Joni Mitchell [Ladies Of The Canyon] Well this is obviously not the cover to Joni Mitchell's 'Ladies Of The Canyon', it's another one of those albums that i amalgamated together, two discs in a slimline case, and i posted the track listing on the back, though certainly not as good as Mitchell's Hejira [26th December 2010], but individual tracks have that stamp of genius that Mitchell can bring, she has the ability to transport you into her own world, a perfect lyricist, and the music's great too!.
Joni Mitchell is of course Canadian, born in 1943, now 67 years old, i can't believe she's 3 years away from 70!, she recorded this album in 1969-1970.
I'm surprised at how much of this album really moved me, tracks 1-3, 5, 7-8 & 10 are excellent, this time around i really appreciated the less well known tracks [5 & 7-8], there's some deep introspection in there, especially the complexity of 'The Priest', i've never listened to this track so intently before, how she conjures up feelings out of thin air, like some magician, but on this listen i have to fall back on my favourite track, track 2 'For Free', it's a tender story about a Clarinetist that plays for free on the sidewalk, while Joni Mitchell plays in stadiums for fortunes, and yet... she found his music so beautiful, even more so considering it's for free, it's a piano driven track, or rather just Joni and her piano, only towards the end a cello joins in [Teresa Adams], and the outro is naturally a jazzy clarinet solo [Paul Horn] [3:57-4:29], it's a touching song about the real world of music, rather than the commercial one which we seem to live in.
Here's Joni Mitchell singing 'For Free' on YouTube.
