Joni Mitchell On Track

Author : Peter Kearns
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781789520811
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Joni Mitchell written by Peter Kearns and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-27 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her long career, Canadian songstress Joni Mitchell has been hailed as everything from 1960s folk icon to 20th century cultural figure, artistic iconoclast to musical heroine, extreme romantic confessor to outspoken commentator and lyrical painter. While some criticised what they viewed as her seeming dismissal of commercial considerations, she simply viewed her trajectory as that of any artist serious about the integrity of their work. But whatever musical position she took, she was always one step ahead of the game, making eclectic and innovative music. Albums like The Ladies Of The Canyon, Blue, Hejira and Mingus helped define each era of the 1970s, as she moved from exquisitely pitched singer songwriter material towards jazz. Her past influence was obvious in the 1980s when hoards of assuming successors (some highly respectable) gathered her exotic breadcrumbs with a view to distilling their illusive compounds, while Joni simultaneously forged ahead. This book revisits her studio albums in detail from 1968's Song to a Seagull to 2007's Shine, providing anecdote and insight into the recording sessions, an in depth analysis along with a complimentary level of lyrical and instrumental examination.

Author : Lloyd Whitesell
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019988577X
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Music of Joni Mitchell written by Lloyd Whitesell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-08-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joni Mitchell is one of the foremost singer-songwriters of the late twentieth century. Yet despite her reputation, influence, and cultural importance, a detailed appraisal of her musical achievement is still lacking. Whitesell presents a through exploration of Mitchell's musical style, sound, and structure in order to evaluate her songs from a musicological perspective. His analyses are conceived within a holistic framework that takes account of poetic nuance, cultural reference, and stylistic evolution over a long, adventurous career. Mitchell's songs represent a complex, meticulously crafted body of work. The Music of Joni Mitchell offers a comprehensive survey of her output, with many discussions of individual songs, organized by topic rather than chronology. Individual chapters each explore a different aspect of her craft, such as poetic voice, harmony, melody, and large-scale form. A separate chapter is devoted to the central theme of personal freedom, as expressed through diverse symbolic registers of the journey quest, bohemianism, creative license, and spiritual liberation. Previous accounts of Mitchell's songwriting have tended to favor her poetic vision, expansive verse structures, and riveting vocal delivery. Whitesell fills out this account with special attention to musical technique, showing how such traits as complex or conflicting sonorities, dualities of harmonic mode, dialectical tensions of texture and register, intricately layered instrumental figuration, and a variable vocal persona are all essential to her distinctive identity as a songwriter. The Music of Joni Mitchell develops a set of conceptual tools geared specifically to Mitchell's songs, in order to demonstrate the extent of her technical innovation in the pop song genre, to give an account of the formal sophistication and rhetorical power characterizing her work as a whole, and to provide grounds for the recognition of her intellectual stature as a composer within her chosen field.

Author : David Yaffe
Publisher : Sarah Crichton Books
ISBN 13 : 0374715602
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reckless Daughter written by David Yaffe and published by Sarah Crichton Books. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "She was like a storm." —Leonard Cohen Joni Mitchell may be the most influential female recording artist and composer of the late twentieth century. In Reckless Daughter, the music critic David Yaffe tells the remarkable, heart-wrenching story of how the blond girl with the guitar became a superstar of folk music in the 1960s, a key figure in the Laurel Canyon music scene of the 1970s, and the songwriter who spoke resonantly to, and for, audiences across the country. A Canadian prairie girl, a free-spirited artist, Mitchell never wanted to be a pop star. She was nothing more than “a painter derailed by circumstances,” she would explain. And yet, she went on to become a talented self-taught musician and a brilliant bandleader, releasing album after album, each distinctly experimental, challenging, and revealing. Her lyrics captivated listeners with their perceptive language and naked emotion, born out of Mitchell’s life, loves, complaints, and prophecies. As an artist whose work deftly balances narrative and musical complexity, she has been admired by such legendary lyricists as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and beloved by such groundbreaking jazz musicians as Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, and Herbie Hancock. Her hits—from “Big Yellow Taxi” to “Both Sides, Now” to “A Case of You”—endure as timeless favorites, and her influence on the generations of singer-songwriters who would follow her, from her devoted fan Prince to Björk, is undeniable. In this intimate biography, drawing on dozens of unprecedented in-person interviews with Mitchell, her childhood friends, and a cast of famous characters, Yaffe reveals the backstory behind the famous songs—from Mitchell’s youth in Canada, her bout with polio at age nine, and her early marriage and the child she gave up for adoption, through the love affairs that inspired masterpieces, and up to the present—and shows us why Mitchell has so enthralled her listeners, her lovers, and her friends. Reckless Daughter is the story of an artist and an era that have left an indelible mark on American music.

