What does it sound like?:
Joni Mitchell spent a lot of her career bristling against the label “Folk Singer” but here she is in 1963, at the age of nineteen, recording for her small town radio station in Canada, undeniably a Folk Singer. She is singing House Of The Rising Sun, a year before The Animals transformed it, with a confident yet tremulous voice, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Everything Joni Mitchell is about is there. The brave yet vulnerable demeanour, the purity of her mezzo-soprano and a strong right hand, her left, weakened by polio at the age of nine, protected by unusual guitar tunings. She has a core inner strength enabling her to stand alone, away from the crowd, her whole life exposed under a spotlight. There is also an innocence soon to be lost.
The recordings on this box are mostly live with some demos, single takes almost without a flaw, documenting a period of personal turmoil up to her first album. They are presented in chronological order and the sound quality is almost uniformally excellent. It starts in her home town radio station, CFQC AM, moves to The Half Beat, Toronto, for two sets, some demos in Detroit, four songs for Let’s Sing Out for CBC TV, then on to the 2nd Fret in Philadelphia, a series of recordings for Folklore on WHAT FM, a birthday tape for Michael in North Carolina, demos in New York and finally culminating in three sets at Canterbury House, Ann Abor, Michigan.
She starts by “singing tragic songs in a minor key” covering other people’s songs, those in the North American Folk canon, including ones written by Ewan MacColl and Woody Guthrie. Her hero was Judy Collins and she was inspired by fellow Saskachewanian Buffy Saint-Marie. Soon, she was seeking better fortune in Toronto. However, she couldn’t afford $200 to join the musicians union, so ended up busking and working in a department store. The two sets recorded at The Half Beat place her calm before a storm. By late 1964, she found herself pregnant, alone and facing a bleak winter. She was fortunate that Chuck Jackson, another Folk singer, was willing to take her on but her baby daughter was put up for adoption, the couple moved to America and their marriage dissolved after eighteen months. It’s here where the wellspring of her songwriting is situated, a conversation with the child she was unable to care for. In fact, when that child finally met her in 1997, she said she lost interest in writing any more. As the songs and her live performance progress over these discs, you can hear her protective core of steel solidify but it cannot obliterate the sadness that is within her compositions.
By the time she gets to Canterbury House in 1967, her command of the stage is underlined by her inter-song chatter. She speaks in precise, eloquent sentences, reflecting her lyrics, in a crisp Canadian accent that must have sounded almost British to the audience. Normally, introductions are intrusive and lose any interest after one listen, but here they add character to the recordings. As in her songs, it’s the small details that count. They are witty and charming mini anecdotes opening a window on her life and family, such as the one about her father’s rusty trumpet lip. There is no moment of doubt, no hesitancy in her performances. She has absolute belief in her ability, her songs and her stage presence. When they are the quality of The Circle Game, Both Sides Now and Chelsea Morning, her belief is entirely justified.
This is the woman who blazed a trail for female singer-songwriters in a male dominated world. In the sixties, most female songwriters wrote for other artists and those that sang relied a lot on covers. Bobby Gentry was perhaps her closest comparable peer. Mitchell’s songs were covered by other artists, including her heroes, Buffy and Judy, but they weren’t written for them. She wrote for herself, unrepentantly personal and poetic. She quickly moved on, progressing with breathtaking speed, her sets varying greatly, repeating herself infrequently. There are a total of 29 songs in the box that she has never otherwise recorded herself and others had to wait some time before making it onto one of her albums. From the Folky beginnings and nods to Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young, she develops a warmth and vividity, her syntax as graceful as Leonard Cohen’s. She sees rainbows in the windows of her grubby apartment. Her doomed marriage is depicted as a fairy tale. These are songs of life and love and hope. The grief within them is cleverly disguised. She chokes back a tear at the conclusion of Songs To Aging Children Come at Canterbury House. We also hear Little Green being sung in a husky voice, tellingly without an introduction, a long time before it finally appeared on Blue released in 1971. A close inspection reveals the reason why. Her secret is at the centre of the song, almost too painful to bear.
As a youth, Joni studied art. Her work adorns many of her albums and the drawings and paintings inside this box are quite beautiful and match the content perfectly. How many singer-songwriters were creating their own cover art in 1967/8? There are those who think she made it on the back of David Crosby. The truth is, as demonstrated in Archives, that she learnt little from him, except, perhaps, how to work a studio. Crosby produced her first album and Paul D. Rothschild, the Doors producer, her second but thereafter she did her own.
The five CD box comes with a wonderful 40 page booklet including a frank interview with Cameron Crowe. On vinyl, you can buy the triple LP Live At Canterbury House 1967, which consists of all three sets she recorded there and/or a single LP of the 1963 CFQC AM tapes.
The modern music business is led by supremely talented young women. Many of them owe a tremendous debt to Joni Mitchell. Anyone who picks up an acoustic guitar to write a song can learn from her. Archives Volume 1 is a fascinating historical document of one of the late 20th Century’s finest artists. She was dirt poor when she was beginning as an artist and song-writer but she oozed talent and was clear-sighted from the very start. All she needed was a microphone in a room with decent acoustics and she was spellbinding.
What does it all *mean*?
Life is complex and sometimes it’s really shit. We all adopt coping mechanisms. The world should be grateful that Joni Mitchell chose to write songs.
Goes well with…
The Studio Albums 1968 – 1979 box, containing her first ten LPs.
Release Date:
Out now
Might suit people who like…
Witnessing a flower about to bloom.
