Joni mitchell biography reckless daughter

This lack of life on the part of the author seems linked to the lack of life breathed into a subject who has never before been accused of seeming lifeless. But more often, his offerings are trite, if not downright specious. Yaffe undercuts his subject in other ways as well, including unsourced speculation at various points, even when it flies in the face of on-record statements, as if he wants to include certain famous and certainly famously disproven joni mitchells biography reckless daughter in the book to ensure that they were part of the historical record.

The endnotes suggest that Yaffe relied on interviews far more than any archival material in writing Reckless Daughterand besides being lazy, this approach also causes real distortion in the narrative at points. Fortunately, Joni Mitchell herself was interviewed at length, and her voice in direct quotes is probably the single best aspect of the book; just getting to hear her casual phrasing, wordings, and tossed-off lines is a treat.

But the worthwhile anecdotes, the great Joni quotes, feel like breadcrumbs not dropped as a trail but merely fallen to the earth more or less at random after being tossed indiscriminately upwards. The structure, to the extent that it exists, is the most rudimentary imaginable; Yaffe intends to proceed straightforward chronologically, yet still manages to make a muddled jumble of events, overlapping timelines without apparent intent.

This carelessness is pervasive. There are missing words, misused punctuation marks, awkward phrasings, factual errors, sloppy misattribution of dialogue; the endnotes are skimpy, the index is incomplete and indifferent. Taken in combination with his apparent lack of rigor in researching Mitchell—biography is a genre in which I would always be happy to see some of the work in the writing—none of this is surprising after a while; while Reckless Daughter lacks anything in the way of an authorial point-of-view, it at least has an obvious reason for existing: Yaffe pretty clearly wanted to be the first in the market with a major, substantial Joni Mitchell biography.

Bruce Hatton. Plenty of emotional baggage there, but that seemed to provide the perfect fuel for her creative fire. Indeed, many of her best seeringly autobiographical songs are set in the wake of personal disasters, usually revolving around her turbulent love life. It was only in the s when, for a while, she was happily married to her bassist, Larry Klein, that the creative well seemed to run dry.

Also, Joni was far more musically diverse and eclectic than the aforementioned counterparts. Whereas they usually stuck to tried and tested blues and country formats, her influences extended into jazz and even ballet. During the 70s and 80s, on her albums and live tours she was accompanied by the cream of jazz-rock players, including Wayne Shorter, Larry Carlton, Robben Ford and Pat Metheny She frequently thought of herself as a painter first and songwriter second but, whereas, her music was usually ahead of the curve, she eschewed then current artistic forms like abstract expressionism in favour of older masters such as Van Gogh, Rousseau, early Picasso, Klimt and Magritte.

Overall — eight years in the making — this is a biography befitting the greatest female singer-songwriter of her generation. I have plenty of mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I loved all the stories around Joni, about musicians around her, who she worked with, the process of each album. That part was great. On the other hand, the author chooses to tell things that I find invasive, not just of her own privacy, but of everyone she crossed paths with.

I guess I would have loved to read a memoir by her, not this guy telling you what she is like. There is a very thin line in biographies, the personality of the biographer is important, and this author seems to like gossip just a bit too much. Still, there is love for her work here, so that makes it worth it. Ron S. Mitchell gets the book she deserves; detailed, balanced, and while full of respect and admiration inclusive of actions, events and statements that do not paint the lady of the canyon in a flattering light.

The author's deep understanding of music allows a depth not normally found in biographies of this sort. Expect feeling a need to work your way carefully through Mitchell's catalogue while reading, and once you've finished this. I have really enjoyed reading something other than a thriller for a change. This book, while no great shakes as a biography, was very interesting in terms of its content — i.

She is one of my heroes. What a remarkable lady! And a through but not wonky look at all her albums. Has some pictures and end notes. Joni Mitchell's first album was released in March, I was an off and on student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, dropping out and then enrolling again.

Joni mitchell biography reckless daughter

Eventually a couple friends of mine helped me figure out her open tunings and how to finger the chords. I finally saw her perform live in the very coffeehouse where I met my first husband and where we would get married in April, She played "Little Green. I cannot describe how much all of this influenced my life. Reading this account of her life, which has its problems but is the best biography about Joni so far, was such a personal experience for me that I find it hard to fully express all that it meant to me.

I finished it a few weeks ago and am still processing all the memories and feelings stirred up. If I ever get to that part of my own memoir, having read this year by year, album by album account will help immensely. Thank you David Yaffe. So I will only say that if you were a woman of heart and mind from the late 60s onward and at any point fell in love with Joni, you will want to read this book.

Especially if you lived a life of conflict between your dreams for yourself and the demands made on you as a woman, you will find much to ponder. It is all here. I think music journalism is just not my thing. The writing was engaging and interesting. Each chapter told the story of one of her albums, essentially, in chronological order from her first album on.

Her childhood was also very interesting. However, I did lose interest right around the time that I had to return my copy to the library. I just love her music and wanted to enjoy the music — I was less interested in being voyeuristic about her life or her art, as much as I was interested and thought that the knowledge would improve my appreciation for her songs, that turned out to not be the case.

Yaffe je prikazao oba lica Joni Mitchell. Od svih knjiga o Joni koje sam imao u rukama, ova je najtemeljnija pa je "must" za sve prave fanove. Every reader has their own experience of the artist. It is the album I heard first and through which I discovered her others. Elaboration on just why it's my favorite album will have to wait for my own biography An openair concert, Joni complained after a few songs that too many people were wandering around and left the stage for 30 minutes, so we could "settle down".