Author : Marc Myers
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 0802189652
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Anatomy of a Song written by Marc Myers and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A winning look at the stories behind 45 pop, punk, folk, soul and country classics” in the words of Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper and more (The Washington Post). Every great song has a fascinating backstory. And here, writer and music historian Marc Myers brings to life five decades of music through oral histories of forty-five era-defining hits woven from interviews with the artists who created them, including such legendary tunes as the Isley Brothers’ Shout, Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love, Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz, and R.E.M’s Losing My Religion. After receiving his discharge from the army in 1968, John Fogerty did a handstand—and reworked Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to come up with Proud Mary. Joni Mitchell remembers living in a cave on Crete with the mean old daddy who inspired her 1971 hit Carey. Elvis Costello talks about writing (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes in ten minutes on the train to Liverpool. And Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Rod Stewart, the Clash, Jimmy Cliff, Roger Waters, Stevie Wonder, Keith Richards, Cyndi Lauper, and many other leading artists reveal the emotions, inspirations, and techniques behind their influential works. Anatomy of a Song is a love letter to the songs that have defined generations of listeners and “a rich history of both the music industry and the baby boomer era” (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

Author : Malka Marom
Publisher : ECW Press
ISBN 13 : 1770905812
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Joni Mitchell written by Malka Marom and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lush exploration of Joni Mitchell's career and art. When singer, musician, and broadcast journalist Malka Marom had the opportunity to interview Joni Mitchell in 1973, she was eager to reconnect with the performer she'd first met late one night in 1966 at a Yorkville coffeehouse. More conversations followed over the next four decades of friendship, and it was only after Joni and Malka completed their most recent recorded interview, in 2012, that Malka discovered the heart of their discussions: the creative process. In Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words, Joni and Malka follow this thread through seven decades of life and art, discussing the influence of Joni's childhood, love and loss, playing dives and huge festivals, acclaim and criticism, poverty and affluence, glamorous triumphs and tragic mistakes . . . This riveting narrative, told in interviews, lyrics, paintings, and photographs, is shared in the hope of illuminating a timeless body of work and inspiring others.

Author : Anne Karppinen
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317015134
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Songs of Joni Mitchell written by Anne Karppinen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-26 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unorthodox musician from the start, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell's style of composing, performing, and of playing (and tuning) the guitar is unique. In the framework of sexual difference and the gendered discourses of rock this immediately begs the questions: are Mitchell's songs specifically feminine and, if so, to what extent and why? Anne Karppinen addresses this question focusing on the kind of music and lyrics Mitchell writes, the representation of men and women in her lyrics, how her style changes and evolves over time, and how cultural context affects her writing. Linked to this are the concepts of subjectivity and authorship: when a singer-songwriter sings a song in the first person, about whom are they actually singing? Mitchell offers a fascinating study, for the songs she writes and sings are intricately woven from the strands of her own life. Using methods from critical discourse analysis, this book examines recorded performances of songs from Mitchell's first nine studio albums, and the contemporary reviews of these albums in Anglo-American rock magazines. In one of the only books to discuss Mitchell's recorded performances, with a focus that extends beyond the seminal album Blue, Karppinen explores the craft of Mitchell's songwriting and her own attitudes towards it, as well as the dynamics and politics of rock criticism in the 1960s and 1970s more generally.

