There has been a fine conversation on social media various about Joni Mitchell in the last few days.
I can't remember how it started but lots of people have been drawn in and are commenting and we are all in a state of huge excitement about a forthcoming radio programme (September apparently) to which Linda Grant has contributed. Linda wrote this piece about Joni a couple of years ago when Joni's health had us all worried, and if I'm honest still does because Linda articulates something that I find hard to express myself. It's all in there, I'm not going to grab quotes or paraphrase.
But yes, sixth form common room at Nonsuch Girls, one copy of the LP Blue doing the rounds, being able to take it home on the 408 bus (we were the generation that clutched LPs under our arms weren't we) and listen for one night. I expect I recorded it via a microphone on to the old reel-to-reel tape recorder that my brother and I eventually exhausted into extinction, and I would have pleaded for the whole house to be quiet for the time that it took to play through.
As so Joni and I have chugged along together down the years. There was a time when I missed or was too broke to buy the albums; busy with babies in the 1980s and work in the 1990s, but a few years ago I caught up. I was at a friend's house and there was her Joni collection...where had I been to miss Chalk Marks in a Rainstorm or Turbulent Indigo? Whilst the received opinion is that Joni's music changed post Hejira that didn't stop me being a completist, but if I'm honest I haven't listened to these later albums properly.
Anyway there I was in Waterstones a while back when I saw this on the magazine shelf...
Now I can't say I've ever bought a fanzine...or maybe I did when I was a teenager but not now surely, except I picked this one up and realised it was a bit different.
Then I gathered together all my Joni CDs...
...and had a dig around in the LP cupboard and quickly blessed my nerd-like qualities for tucking this 1991 article into my copy of Blue...
I'm going to have a bit of a blog break through August, occasional pictures rather than words and get on with some stitching, so no prizes for guessing what I'll be listening to as I sew. I'll start at the beginning with Song for a Seagull and work my way through in chronological order with an informed listen... who knows maybe a Joni quilt will emerge, we'll see. I've started a notebook anyway which is always a good sign.
Meanwhile...over to you... favourite Joni album, track, words, moments, memories...
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