Happy Birthday Joni !

Happy Birthday to Joni Mitchell - a gentleman doesn't reveal a lady's age but I will just say she is 2 years older than me (mine is on Dec 7) and she looks great in those recent photos. Here is the cover art for her second album CLOUDS - I used to have this on my hall wall when I shared a rambling apartment with two friends back in '69-'70. As per the Joni label, I met her purely by chance in 1972 and we walked along Kings Road, Chelsea, London, having a pleasant conversation. I might dig out COURT & SPARK or WILD THINGS RUN FAST or THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS later ....


Here are also some other great albums from that '68-'69 time that I liked a lot, being in my early 20s. BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS album was terrific with songs I liked such as "Sometimes In Winter", "And When I Die", "Spinnging Wheel" etc / The Band's MUSIC FROM BIG PINK was played all the time when I was sharing with some hippie pals who were taking lots of acid, we went to the Doors concert and others, I saw the Band in concert in 1970 and loved their other albums too and songs like "Whispering Pines", "Long Black Veil", "Lonesome Suzie", etc. Then there was The Doors - WAITING FOR THE SUN was not their best album, but with songs like "Hello I Love You" "Love Street" etc it was pretty good. Strange Days indeed .... Tom Rush's first album THE CIRCLE GAME - marvellous to get it again recently - was spellbinding with those early songs of Joni Mitchell ("Tin Angel", "The Circle Game", the wonderful "Urge For Going") and James Taylor, among others. The sound of 1968, as well as Cream, Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Laura Nyro and "Stoned Soul Picnic", Sly's "There's A Riot Going On" etc. Then came those first Elton John albums - TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION, MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER ("Tiny Dancer" etc); that era of gatefold albums, Joni's cover art always being essential, like THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS, HEJIRA, DON JUAN'S RECKLESS DAUGHTER etc.

I got to know Elton then too, after I moved to Chelsea in 1972 when he would be in the local record store every Saturday afternoon, and at Harrods as well. Stars just must have been more approachable in those days, without the entourages they all have now. That was the '70s - as Joni and James Taylor and Carole King and others reached their zenith - I discovered Tim Buckley's fantastic, elastic voice, particularly the GREETINGS FROM L.A. album, right (and then later his son Jeff) then in the '80s we embraced clubland and disco (The Pet Shop Boys, Joan Armatrading, Annie Lennox and Eurythmics, electro, soul grooves, et al) but also still going back to my roots... that late 60s was also the time of The Loving Sponful - those delicious songs by John Sebastian like "Warm Baby", "Did you ever have to make up your mind?" etc, and that California sound of The Mamas and the Papas and the the whole Byrds, Eagles and LA sound... Paul Simon's "I Am A Rock" is a particular memory from 1966 when I was sharing an apartment in Bayswater (along with early Dylan and Joan Baez), and The Supremes "You Can't Hurry Love" as I moved to Clapham, sharing with my best pal Stan and we discovered Tampla Motown and Aretha Franklin and Atlantic and went to that Otis Redding Show, Nancy Wilson and others.

I kept faith with Joni too, I practically wore out her 2000 album of standards (including two of her own) BOTH SIDES NOW - and she's still smoking! Then there have been those fascinating covers of her lyrics by the likes of George Michael ("Edith and the Kingpin"), Brian Kennedy ("A Case Of You"), Ian Shaw (a whole album of them), Ronan Keating's "River" etc. as well as the Herbie Hancock album and her own recent "Shine".

Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean

I just missed James Dean. I was 9 in 1955 and just starting to get interested in movies and magazines and popular culture but I was too late for Dean's original impact but remember the fuss afterwards - magazines about him, the movies being constantly revived and how he influenced those who followed ... I was just in time though for Elvis (the first record I ever held was a cousin's 78 of "Jailhouse Rock" and I loved him in LOVING YOU and those early films and listening to his hits on the radio and those picture of him in the army etc .... my real 'moment' though came when I was 17 in 1963 and the arrival of The Beatles - I had the hair and the "look" with the boots, the black sweater etc and that first album was amazing. But back to the '50s and James Dean ...

EAST OF EDEN and GIANT were (and still are) monumental pictures helmed as they are by Kazan and George Stevens at their peak and have that rich Warner Bros look and feel, with great soundtracks too. When I was in London in my late teens revival houses always had good runs of Dean films - it was terrific to be able to see EDEN on the large screen. Dean has so many terrific moments in it (from that electrifying start with him waiting on the kerb for Jo Van Fleet (tremendous, as ever) to go by), he projects his vulnerability perfectly, I love his scenes with Julie Harris but those scenes where the father rejects his money and the climax can be cringe-inducing now. One feels for poor Richard Davalos - it is a good role but he is so over-shadowed by Dean... It is a handsome production using only part of Steinbeck's book and the captures the early California of Salinas and Monterey.

