Joni Mitchell: Court and Spark

Why it took this long to get to listening to Joni Mitchell is an interesting question because she's certainly been someone who's been on the radar for a long time—the same could be said for Neil Young or Brian Eno, the Rolling Stones and others who've finally been on the playlist lately.  For many people, the obvious place to start is Blue, Mitchell's phenomenal 1971 album that has bene heard as part of this discovery and will certainly get its due.

Court and Spark, however, from a few years later is where we'll start, not because it's considered better, but it's where this belated appreciation began.  With appearances from stellar musicians as Tom Scott, Joe Sample, Larry Carlton, José Feliciano, Robbie Robertson, David Crosby and Graham Nash, among others, as well as comedic cameo from Cheech and Chong, Mitchell's complex and incisive songwriting and gorgeous singing are given ample support.

Moreover, this is a notable level of diversity in the tunes in terms of tempo, instrumentation, harmonics and other factors that make the album truly stand out.  As great as "Help Me," which remains her biggest hit is, there really are so many great songs on Court and Speak that it is hard to pick out some more than others.  The title track, "Free Man in Paris," "Down To You," "People's Parties," and "The Same Situation" stand out in this listener's mind, but it's actually what Mitchell does throughout the album that makes the biggest impact.

This means the multi-tracking of her vocals which, as a fan of Cocteau Twins since 1986, this blogger immediately recognized as major influences on that group's Elizabeth Fraser and her vocalizations.  The intricate and innovative melodies and the style of Mitchell's singing are also obvious focal points, as are her amazing lyrical abilities, which find some humorous expression in "Raised on Robbery," while her cover of "Twisted," with its trenchant lyrics by Annie Ross and set to a solo by the great tenor sax player, Wardell Gray, is an entertaining way to complete a stunning album.

Having started with Court and Spark, it was easy to move to Blue and then to follow that with other Mitchell albums, though, again, why it took so long to finally get here is more than puzzling.

Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited

Before the film, A Complete Unknown, was known to this blogger, an interest in revisiting the music of Bob Dylan surfaced last year after close to four decades of not hearing much of his remarkable work.  After acquiring John Wesley Harding, which had not been heard before, a spate of other albums were purchased, including such classics as Blood on the Tracks, Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde and, more recently, Before the Flood, the great live album with The Band.

A favorite of the Dylan recordings that have been rediscovered is Highway 61 Revisited, released at the end of August 1965 (when this blogger was a day shy of two months old) and appearing just four months after Bringing It All Back Home.  It's hard to argue that, with Blonde on Blonde being 22 months away, Dylan was at his creative zenith, churning out amazing songs with startling frequency on albums that redefined much of popular music.

Obviously, his move from acoustic folk to electric rock was controversial to the ardent fans of the former —and the fourth volume of the Bootleg Series comprising two discs of the notorious Royal Albert Hall concert in London in May 1966 during which an outraged Luddite yelled "Judas," to which Dylan sardonically replied, "I don't believe you"—is a fantastic document of that move.

Highway 61 Revisited is a staggering record from the opening "Like A Rolling Stone" to the rollicking "Tombstone Blues" to the "Ballad of a Thin Man" and ending with the epic "Desolation Row."  With musicians like Mike Bloomfield and his impressive guitar work and Al Kooper's iconic organ on that first tune and elsewhere, not to mention Bobby Gregg's drums and Charley McCoy's guitar, accompanying Dylan's impressionistic and immersive lyrics, the album is a masterpiece from start to finish.  

Listeners expecting to get some enlightenment from Dylan's liner notes can be amused by the wordplay and seemingly stream of consciousness expressions including his remark that "the songs on this specific record are not so much songs but rather exercises in tonal breath control" while the lyrics about "beautiful strangers, Vivaldi's green jacket & the holy slow train."  Dylan often commented that the content meant various things to different people and it may be better to enjoy his way with language and the performances of the musicians rather than to try and interpret the so-called "voice of his generation."