Reckless Daughter: A Joni Mitchell Anthology

by Barney Hoskyns

Joni Mitchell has only visited the U.S. Top 40 singles chart four times in her long recording career - and the Top 20 just once. So much for 'stoking the starmaker machinery behind the popular song', as she sang in her 1974 song 'Free Man in Paris'.

What Joni has done, on the other hand, is record a handful of masterful albums - Blue, Court And Spark, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns for starters - that prove she is right up there with the big boys: with Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson and Stevie Wonder. Few women can hold a candle to her oeuvre: maybe Aretha Franklin, maybe Kate Bush, Bjork, Joanna Newsom. Airs and graces she may have, but airs and graces backed up by 'Woodstock', 'The Arrangement', 'A Case Of You', 'Help Me', 'Dog Eat Dog' and 'The Magdalene Laundries' are forgivable. Some of Mitchell's songs are great art. Almost all are emotionally complex and musically gripping.

Reckless Daughter collects some of the most incisive commentary on Joni's music - and some of the most candid conversations she has had with journalists during her long career. From a review of her first performance at L.A.'s legendary Troubadour in 1968 to a career-sweeping 1998 interview by MOJO's Dave DiMartino, this anthology of almost 60 articles charts every stage of Joni's extraordinary journey as a singer, songwriter, and artist.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, Biography

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 3, 2016

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lovely compendium of Joni Mitchell's artistic life through interviews and reviews of all of her work from 1996 to 2007. Not essential, however if you love Joni's music and have read a biography, this can flesh out what you know.

[Jørn Inge Frostad · Rating 3 out of 5]

By no means a bad collection, though a lot of the texts are a bit «samey». This especially applies to the early, pre-1972-ish stuff, which regurgitates a lot of details several times over. The book picks up speed from around page 100 onward, as the overall perception of its subject grows richer, and long-form interviews gradually overtake the earlier descriptive and/or reductive biographical snippets on «folkie Joni». Miss Mitchell is an interesting interviewee, even in spite of seeming a tad arrogant and full of herself at times («it ain't braggin' if ya can back it up», a similarly arrogant bass player (and JM associate) once said). Some anecdotes and details are repeated throughout the book's latter texts as well, but the texts themselves gradually grow better and more complex. Two personal faves are Ben Sidran's ten-page article on the making of 1979's «Mingus» album (a flawed though underrated gem that is mentioned surprisingly often throughout the collection) and a long 1998 interview by Dave DiMartino lifted from that year's August edition of MOJO. As far as «chronological Joni» goes, Malka Marom's «Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words» may make for a better first read, but as a supplement, this collection serves favorably.

[Sherry Gallagher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a retired folk musician, myself, I was inspired early on by the compositions and performances of Joni Mitchell. In the folk world, Joni is known as an uber-talent akin to Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and the singer with the absolutely gorgeous voice to this day, Judy Collins.
Joni is not only interesting as a sound artist but visual as well, as she paints wonderfully while admitting that it is the fine arts that is her first love. But to me it's not her foremost talent.
Regardless, I found this book off-putting because it paints Joni in the light of a ruthless business woman, all her ladder climbing so calculatingly professional juxtaposed against the hippy-dippy personality the media has always painted her to have. Somewhere, I believe, there is a balance between the creative and the necessary promoter of one's work for one to have become such an icon as Joni has. Yet I admit that in the reading of this book I have become somewhat disillusioned of her and the world she has dwelt in all these many years that the rest of us artists have merely peered into, tasted and drooled for more.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collage of newspaper articles, essays, reviews and interviews with Joni Mitchell that chronologically follows four decades of her life in spotlight.

Endlessly recycled at first (seems that every journalist followed polio/Saskatchewan/Laurel Canyon script) these articles gradually become far more fascinating and interesting just as Mitchell's work turned away from pop charts and whizzed into experimental direction. More cryptic she became, the more intrigued journalists became - it seems that nobody (least her recording companies) knew what to make out of artist who decidedly grows further from music machinery. Several interviews are very enlightening indeed: apparently Mitchell considered quitting the business long time ago and when her all-covers album "Both Sides Now" finally appeared it was not (as some suggested) because of lack of original material but something Mitchell was unable to do earlier, as her recording contracts have not allowed it.

[Deborah Sowery-Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two books out right now with similar titles about Mitchell. This one moves chronologically through time via articles written about her. I found it very interesting and certainly brought back memories of my youth and my passion for her music. I confess I am not as familiar with her more recent work but some of the articles definitely made me want to give some of her newer stuff a listen in addition to revisiting the earlier works that played such an important part in my listening life. Also kind of sad as with Mitchell's recent battles with health I don't think we will hear anymore new work from her.

[Tim Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Mixed Bag But Well Worth It

This is a collection of interviews with and reviews of Joni throughout her career. Some of the reviews are good and some are insubstantial but demonstrate what passes for music journalism at times. The interviews are definitely worth reading. There is the occasional memoir of a fan which is intriguing. Overall this is worth a read - the definitive book about Joni does not exist and this is shocking as there is no greater music artist than her unless you go back to giants like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, with things like this, some pieces are better than others - and there’s some repetition too, of ideas, of themes, but the subject is, on the whole so interesting that this could never fail. So, some pieces better than others, but overall absolutely a triumph - and a reminder, now, of what music writing used to be like.

[Ralph · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some good interview pieces but a lot of the reviews are perfunctory. There's a good book idea here but this doesn't really make the most of it

[Michele]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...