Reckless Daughter: A barnstorming Joni Mitchell anthology
Hats off to barnstorming Barney Hoskyns for compiling new Joni Mitchell anthology Reckless Daughter, which is published in November.
I fell under Mitchell’s spell in my early teens at the behest of an older brother and was lucky enough to see her live in the gig-crowded year of 1974 at London’s New Victoria Theatre.
Even while punk raged I kept the faith; 1975’s The Hissing Of Summer Lawns and the following year’s Hejira are stone classics to which I constantly return, and not just for the peerless music. The designs by her own hand (Mitchell is an accomplished visual artist) and the fashion-sheen photography of Norman Seeff add to the allure.
I also love the fact that the former contains Mitchell’s use of the Burundi beat as the rhythm track on The Jungle Line, some three years before Malcolm McLaren picked up on its potential for pop in a Paris music library.
//Norman Seeff front cover portrait for Leonore Fleischer’s biography, Flash Books, 1976//
Hitherto, I’ve stuck to Leonore Fleischer’s Joni Mitchell as my literary touchstone (even though that book is 40 years old and long out of print), but Reckless Daughter aces it in every way.
Stand-out sections include Michael Gross’s review of a show at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island in 1976 for Swank, Johnny Black’s essay on the Court & Spark song Free Man In Paris (which appeared in Blender in 2004) and a previously unpublished transcript of a 90s Hoskyns and Mitchell conversation.
//Outer gatefold, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Elektra, 1975//
//From the Seeff session for the Hejira sleeve, 1976//
Here’s a great 1996 Letterman performance of one of my favourites, Just Like This Train from 1974’s Court & Spark:
And this takes me back – gasp – 42 years. I’m there, sitting with my mate Matthew, a brother, a sister and their pals, all of us enthralled on a night in Victoria:
Reckless Daughter: A Joni Mitchell Anthology is published by Constable on November 3. Order your copy here.
Barney Hoskyns is editorial director of Rock’s Back Pages, the online library of pop journalism. Visit RBP here.