A Male Fan of Joni Mitchell

   Here is a statement that should probably be uncontroversial: At present, Taylor Swift is the world's most popular musical artist. In the words of the great Paul Simon, "Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts." I mean, if we're talking about solo artists who are generational icons, there's been Sinatra, Elvis, Michael Jackson, and now Taylor Swift. Feel free to argue amongst yourselves about this, but if the criteria is global hegemony, then those 4 artists are tough to beat. And if I may add another observation about Ms. Swift: her audience is predominantly female.

    In this respect, Swift continues a certain tradition of (largely white) confessional singer-songwriter types, whose productions are written both from and for a distinctly feminine perspective. Think Carly Simon, Carole King, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan, Billie Eilish, among many others. 

    Interestingly, the tropes we associate with this sub-genre seem not to apply to its founder and godmother, as it were—namely, the incomparable Joni Mitchell, whose popularity, influence and critical reputation transcend the categories that constrain so many of her heirs. And yet Mitchell is in many ways among the most feminine of popular singers. You notice this instantly if you try to sing her songs—they are not just pitched well into the mezzo-soprano range (during her prime) but acrobatically so. In her prime she could hold melodies in the fifth octave without strain. It is impossible for most males to replicate this.

    And I think this is not reducible to the physical fact of Mitchell being able to access a higher register in her singing. Listen to the dizzying way she runs up and down the scale in the chorus to "All I Want"—as she sings "when I think of your kisses my mind see-saws"—and to how her modulation seems to realize the meaning of the words. This technique allowed her to compress an astonishing intensity of feeling into her vocal runs, which few male singers can equal. Freddie Mercury, who was possessed of a titanic voice, was compelled to resort to camp with his more operatic stylings; the Buckleys, father and son, too often sounded self-indulgent. Hell, I've played her music on the keyboard for years in bands, and solo. I can't even whistle in the range that this woman sings, let alone sing her arrangements verbatim.  

    It is not incidental that the one notable male singer to successfully cover Mitchell was Prince, who possessed one of the widest vocal ranges in recorded music. But, of course, a performance is more than just technique, and it must be added that Prince's natural androgyny allowed him to capture the sense of Mitchell's singing without seeming like parody.

    Mitchell's distinctly feminine approach to her music even extends to her guitar playing. Though an enormously accomplished player, she was compelled, rather than demonstrating technical proficiency, to devise an idiosyncratic technique, married to a variety of unusual tunings, to accommodate a hand weakened by a childhood bout of polio. Because of this, her approach to guitar playing stressed delicacy rather than the expressive histrionics associated with her male counterparts. 

    For those less familiar, Joni Mitchell’s imperial phase roughly breaks down as follows (and I'd like to thank David Polansky for his insight with this list): 

• Embryonic genius already capable of producing transcendently great music (Clouds, 1969);
• Fully-formed singer-songwriter working within but not limited to the prevailing folk idioms (Ladies of the Canyon, 1970, and Blue, 1971);
• Creator of sophisticated adult pop music that freely draws upon both folk and jazz instrumentation, while employing innovative studio techniques (For the Roses, 1972, and Court and Spark, 1974);
• Experimental artist stretching the boundaries of conventional song forms without (yet) sacrificing her innate gift of melody (The Hissing of Summer Lawns, 1975, and Hejira, 1976).

    These days I find myself returning most often to Blue and Hejira, for the way these two albums seem to bookend the brilliant emotional intensity of her early work with the increasingly complex arrangements of her later work.

    Throughout, Mitchell’s songs are profoundly feminine in their lyrical sensibilities (much in the way that Dylan's can be extremely male). Blue (my personal favorite) and For the Roses in particular address the female experience of being in and out of love. And for this she paid a price that her male counterparts didn’t. Rolling Stone magazine (which was always a shallower and tawdrier publication than its overhyped legacy might suggest) notoriously referred to her as the "Queen of El Lay", and published a two-page chart detailing a network of romantic/sexual relationships among the Laurel Canyon set and various industry hangers-on, with Mitchell herself at the center. I may have missed it, but I don't ever remember Rolling Stone doing a "King of El Lay" feature. But I digress...

    And yet the dramatis personae with which Mitchell had both dalliances and serious love affairs included a remarkable range of artists, including David Crosby, Graham Nash, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Sam Shepard, and Leonard Cohen. 

    As she gets into her wilder mid-70s period, males seem to drop more out of the picture, and her femininity becomes increasingly self-sufficient, if not frighteningly ego-centric. But despite being shorn of nearly all conventional female singer-songwriter trappings, Hejira remains a deeply feminine work. Mitchell remains a searcher, not unlike Walt Whitman, but her object of desire has become more obscure. Supported by Jaco Pastorious' multitracked, and incredible, fretless bass, she reproduces one of popular music’s great—historically male—themes on songs like "Amelia" and "Coyote": the wanderer who cannot be tied down by domestic comforts. 

    One doesn't wish to reduce Mitchell's colossal artistry to her physical gifts, but she never was quite the same after a million-and-a-half cigarettes pulled her voice down into the contralto range, where it has since remained. Unlike Dylan, she was unable to find a home for her later voice (though of course his was never the equal of hers in their respective primes).

    But what explains how her critical and popular appeal leap-frogged the boundaries that have hemmed in similar artists, including many she herself influenced? Perhaps ironically, much of it has to do with her intense self-absorption. But it must be allowed that her egoistic qualities were cut by an incredible genius. Artistic brilliance after all can make self-examination compelling rather than merely solipsistic—like the huge, intellectual gulf between, say, Montaigne's journals and, oh I don't know...this dopey website!

    But also: from her romantic era through her itinerant wanderer period, Mitchell never displayed the kind of consciously grating audience-flattering we associate with her Lilith Fair descendants. Even on her earlier albums she sounds like a woman in search not of an audience but of her male equal. Of course, she never found him.

    Obviously, I'm a huge fan of Joni Mitchell. But I was asked why I was taking the time to write something about her, as she fades out of our collective memory at the age of 80. Well, one reason was that during a conversation not long ago with someone I've known for decades told me that Joni Mitchell was an over-rated hack who had no business being in the Hall-of-Fame. I know, I know...not ALL of my friends are smart. This gentleman is living proof that a college education is no guarantee of an expanded mind. And he reminded me once again (no doubt without meaning to), that not all opinions are intelligent ones. So again, because I'm a dork, I had to write about her.

    The other reason was what I just mentioned above; she is fading from the collective memory, and except for accepting a lifetime achievement award at this years' Grammy's, she will probably never grace a musical stage again; and in a culture that is obsessed with the "what have you done for me lately" mentality, I thought it important to remind people, especially younger people, what a genius Joni Mitchell was, and is. Fortunately, at the above mentioned Grammy Awards, Ms. Mitchell gave us one last hurrah with a haunting version of what is probably her most popular and most covered song...Both Sides Now (I offer this link from 2000 which I think is the best live version of the updated arrangement.) While originally written and recorded when she was much younger, this version is sung by a woman who has seen and experienced 'Both Sides' of life, as it were. And we are richer for having heard it. 

     David Crosby once said, referring to that Laurel Canyon crowd of Jackson Browne, CSN, The Eagles, and many others, "Joni is the best of us." Mr. Crosby was right.

write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com