Joni Mitchell has been hospitalized ...

Breaking news a little under an hour ago that Joni Mitchell was found unconscious in her home today around 2:30 pm PST and was rushed to the hospital.  She was alert in the ambulance and is now in intensive care, presumably at UCLA Medical Center, which is the closest hospital to her home in Bel Air.  TMZ was first to report and said that she was in serious condition.

Just frantic with worry right now, but the best thing to do is send out prayers and healing vibrations to this wonderful gifted person ...

I want to knit you a sweater, I want to make you feel better ...

Variety article here

I have also been following the twitter feed for #jonimitchell

I hope there is good news soon, Sue

Early Joni Mitchell performances on "Let's Sing Out"

A focus of my research on Joni Mitchell over the last couple of years has been her early unreleased songs.  The series of performances in recordings and videos during what I call her "cafe days" are priceless.  On some of the episodes of Canadian music show "Let's Sing Out" her name is still Joni Anderson. OpenCulture.com recently presented all of her performances on Let's Sing Out in one youtube video.  You can see the accompanying article here.  Enjoy this amazing video!!  At barely 22 years of age, it is quite amazing how accomplished she is, not only in her musicianship, but the quality of her songwriting.

Songs included:

October 4, 1965
I Was Born To Take The Highway
Blow Away The Morning Dew with host, Oscar Brand (traditional song)
Favorite Color
Me and My Uncle (written by John Phillips)
October 24, 1966
Just Like Me
Urge for Going
Night In The City
Blue on Blue
Get Together, with the Allen-Ward Trio (written by Dino Valente)
Prithee, Pretty Maiden with Oscar Brand (written by Gilbert and Sullivan)

Enjoy!! Sue

French Interview with Joni from 1991

My first post talked about the Steve Klein custom built guitar that Joni owns with I Ching symbols in the fret board, and also the symbol the Wanderer on the top of the guitar.  Here is a great French interview with Joni from 1991 when she was in the process of releasing the album Night Ride Home.  At time 28:02 in the video, Joni demonstrates two songs, Night Ride Home and Cherokee Louise, on the I Ching guitar, and also talks about the guitar itself.  Enjoy!

Notice, guitar players, that she talks about her Tuning numbering system while demonstrating the tuning for Night Ride Home!  If you want to learn more about her numbering system, read an explanation at the JoniMitchell.com Transcription page by Howard Wright here.

Sue

JoniMitchell.com Instructional Videos

In November of 2011 I started a project where I created instructional videos for my tablature at JoniMitchell.com.  I decided to start with the album Clouds.  This album has, of course, the iconic song Both Sides Now, arguably Joni's most famous song.  There are also many other great songs on this album including Chelsea Morning, That Song About the Midway, and The Gallery.  As of today my most viewed video is definitely Both Sides Now with over 16,000 hits, and Chelsea Morning coming in second with 10,500 hits.

My goal in doing these videos, and the tabs to begin with, is to make Joni Mitchell's guitar style accessible to her fans who feel they can't play her songs because they were too hard, or they were in "those weird tunings."  I hope that, if you've ever felt this way before, you can find my tabs and videos will help you to get past these myths and learn how to play some of the most beautiful songs in the world.

You can find these videos at the JoniMitchell.com website on the music tab, where you would select The Guitar and Piano Transcription Database, and select the album Clouds.  There are several other transcribers who have tabbed out these songs, as you can see, but if you select the version of Both Sides Now that I transcribed, you will see my video over the tab.  Below is the video from my YouTube page, which I provide a link to in the sidebar to your right.

To date I have all the songs from Clouds completed except for I Don't Know Where I Stand and Tin Angel.  Of course, I don't do a version of The Fiddle and The Drum because that song is performed a cappella.

Thanks for checking out these videos, and please give me feedback or suggestions!

Take care, Sue

A STARTling Revelation I (dreamed I) saw in Joni Mitchell's Woodstock

This blogger author of … Sharp Elves Society … Jane Austen Shadow Stories, Arnie Perlstein, tweeted me his most recent essay on his take of Woodstock, which I found fascinating!!   I thought some here would find it intriguing too …

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-startling-revelation-i-dreamed-i-saw.html

He references watching this video clip of Joni singing Woodstock at the 1970 BBC In Concert performance (also known as the Pink Dress Concert).  I can see Joni Mitchell as the herald of a new age, can you?

