Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell at Newport
Rhino
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Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s (almost) gone?
It was widely believed that Joni Mitchell’s Taming the Tiger (1998) might be her last studio album. But then she got the bug to put her stamp on some covers for Both Sides Now (2000), including two from her own catalog. She enjoyed reinterpreting her work so much, she churned out the orchestral double-disc Travelogue (2002). Okay, but this… this was to be her curtain call. And then it wasn’t. Mitchell’s muses started weaving Shine on their loom. When presented in 2007, it was accompanied by a complementary ballet even.
That seemed it would indeed serve as her swan song when Mitchell suffered a debilitating brain aneurysm in 2015. Such a stark reminder of mortality caused musical peers and inheritors alike to hold their breath. Her road to rehabilitation was long and low sloped. Infrequent reports of her progress learning to speak and play instruments trickled out from her inner circle. Walking remains a challenge.
On July 24, 2022, the closing set of the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island featured alt-country luminary Brandi Carlile with an intentional mislead. Imagine the roar of the audience when Carlile announced a surprise guest and Joni “I wish I had a river” Mitchell makes her way onto the platform to seat herself in a comfortably ornate, gold-framed throne.
Mitchell had not returned to this festival since 1969, nor had she mounted a full concert since 2000. Captured for posterity, this rare exhibition appears a year later as Joni Mitchell at Newport, her first new recording since Shine.
The bright disc begins with Carlile’s grandiose, teasing introduction and a venue-wide “Big Yellow Taxi” singalong. In this, the crowd’s decades-cultivated adoration, interrupted by uncertainty and peril, gives way to relief and euphoria trained on naught but the joyous moment before them. It is quite the moment.
As applies to any artist of Mitchell’s pedigree at this point in their career, there is little remaining need to show or prove. Among the all-star support surrounding her is Marcus Mumford on percussion, Wynonna Judd and Shooter Jennings on backgrounds, and as any video footage evinces, many, many more.
Watch Highlights from the Performance:
She is generous in sharing the spotlight with the stage crammed of her colleagues such as Celisse Henderson (“Help Me”), Taylor Goldsmith of folk-rock outfit Dawes (“Come in from the Cold,” “Amelia”), and of course her champion who co-produced At Newport with her, Brandi Carlile (“Carey,” “A Case of You”).
For “A Case of You,” from the seminal, beloved Blue (1971), Carlile carries its primary structure, dutifully awaiting Mitchell’s conscientious tandem harmonics beneath her. Mitchell elicits applause simply for taking a few lines of this classic on her own, exposing at once her surprising vocal strength and its tacitly endearing frailty.
The weathering of Mitchell’s voice is fondly reminiscent of the wearied patina on Billie Holiday’s Lady In Satin (1958). The chirpy soprano that once enamored us had descended to a fuller, womanly breadth by her critical resurgence Turbulent Indigo (1994). Where her speedy tremolo continued giving way to a smoky, knowing, alto warble, At Newport documents a new phase. Now the folk pacesetter brandishes a contralto with considerably gentler vibrato like a sturdy tree with many more rings.
That tree sways in the breeze of “Summertime” which Mitchell had previously recorded with Herbie Hancock for his 1998 release Gershwin’s World. Here, it’s pitched an appropriate whole-step lower, allowing Mitchell to deliver the standard entirely by her lonesome with only Ben Lusher on cascading piano accompaniment, haunting harmony by Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, and—constant as a northern star—Carlile’s familial encouragement.
After regaining her ability to walk, it is nothing short of a miracle for Mitchell to stand and dispatch “Just Like This Train” from Court and Spark (1974) as an instrumental electric guitar solo. After losing so many of her faculties all at once, she taught herself to play again watching her old performance videos, mimicking her custom tunings.
This process began in her home as musicians and vocalists came for the “Joni Jams” that were integral to her recovery. As she recounts the impetus behind writing “Amelia,” her thoughts are lucid, her words clear. When she sings on “Both Sides Now” that “something’s lost and something’s gained from living every day,” the resonance elicits the deserved reaction. Mitchell, who will become an octogenarian this November, bubbles giddy, girly laughter at each round of adulation meeting her Herculean effort.
At Newport is no commercial grasp, but instead a celebration of Joni Mitchell’s resilience, an affirmation of enduring love, and an audible record of her phoenix rise from near destruction.
Toward the end of the disc, “Shine” crests to an angelic, near-devotional finale. Ringing out her last note, Carlile declares with a wink, “We’re not gonna resolve it because Joni would never resolve it.” Mitchell’s famous chords invite curiosity, never auguring any actual end. Accordingly, she and her work persist unabated. At Newport reinforces what should already be known, which is never to count Joni Mitchell’s last anything.
Notable Tracks: “Amelia" | "Both Sides Now" | “Shine” | “Summertime”
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