She came back, played a few more songs and complained, "I guess I'm just pooped. I felt ripped-off. Life, for me, got so much better than that. Reading about the tour now, I can conjecture that perhaps she was drained by some of the polio-related fatigue she was experiencing at that time. At the time, for me, I experienced disappointment.

I found this oppressive. It is not an opinion I agree with, though, in the gatefold insert from Miles Of Aisles album which I cut from the copy I borrowed from my local library and saved, Joni looks particularly radiant. Joni is, and deserves acknowledgement primarily as, a musical genius. Yaffe, justly, does elaborate on Mitchell's inate phenomenal musical ability.

It was enlightening and inspiring to read about Mitchell's creative path through what can be a industry built on rote procedures for hits and blockbusters throughout her career. There is much of Joni's personality that could have been explored deeper. Does she really have an "inner black man" that allows her to masquerade as the zip coon character with impunity?

Who decides? What's behind that animosity she holds for Jackson Browne? Reading this book will have you playing songs already heard a million times listening now for something new. You will be scrolling through your favorite digital jukebox for songs of hers that have so far eluded your ears. Well, that happened to me, anyway I am a child of the 70's and reading this book was like checking up on one of those distant friends you have a picture of in your yearbook.

We were never close, Joni and I, but I surely wish her well. I never even had one of her albums, cassettes or CDs. The story of her child given up pulled at my heartstrings. So glad they've gotten together. When you give up things thinking it's the necessary thing, and life unfolds and then life exotica fades away. This is not judgment.

How many times have I wanted to go back to that joni mitchell biography reckless daughter in time and have a serious chat with the girl I was. I got the feeling Joni might have too. I do catch myself humming Both Sides Now. I blame it on this joni mitchell biography reckless daughter. Author 37 books followers. During the rest of the eighties and throughout the nineties Mitchell would release a new record every few years and I would always be all over it, right away.

It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! In Reckless Daughter, the music critic David Yaffe tells the remarkable, heart-wrenching story of how the blond girl with the guitar became a superstar of folk music in the s, a key figure in the Laurel Canyon music scene of the s, and the songwriter who spoke resonantly to, and for, audiences across the country.

A Canadian prairie girl, a free-spirited artist, Mitchell never wanted to be a pop star. She was nothing more than "a painter derailed by circumstances," she would explain. And yet, she went on to become a talented self-taught musician and a brilliant bandleader, releasing album after album, each distinctly experimental, challenging, and revealing.

It is touching, mystifying, and revealing in equal parts. Reckless Daughter is nothing less than the definitive statement on the life and work of an artist who defies definition. With Reckless Daughter, he makes a figure as iconic as Joni Mitchell feel wholly new. I dare you. It's one of those purposefully italicized lines that compels the reader to know more, to follow the rest of the story.

She collaborates with Charles Mingus for a album of mainly his melodies and her words that remains divisive nearly 40 years later. Yaffe cites Louis Menand's "The Iron Law of Stardom" concept, where stardom could not extend beyond a period of three years. By the time she was 37, Mitchell had been part of the Laurel Canyon scenethe goddess of Court and Spark and Hejiraand she was still moving through the '80s, a particularly difficult time for her.

Mitchell would almost die from a car crash inand the subsequent music would prove appropriately angry and challenging. Was she out of time or were the times still trying to catch up with her? The song "Ethiopia", from 's Dog Eat Dog earned a shout out from an equally outspoken female artist:. They had never met before, but Joni had respect for her and her work There she was, the great and notoriously hard to please Nina Simone, past her prime, but still, Simone lifted her arms like a Y, approached Joni, and said 'Joni Mitchell!

Joni Mitchell! InMitchell performs at Roger Waters' The Wall in Berlin, and that old competitive anger that was probably always bubbling under the surface came to a boil. It was a star-studded affair that comes off very well on record and DVD. For Mitchell, though, the personality clashes were sour: "The childish competitiveness, the lack of professionalism - I don't have a peer group.

All of them, these spoiled children. Mitchell claims she " And everything I worried about then has come true. Her voice was lower, weathered, and weaker from many decades of chain smoking. Yaffe offers a touching note from Larry Klein Mitchell's ex-husband who remained a professional colleague about sessions for Both Sides Now that speak deeply to the passing of time:.

Maybe they were crying because for the first time, they were hearing what the song was really about Yaffe's Reckless Daughter is a lush, complex, carefully researched examination of one of music's most interesting living legends. Yaffe balances his perspective very carefully between being a fan of his subject's creative process and frustration over her inconsistencies, her elaborations, and her ability to spin a tale without full allegiance to truth.

This is a full portrait of an artist who carved a place for herself in the music industry and managed to walk away from it with more than her dignity fully intact. There may be more to follow, such as books that salaciously and unabashedly cover just her love affairs, but RecklessDaughter will most likely prove to be the best, most comprehensive look at all sides of this powerful and still meaningful, still influential musical and artistic presence.

Copyright protected material on this website is used in accordance with 'Fair Use', for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis, and will be removed at the request of the copyright owner s. Added to Library on November 16, Log in to make a comment. Library of Articles. Library: Articles. From his first meeting with Mitchell inas she publicized her most recent album, Yaffe became a fan of the woman and her approach to work and life: "She loved to be provocative.

Yaffe paints a picture of Mitchell as this fun-loving girl growing up in a "mad men" era late-'50s North America, dancing to Chuck Berry and Little Richard: "She called herself a 'good-time Charlie' and her school friends still confirm it. She wrote the song, and the mood of her recording is radically different: "