Joni Mitchell, born in Ft McLeod, Alberta, in 1943, is one of the most important
women in pop/rock history, recording over 20 albums of striking originality as
singer, songwriter and producer veering from nakedly personal folk-pop, to
jazz-rock, traditional jazz, avant-garde, synth-pop, and now orchestral pop
standards.
Her most recent CD, Both Sides Now from 2000, is a song cycle following a single romantic relationship through classic American pop songs of the 20's through the 70's including Billie Holiday's "You're My Thrill" and "You've Changed," Etta James' "At Last," Lena Horne's "Stormy Weather," and 2 of her own songs: "A Case of You," and her most famous, "Both Sides Now," which closes the album in a reflective, beautiful, sadder-but-wiser mood.
Mitchell's voice has been transformed by age and cigarettes from the flutey, jittery soprano of her youth, to a weary, grainy alto. I find her mature voice much more appealing, and Both Sides Now is her best album in 25 years.
Article comments
1 - Hazy Dave
It turns out this is a slight misquotation, since HST was writing about the Television Industry. But it's so True and Appropriate that I can't resist reposting it as if it were as accurate as anything else on the internet...
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
- Hunter S. Thompson