I Don’t Know Where I Stand
As ever a superbly observed review from the Tigger. Joni is possibly my favourite ever recording artist but I struggle with anything pre Blue. Loved Joni so much more once the fags had roughed up her vocal chords and jazz was starting to whisper in her ear.
I can’t wait for the next set.
Wotta review! Wotta dame! I have no problem with the folky era and am looking forward to hearing this. Sterling work, Tig!
Excellent review. My copies are due to drop today. A big fan of her first album so looking forward to delving deep into this period.
Once again, one of Mr Tigger’s reviews has made me reconsider a “firm” decision not to buy something…
Add it to the never-ending list of “it will look good on the shelves” box sets. I’ve listened to large chunks of it and it’s interesting but IMHO far from essential. Not helped by my dislike of Joni’s early “too pure for me” voice. Hissing of Summer Lawns changed all that – a run of albums followed that is as fine as anybody’s in the pop music canon.
ps the Cameron Crowe interview is available all over the internet (legally).
pps another fine review Tiggs of music I don’t really like
Curmudgeon of Wrongness
No curmudgeon me, just bemoaning the fact our ace reviewer keeps choosing stuff not to my own taste. I’ve sent him copies of Taylor Swift, Amy Macdonald, Jeff Tweedy and Letter To You but no luck as yet.
That Taylor Swift record is so, well, unmemorable Lodes. I really can’t see why you are so enthusiastic.
Pah, it’s a belter and especially so after her last couple of over-produced efforts. Each to his own, eh?
It’s really not…I have most of those melodies floating around my consciousness in rotation all the time. It’s sublime.
I saw this for a bargain price (about 50% off) earlier this week and started warming up my credit card. I then had a word with myself and decided it was stuff I didn’t need especially as I only own about 4 or 5 of her albums, it would look nice on the shelf but I doubt I would play it very often. I should get that other box set first, probably
“I only own four or five of her albums”
AfterWord t-shirt
“It would look nice on the shelf”
Afterword t-shirt
‘Does nobody think of the poor shelves?’
‘While My Kallax Gently Weeps’. . .
“Gonna need a bigger shelf.”
“The Sound of Groaning Billys”
“Afterword t-shirt”
Afterword t-shirt
Great review as ever, Tigger. As an adjunct, further examples of her paintings, sketches and handwritten lyrics (beautiful, as you’d expect) are to be found in the absolutely gorgeous and cherishable book Morning Glory On The Vine.
Not a Joni man myself but a Tigger review is a joy to read, he could review anything and I’d read it – Right Said Fred b-sides box set, Johnny Hates Jazz Archives Volume 10 The Early Years, anything.
That Right Said Fred B-Sides set…’Deeply Dipping’. You’re welcome.
The cover art is somewhat informal.
Just had a quick listen and I am really enjoying her singing in the earlier recordings on some of my favourite folk songs- Dark As A Dungeon and Fare Thee Well especially. I am reminded a lot of Sandy Denny. Certainly a lot less trill and vibrato a la Joan Baez than I was fearing.
“Joan Baez vibrato” (shudders)
This is true. Early on, she sounds as though she simply enjoys singing those songs. She’s having fun, without a care in the world.
She has made the right choice with the vinyl options. That first disc and the Canterbury House sets do stand individual scrutiny and are well worth repeated listens.
(Thanks for all the kind comments, everybody. I do appreciate them.)
Should add well written piece as usual, I think it is a pure sexism for anybody to think “she made it on the back of David Crosby”, she has far more talent than him (especially in songwriting) and he was pretty peripheral, apart from fancying her. Not even worth mentioning in your review.
In 1971, when she had released her masterpiece, Blue, to general critical indifference at the time, Rolling Stone printed an article slut-shaming her as The Old Lady Of The Year. They ignored her music and focussed on her sex life. There was definitely a faction that claimed she won a contract with Reprise purely because of her relationship with Crosby. To his credit, he always expressed nothing but admiration for her art and refuted any suggestion she would not have made it if not for him.
Are you really saying Blue is her “masterpiece”?
Only reason any boy bought Blue was to impress a girl.
I think it’s now regarded as such. Court And Spark was her real breakthrough. My personal favourite is Hejira, as you well know.
As we all know, Hejira is the third best album ever made. Blue is roughly 1,648th.
Hejira is one of the few albums I have to listen to in entirety, rather than hopscotching across tracks. I would happily have the intro to Song For Sharon as the last sound I hear before I die.
Just give us the word, slots!
I agree with you on that Lodey – the perceived wisdom is that Blue was her masterpiece. I think For the Roses was her first great album and would choose Court and Spark as her masterpiece. This is a great review by Tiggerlion but it is not the period that interests me musically but historically yes.
Well, yes. A load of old nonsense (and she had a much longer relationship with Nash)
Surely he made it on her back. O.
I seem to recall reading Crosby saying his main role on the first album was to name himself producer in order to prevent it from being “produced”.
an absolutely cracking review
Excellent review. I’m not sure I will flash out for the physical box set, but it is on streaming sites so will give it a listen…..then buy the bloody box set I expect!
I get positively excited when I see Tigs has written a review. I’m never disappointed. Normally I eschew earnest singer-songwriters but Joni Mitchell’s work is so wonderful it walks right through my resistance. I love that she has aged and embraced it; fuck showbiz youth cults. The thought of a boxed set of all the unreleased stuff from “Court and Spark” to the “Shadow and Light” tour: wow.
I’m very much looking forward to his review of Pink Floyd’s The Wall that he solemnly promised. It wasn’t until I got as far as the word “Joni” that I realised this wasn’t it.