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE seems lightweight by comparison despite being brilliantly directed by Nick Ray and that red jacket image of Dean here is as iconic as Marilyn's white dress (see for instance how Joni Mitchell uses it and Jimmy in her SHADOWS AND LIGHT concert dvd). It is of course the essence of teen watching and relating to Jimmy, Natalie and Sal here. Dean though could be anything we wanted - was he gay? or bisexual? - you could just project your fantasies onto him... he was the lost little boy, the best friend one never had. One of the most iconic images is that one of him walking in the rain - he certainly knew how to project the image he wanted...

He looks amazing in GIANT too - he and Elizabeth together look timelessly iconic and beautiful. It is a perfect Warner drama from Ferber's book starting in lush Maryland as Bick and Leslie (Rock and Liz are iconic here too) meet and marry and travel back to Texas and the Reata ranch and Dean's Jett as the surly ranch-hand of Little Reata, left to him by Luz, where he strikes oil - the older Jett is certainly an oddity but Dean carries it off (as the film meanders on with the new generation of Carroll Baker, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo and their idea of the older Hudson and Taylor).

Back then it must have been a rite of passage to go through the whole James Dean thing in one's teens or twenties, just like one did about Marilyn Monroe: the books, the films, the posters ... the legends about him in New York and Hollywood. it is nice to remember all that now. For someone who died so young the amount of photographs is amazing - all those images by Dennis Stock back in Fairmount, Indiana; dance class with Eartha Kitt, playing his bongos, his apartment, clubbing with Ursula Andress, with Pier Angeli etc.

There is that amazing story too by Alec Guinness about when he went to Hollywood in 1955 (to make THE SWAN with Grace Kelly) and his meeting with Dean and going for a ride on his motorcycle and then seeing that car and having the premonition of the disaster ahead and warning Dean not to drive it.

It was good too to get the dvd editions of the films with all those extras: the screen tests (including that one with Newman), costume tests, documentaries etc. There are some Dean songs too - the best probably being The Eagles "James Dean" on their "On The Border" album.

It is still an amazing story how this strange young actor burst out of the conformist early '50s establishing his name in the theatre and then in little over a year making three big films and being gone before the second one even opens! Like Marilyn he will always though be forever young, unlike Brando and Clift growing older and disappointing us - but we will always have Cal Trask, Jim Stark and Jett Rink. And then of course we had Altman's film of the play about the GIANT reunion, COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN. Amazingly, he would be 80 now....

Shadows and Light

Its so super now to have the full concert dvd of Joni Mitchell's 1980 SHADOWS AND LIGHT tour. Its a great concert in a sunny California afternoon in 1979 with Joni looking great and enjoying herself, with that incredible band she had then: Jaco Pastorius on bass, Pat Metheny on guitar, Michel Brecker on sax, Don Alias on drums and Lyle Mays on keyboards. The band play Joni's songs with terrific energy and its just a buzz. Joni's 70s albums introduced me to Jaco and Metheny so I got their albums as well, and still play them. There are some nice video moments and nifty camerawork here, on songs like "Coyote" and "Amelia". I loved the album version of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" which I used to play all the time, not only for the music but that vivid imagery.

This concert captures Joni at an interesting time - she had released an album a year since 1968 - we had that great trio in the early 70s: BLUE, FOR THE ROSES and (it has to be my special favourite) COURT AND SPARK. They were the soundtrack to my life then, as the Beatles and Stones had been to the '60s. Then the first live double: MILES OF AISLES, and then that next influential three (which may though have alienated some of her earlier fan base) HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS, HEJIRA and DON JUAN'S RECKLESS DAUGHTER - they all still sound amazing today. After MINGUS and SHADOWS AND LIGHT her imput slowed down as she had married - WILD THINGS RUN FAST in '82 has a lot of nice stuff as she celebrates her new happiness - and had 2 new songs I particularly liked: "Man to Man" and "Be Cool". The later albums were less commercial but there is lots I like on them, particularly NIGHT RIDE HOME. Her 2000 album BOTH SIDES NOW was and is spell-binding, as she revisits songs like the title track and her mature voice does justice to those great jazz standards like "I Wish I Were in Love Again" and "Don't Go To Strangers". Its sometimes nice to go back and put on those earlier ones too, particularly the laid back LADIES OF THE CANYON in 1970. That used to be my "Sunday morning record" back in those days... it was also good seeing her as part of the ensemble at that recording of THE WALL in Berlin organised by Pink Floyd vetern Roger Waters in 1990 where she does those two tracks "The Tide is Turning" and "Goodbye Blue Sky". Its now on dvd.

