Welcome to the Team DFH Freaky Friday Music party.
We're mixing it up a bit tonight. One of my favorite music buddies and DFH frandor55 graciously offers this diary for our Friday night slot. The usual "please join in" with music vid's and/or comments applies as always
Joni Mitchell's fourth album, Blue was released in June 1971. It revealed the deep personal side of an artist who had gained national prominence earlier with her songs "Both Sides Now", a very successful single for Judy Collins in 1968, and Woodstock, a signature song from CSN&Y's "Deja Vu". The success of "Blue" would cement Joni's place as one of the top singer/songwriters of the day.
Blue is complimentary and reflective to Carole King's Tapestry, released several months earlier. Where as Tapestry wraps you up in a cozy yet passionate blanket, Blue is more a witnessing of the of the soul-tides; both albums mirroring the turning inwards of the cultural psyche in the early 1970's.
Who better to explain the album than Joni herself, she told Cameron Crowe in a 1979 interview for Rolling Stone:
The Blue album, there’s hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either.
She talks more of Blue:
By the time my fourth album [Blue, 1971], I came to another point – that terrible opportunity that people are given in their lives. The day that they discover to the tips of their toes that they’re assholes [solemn moment, than a gale of laughter]. And you have to work from there. And decide what your values are. Which parts of you are no longer really necessary. They belong to childhood’s end. Blue really was a turning point in a lot of ways.
The songs in the album are often confessional in nature. She realizes that the capacity to be deeply hurt has its mirror in her own actions.
From "All I Want":
Do you see - do you see - do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue
All I Want:
Joni wrote some of the songs on the album after a painful breakup of a relationship with Graham Nash.
My relationship with Graham [Nash] is a great, enduring one. We lived together for some time – we were married, you might say. The time Graham and I were together was a highly productive period for me as an artist. I painted a great deal, and the bulk of my best drawings were done in ’69 and ’70 when we were together.
River is one of my personal favorites.
The opening piano line is one of beauty and simplicity, I know I am not the only one whose eyes may well-up as those first few notes are played. The brief intro expresses the feeling of something seen, touched; as it then slowly recedes towards the horizon, dissolving into the December grey ........and if you have ever had the experience of ice skating on a frozen river, deep in the woods, you know of what she sings.
A few lines from "River":
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river I could skate away on
I made my baby cry
All tracks composed and arranged by Joni Mitchell
Side A
1. "All I Want" – 3:32
2. "My Old Man" – 3:33
3. "Little Green" – 3:25
4. "Carey" – 3:00
5. "Blue" – 3:00
Side B
1. "California" – 3:48
2. "This Flight Tonight" – 2:50
3. "River" – 4:00
4. "A Case of You" – 4:20
5. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" – 4:13
The
personnel:
Joni Mitchell - Appalachian dulcimer, guitar, piano, vocals
Stephen Stills - Bass and guitar on "Carey"
James Taylor - Guitar on "California", "All I Want", "A Case of You"
Sneaky Pete Kleinow - Pedal steel on "California", "This Flight Tonight"
Russ Kunkel - Drums on "California", "Carey", "A Case of You"
Still has that smile...
Her Official Site is worth checking out, I liked seeing all her paintings.
So put on "Blue" on your CD player, iTunes, or even vinyl. It doesn't matter if you weren't born when the album came out, it is timeless and a treasure for us all.
Please share your own thoughts, stories, a youtube (does not have to be of Joni).
Enjoy...
Please join in comments with your own contributions. Here's HOW: To add vids in comments: Click on "share"; then the "embed" button; change the size of the video graphic too, so when it posts, it is smaller. Use 300pixels in the custom parameters (last one on the right) under the embed code. {h/t joanneleon}