Joni Mitchell

The concert event The Wall – Live in Berlin, a July 1990 performance of the 1980 Pink Floyd album The Wall took place at the site of the Berlin Wall that had come down eight months previously.  The concert was organized by Roger Waters, who had been the frontman for the band during their hitmaking period in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, though he left Pink Floyd in 1985 over creative differences and attempted to prevent the other bandmembers from continuing to use the name (they settled out of court in 1987). 

Roger Waters had said during an interview in July 1989 that the only way he would perform The Wall live again was “if the Berlin Wall came down” – and four months later, it did.  Attendance at the concert site itself was a record-breaking 450,000, and it was also broadcast live worldwide.  Scorpions opened the concert with “In the Flesh” and also performed on three other songs.  Guest artists included Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, Thomas Dolby, Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bryan Adams, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of the Band.  Tim Curry, Albert Finney, Ute Lemper, and Jerry Hall are actors who also performed, mostly during “the Trial” sequence toward the end.  As the concert was performed, a gigantic wall (550 feet long and 82 feet high) that appeared to be made of large styrofoam blocks was completed; at the end of the trial, the judge declared:  “Tear down the Wall!”, and the wall was pushed over, row by row. 

(April 2013)

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Berry’s influence also shows up in places that you might not expect.  I once saw an interview with Joni Mitchell on VH1 where she said that her 1970 hit song “Big Yellow Taxi” was “pure Chuck Berry” to her. 

(June 2013/1)

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In the early years, most women only sang; those who also played a musical instrument tended to be folksingers, like Joan Baez and Judy Collins.  Later on, both Baez and Collins moved more toward rock, and they have each recorded numerous amazing albums. Joni Mitchell, who wrote Judy Collins’ early hit song “Both Sides Now”, stretched herself even further; one remarkable album that I own is her 1979 album, Mingus that was recorded with jazz legend Charles Mingus shortly before his death. 

(October 2013)

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In a sense, “Is That All There Is?” is a grimmer retelling of the Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides Now” that Judy Collins released as a Top 10 hit the previous year; it had appeared on Collins’ 1967 album, Wildflowers.  For all I know, that could have been the genesis of the song.  The first recorded version, by New York disc jockey Dan Daniel was released in March 1968.  

(January 2014)

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And Joan Baez was there beginning in 1960 when the folk music revival was in its heyday; and she wasn’t political at all in the beginning.  Folk music has always been fairly gender-balanced – besides Joan, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell were leading lights who went on to have long careers.  The folk groups often had at least one woman – there was Mary Travers in Peter, Paul and Mary, and Ronnie Gilbert in the Weavers. 

(February 2014)

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David Crosby met Graham Nash of the British Invasion band the Hollies when the Byrds toured England in 1966; when the Hollies came to L.A. in 1968, they reunited their acquaintance.  At a party given by Nash’s then-girlfriend Joni Mitchell in July 1968, Stephen Stills and David Crosby performed a new Stills song called “You Don’t Have to Cry” with harmony vocals added by Graham Nash.  The three realized that they had a unique chemistry, and Crosby, Stills & Nash was born. 

Crosby, Stills, Nash and/or Young have released any number of cultural and counter-cultural touchstones over the years, such as “Woodstock” (written by Joni Mitchell based on what Graham Nash told her about the festival – Matthews’ Southern Comfort had a Number 1 hit in the U.K. with “Woodstock”). 

(April 2014)

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Judy Collins heard a demo of the song and decided to include the Sandy Denny song “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” as the B-side of her #8 hit single, “Both Sides Now” (written by Joni Mitchell).  

(July 2014)

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Dylan is a recent rescue from Katrina, however, and I found it surprisingly easy to listen to.  The album is entirely cover songs, many of them quite familiar; and if Dylan’s performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” leaves no impression at all, that is not true of the lesser known songs. 

The opening track, a traditional folk song called “Lily of the West” is beautifully performed; and the album is well worth owning for that song alone.  Personally I am at least as big a fan of Bob Dylan as a folksinger as I am of Bob Dylan as a rocker, and this song was a welcome return to the performances that I remember so well from his early albums. 

(August 2014)

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I have written about Judy Collins before; she is one of my favorite pure folk singers.  President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton named their only daughter, Chelsea Clinton, after Collins’ recording of the Joni Mitchell song “Chelsea Morning”.  (Interestingly, “Chelsea” and “Clinton” are adjoining sections on the West Side of Manhattan, just above Greenwich Village; Clinton is kind of a made-up name for the area that is also known as Hell’s Kitchen).  Judy Collins had her first hit with another of Joni’s songs, “Both Sides Now”. 

(November 2014)