Joni now has been very outspoken about the music business in all those interviews and profiles in magazines in recent years, she probably won't be recording or touring any more, she paints a lot now, but she will always be THE female singer/songwriter with that great combination of voice, lyrics and music - which are all so distinctive. She is the template for legions of girls with guitars... and she still smokes non-stop too !

Joni now gets covered a lot - I love George Michael's version of "Edith and the Kingpin", plus Ronan Keating's version of "River" and that Ian Shaw album of covers with that delightful "Barangrill". She must make a good living from her back catalogue which are all still available and must get discovered every year. She never played the hit single game though - perhaps only "Big Yellow Taxi" is her enduring hit single - though I did like "You Turn Me On I'm A Radio". Janet Jackson's "Got Till its Gone" is a lovely tribute and very funky with those re-mixes.

A Joni story: I met her purely by chance in 1972. She was touring that year with the young Jackson Brown and they had done a concert with bad sound problems at London's Festival Hall (I had also seen her there in 1970, a very reverential concert when she was the reigning hippy princess). A week or so after this 1972 concert I was on a bus going down Kings Road in Chelsea, London to visit a friend who had just moved there, and while the bus was stalled in traffic I was looking out the window and noticed someone who looked familiar looking in a shop window. What it someone I knew? I was sure I saw him recently. I then realised it was Jackson Brown so I wondered if Joni was with him. Just then a long haired blonde in a safari suit came out of the shop and they walked on together. Without seeng her face I knew it had to be Joni. Without thinking I got off the bus and began walking behind them. He suddenly ran on ahead leaving her on her own so I said "Joni Mitchell?" and she turned and smiled and was actually very friendly. This was after BLUE and before FOR THE ROSES so she was quite well known and revered by her fans, but was not that famous to the general public so could easily walk around cities and travel undisturbed. I was 26 then and she 2 years older - so we walked along having a pleasant conversation about the recent concert. They were trying to find an art gallery before it closed and I knew where it was and walked her along to it. One thing she said was that she could not run very well after that polio she had as a child. So that's a pleasant memory of being young in London and walking along Kings Road with Joni Mitchell. The friend I was visiting (who also liked Joni) would not believe I had just been walking along with her. Later that year I moved to Chelsea myself, just off Kings Road, we loved FOR THE ROSES when it came out that winter. I also got to know the early Elton John then as he often visited the record store run in Kings Road by disk jockey Noel Edmunds (who is now an annoying gameshow host!) - Elton would be in the shop several Saturday afternoons, signing records and chatting. I was once walking around Harrods store with him (Elton in a pink suit) and his manager John Reid, and saw several early concerts of his, one with Marc Bolan as guest - as we liked those early albums, particularly TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION and those songs like "Tiny Dancer".

Back to Joni: These days of course when performers have bodyguards and minders one would not dream of approaching them, but maybe we were more laid back back then. I went to her next concert when she was back in London in 1974 and it was the new jazzy Joni with the John Guerin band - I was in Italy at the time and dashed back across Europe by train from Milan to Paris and then to the ferry to Dover and got to London just in time for that evening concert - and somehow got a seat in the middle of the stalls. Perfect, just perfect.

She remains a brilliant lyricist, poignant, visceral, profound, moving, a brilliant musician and artist with that unique voice and phrasing. Those gatefold albums and songs like "A Case of You", "Good Friends", "Chinese Cafe", "For Free", "The Circle Game", "Marcie", "All I Want", "River", "A Strange Boy", "Tin Angel", "The Last Time I Saw Richard", "Both Sides Now", "Urge for Going", "Let The Wind Carry Me", "Down To You", "Chelsea Morning", "Car On a Hill" and "Just Like This Train" and "Peoples Parties" will always be important to me. That run of albums from SONG TO A SEAGULL in '68 rate from great to absolutely essential. In many ways she stands alone in popular music, with her reliance on unusual open tunings and jazz inflections... one of a handful of truly original and lasting figures to emerge in the past half century, often compared to Dylan of course, she is at least his equal. Her last album SHINE was well-received a year or so ago, as was Herbie Hancock's tribute album THE JONI LETTERS. That Tom Rush album THE CIRCLE GAME from '68 is also very nostalgic for me now, with its early covers of Joni and James Taylor numbers, a reminder of how we lived then in our twenties.

The recent book "Girls Like Us" by Sheila Weller is a must-have analysis of the lives, work and influence of Carole King, Joni and Carly Simon - recording Joni's journey from the prairies of Saskatoon to the laid back LA music scene of the '70s up to today. I also like that video collection of Joni's [pity its not on dvd] COME IN FROM THE COLD particularly the video for that song "Dancing Fool" where she is in a good mood, washing dishes at the sink and boogieing around the kitchen, playing with her cat and of course smoking. Delicious! Her website is very comprehensive too and well worth investigating.

Coming soon: that Doors concert in 1968, and meeting Freddie Mercury...