is Joni Mitchell The Reprise Albums (1968 – 1971) available as either a 4-CD set, or a limited edition of 10,000 copies, four-LP vinyl box set. The limited edition vinyl box set is beautifully packaged in a slip-case and features authentic gatefold replicas of her first four albums on 180 gram vinyl: Song To A Seagull (1968), Clouds (1969), Ladies Of The Canyon (1970) and Blue (1971).
Mitchell’s debut album is presented in a brand-new mix by Matt Lee, overseen by Mitchell, and all the albums have been remastered by Bernie Grundman. The cover art of the outer box is by Joni Mitchell and there is an essay included by Brandi Carlile. Carlile will actually be performing the entire Blue album at Carnegie Hall on November 7th. She has done this once before in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2019.
These four LPs are the albums that established Mitchell as the premier singer-songwriter of the day, culminating in Blue. There were certainly other albums that helped solidify the significance of the genre, such as Songs of Leonard Cohen (also a Canadian, like Mitchell); Tapestry (Carole King) and Sweet Baby James (James Taylor), from America; and Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat (Cat Stevens) and The Plastic Ono Band (The Plastic Ono Band) from England.
Much later came others from the US, such as No Secrets (Carly Simon) and Blood on the Tracks (Bob Dylan). Various other albums along the way from Elton John, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Paul Simon and Jackson Browne, among many others, were also quite influential. But Blue is a monumental, transcendent piece of music that both set the blueprint and forever broke the mold of the genre’s songwriting/album framework.
Of the four albums here, the one that has been the most dramatically changed is Song to a Seagull. It was released in 1968 with David Crosby as producer. The original mix was never to Mitchell’s liking and Crosby tended to agree. Remixing vintage albums to correct past mistakes is generally not why these albums are upgraded. Often, it is done to give the album a more modern sound, or to simply clean up some past irregularities.
While new mixes are not as tricky as restoring a Renaissance masterpiece, with an album like this one, it must be done right or it will ruin what made the album so special in the first place. Song to a Seagull always had a moody, atmospheric quality and a melancholy that beautifully evoked the times, especially the world of a young singer-songwriter with an open heart, trying to make it in the unforgiving world of the fading folk scene.
Thankfully, Matt Lee has cleared away the layers of tarnish that come with time, yet left the simplicity and feel of what makes this such a wonderful debut. Mitchell plays a variety of instruments, but mostly acoustic guitar, with Stephen Stills on bass on “Night in the City.” There is an almost baroque and gothic timelessness to the music, particularly on the lesser-known tracks. Songs like “Night in the City” and “Cactus Tree” reveal how adept Mitchell was at song construction at such a young age and prefigured her peerless career ahead. For people who know Mitchell’s work but are not familiar with this album, hearing it with this perfectly executed new mix will make them wonder how they could have ever missed this seminal release.
Clouds doesn’t necessarily reveal a major step forward as an album, but it’s a much more confident and relaxed effort. Mitchell is clearly enjoying herself and isn’t distracted by debut album jitters. Again, she plays a variety of instruments, with Stephen Stills this time playing bass on more than one track. Mitchell also benefits here by the engineering of Henry Lewy, who would work with Mitchell for years. He is able to find the perfect balance between allowing Mitchell’s songs to be presented in all their unadorned splendor, and adding just enough studio ambience to make this more than just a folk album. Lewy is very much an unheralded figure in Mitchell’s career.
The songwriting growth from Mitchell’s first album to this one is enormous, in terms of writing compact, accessible songs like the title cut and “Chelsea Morning.” But songs like “Tin Angel” and “That Song About the Midway” are early Mitchell songs that, along with “Chelsea Morning,” were beautifully covered by others at the time and hold up until this day. These are the songs, together with “Both Sides Now,” that were Mitchell’s launching pad as a major artist. As great a job as Lewy did as engineer, this album might have also benefited by a new mix, given that the sound at times is a little thin and lifeless in spots.
With Ladies of the Canyon, Mitchell made a major leap forward. The album is a bold step beyond the folky acoustic guitar-based sound of her first two albums. Many songs were written and played on piano and Mitchell’s melodic sense and deft keyboard touch were quite astonishing. Several musicians contribute this time out including among others Jim Horn and two jazz artists, Paul Horn and Mitt Holland. Paul Horn, like Mitchell, was also an early pioneer of what came to be known as world music. Some of the songs allowed listeners insights into such famous people in her life as Graham Nash (“Willie”) and Leonard Cohen (“Rainy Night House”).
The sometimes serious tone of her music was briefly alleviated on the big hit, “Big Yellow Taxi.” There is also the chestnut “Circle Game,” which has become something of an American standard. Her own version of her composition “Woodstock” is not the rousing hippie idyl that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young cut for Deja Vu, but instead is a prescient, mordant ’60s elegy. Not having been at the 1969 Aquarian festival gave her a unique perspective and the result is the defining song about the festival and a ’60s summation that can’t be beat.
The album also put a spotlight on the ladies of Laurel Canyon and reflected the West Coast’s place as the new center of hip, having supplanted swinging mod and psychedelic London. This is no surprise as Mitchell has always been a keen cultural observer. The sound on this reissue is superb and Lewy’s presence can be felt even stronger, and both he and Mitchell had by that point comfortably settled into a seamless, symbiotic and mutually respectful studio relationship.
It is hard to summarize Blue, the final album in this box. The album is Mitchell’s masterwork and perhaps the ultimate album of the singer-songwriter genre and defined the confessional song style. Up until that time, no popular musical artist had so bared their soul and Mitchell’s reflections on the heart and mind of women were somewhat revolutionary.
Fifty years on, the album has not lost any of its significance. While there are many songs here about either Mitchell’s take on relationships or specific men, it’s also a travel log of sorts, moving from California, to Las Vegas, to Detroit, to Africa, to Canada and various places along the way, including those not specifically named on “All I Want.” While not as road-centric as Hejira would be in 1976, it’s reflective of Mitchell’s wandering soul. You can almost feel the car wheels turning on the endless highways of the itinerant musician.
In the song “Little Green,” about a child given up for adoption, Mitchell was actually talking about her own daughter, but didn’t reveal that until 1997. The album also contains one of the best Christmas songs ever written during the pop/rock era: “River.” The song is filled with the need to escape the noise and commercialism of the season and is yet another candidate for American standard status. The album is replete with musical support from many of Mitchell’s friends and contemporaries, including Stills, once again, James Taylor, Sneaky Pete of the Flying Burrito Brothers, and drummer Russ Kunkel.
This is a well-done box set, befitting the quality and legacy of the music included. Rhino has always been the premier reissue label and it’s good Mitchell’s work from this period reissued. These albums represent a high-point in music for any solo artist of the time. Mitchell would only gain more strength and go on to score hit albums like Court & Spark and venture out in many more directions, including jazz and world music.
Her growth would be a thing of wonder and would leave her contemporaries either in awe or in the dust. Future releases include a volume 2 that will be a 10-LP set, limited to 4,000 copies and which will also include additional material not on her original albums. There will also be a 3-LP vinyl set Live at Carnegie Hall, recorded in 1969. Both of these releases will arrive in stores in late October.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