Author : Joni Mitchell
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin
ISBN 13 : 0358181720
Total Pages : 137 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Morning Glory on the Vine written by Joni Mitchell and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2019 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gorgeous compendium of Joni Mitchell's handwritten lyrics and drawings, originally handcrafted as a gift for a select group of friends in 1971 and now available to the public for the first time In 1971, as her album Blue topped charts around the world, Joni Mitchell crafted one hundred copies of Morning Glory on the Vine as a holiday gift for her closest friends. For this stunningly beautiful book, Joni hand-wrote an exquisite selection of her own lyrics and poems and illustrated them with more than thirty of her original pictures. Handcrafted, signed, and numbered in Los Angeles, the existing copies of this labor of love have rarely been seen in the past half-century. Now, during Joni's seventy-fifth birthday year, Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings will be widely available for the first time. In this faithfully reproduced edition, Joni's best-loved lyrics and poems spill across the pages in her own elegant script. The lively, full-color drawings depict a superb array of landscapes, still lifes, portraits of friends, self-portraits, innovative abstractions, and more. All the artwork from the original book is included, along with several additional pictures that Joni drew of her friends from the same period. Finally, the refreshed volume features an original introduction written by Joni. Morning Glory on the Vine is a gorgeous and intimate keepsake and an invitation to explore anew the dazzling, visionary world of Joni Mitchell.

Author : Emma Brodie
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0593318625
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Songs in Ursa Major written by Emma Brodie and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A scintillating debut from a major new voice in fiction, alive with music, sex, and fame, Songs in Ursa Major is a love story set in 1969 at the crossroads of rock and folk, for fans of Daisy Jones & The Six"--

Author : Larry David Smith
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313067872
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, and the Torch Song Tradition written by Larry David Smith and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2004-04-30 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The torch song has long been a vehicle for expression—perhaps American song's most sheerly visceral one. Two artists in particular have built upon this tradition to express their own unique outlooks on their lives and the world around them. Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello, and the Torch Song Tradition combines biographical material, artist commentary, critical interpretation, and selected exemplars of the writers' work to reveal the power of authorship and the creative drive necessary to negotiate an artistic vision in the complicated mechanisms of the commercial music industry. Author Larry David Smith, as in his Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and American Song, considers the complicated intersection of biography, creative philosophy, artistic imperative, and stylistic tendencies in the work of both Joni Mitchell and Elvis Costello—two songwriters with seemingly nothing in common, one famously confessional and one famously confrontational. Yet, as Smith shows so incisively, they are two personalities that prove fascinatingly complementary. Mitchell and Costello both yielded bodies of work that are cohesive, coherent, and rich in meaning. Both have made historic contributions to the singer-songwriter model, two rebellious respones to the creative and commercial compromises associated with their chosen field, and two distinct thematic responses to the torch song tradition. Smith examines these responses, offering a unique and invaluable exploration of the craft of two of the last century's most towering musical figures.

Author : Sean Nelson
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1441122001
Total Pages : 129 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark written by Sean Nelson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2006-12-18 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Court and Spark is Joni Mitchell's most overt attempt at making a hit record, full of glossy production, catchy choruses, and even guest stars from every stratum of rock culture, high (Robbie Robertson) and low (Cheech and Chong). The record was a smash, reaching number two on the charts in March of 1974, spawning three hit singles; Help Me, Free Man in Paris and Raised on Robbery and cementing Mitchell's position as a commercial as well as an artistic force. Sean Nelson, a well known musician himself (Harvey Danger, the Long Winters), is particularly well equipped to understand all the elements that went into the making of this classic album, and he does so with clarity and wit.