6th Annual Joni Mitchell Tribute, Ithaca NY, March 7 2015

Actually it started much earlier than 6 years ago, but Ithaca loves Joni Mitchell.  Patti Witten, my friend, and a wonderful singer/songwriter, came up with an idea to have an Only Joni Open Mic at a local coffee shop called Juna's Cafe.  To make a long story short, the first open mic was standing room only with people having to be turned away for signups.  The first person to perform pretty much set the stage for the next several years of Joni Mitchell tributes in Ithaca.  Joe Gaylord, a local blues musician, played The Wolf That Lives In Lindsay in the correct tuning, and insisted on audience participation during the wolf howling section.  What a night!  So here we are, two open mics and 5 annual tributes under our belt to March 7, 2015.  Again, a full house.

Joe Gaylord is now our impresario, and has coordinated all of the Joni Mitchell tributes at the Community School of Music and Arts.  All proceeds go to their scholarship fund for music and art students at the school.  

The performances this year were all solid, with deep tracks and crowd favorites, but the theme to me this year was harmonies.  Here is the setlist:

1. Joe Gaylord, voice and guitar - Rainy Night House and Moon At The Window.  Joe always captures the soulful feel of Joni's songs, and I love that he jazzed it up on MATW.  Beautiful tune!
2. Me! Sue Tierney McNamara, voice and guitar - I played in FFCGAC tuning.  I Don't Know Where I Stand and an unreleased tune, Go Tell The Drummer Man written around 1966-67.
3. Joannalyn Delacruz, piano - Joannalyn played a medley of Come In From The Cold and All I Want. An emotional and creative performance. 
4. Kara Eaton, voice and piano, with Donald, bass - Kara is one of our courageous students of Joni's music and played The Boho Dance from Hissing of Summer Lawns.  Donald backed her up with a great driving bass line.  
5. Laura Peters, voice and Sergio Pedro, guitar - Laura and Sergio performed the crowd pleasers Both Sides Now and Big Yellow Taxi.  Laura's voice was lovely and Sergio was faithful to Joni's guitar style.
6. Christine Evans, voice, Timothy, guitar, and Eric Miller, piano.  Christine and Eric are regulars at the Tributes and are fondly remembered for their authentic version of Woodstock a couple of years ago.  Eric brought his beautiful Wurlitzer electric piano to simulate the sound from the Ladies of the Canyon version.  This year they played See You Sometime, with Eric superb on piano, and Amelia, with Timothy doing an incredible job on electric guitar, reminiscent of Pat Methany from Shadows and Light. Christine's voice was just like a bell as usual.  So happy they were here again for this year's concert.  
7. Five 2 consists of Uniit Carruyo, Charisse Lucente, and Yvette Lucente.  This trio of amazing women sang Circle Game and Carey with some of the most beautiful harmonies I have ever heard. They really hit it out of the park.
8. Molly MacMillan, jazz pianist and also a regular at the Tribute concerts, always performs yeoman duties of backing up many of our artists on piano.  Kudos to Molly for doing that, but her own performances are also very memorable.  This year she played Trouble Child and a fantastic version of The Jungle Line with audience participation of ughs and ohhs led by Sue Terwilliger.  Colleen Kattau also helped out with harmonies on Trouble Child.  
9. Joe Crookston, a wonderful folk/bluegrass musician from Ithaca was invited by Joe Gaylord to participate in this year's event.  Joe won Album of the Year by the International Folk Alliance in Memphis, TN.  Joe played a stirring version of Woodstock on dobro.  He mentioned later that "Joni Mitchell is hard!"  I've heard many a seasoned musician express the same sentiment after preparing for our tributes!
10. Rachel Ozols is a senior in vocal performance from Ithaca College and appeared in the opera, "Little Women" as Jo at Ithaca College in February.  Rachel performed I Had A King with piano accompaniment.  Her voice was spectacular!
11. Patti Witten returned to the Tribute after a two year absence and brought with her cellist Sera Smolen to do a haunting rendition of Hejira.  We were traveling with Patti and Sera ... 
12. Alice Saltonstall, a wonderful singer, and another regular at the Tribute sang one of my favorite songs, I Think I Understand.  One of many performances on this night that recalled Joni's admonition that you must "sing in character." Alice achieved this exquisitely.  Sera Smolen added cello and Molly MacMillan on piano to add to the suspense.  
13. I think the most creative act of the night was Ephemera.  This group of women perform improvisational jazz a cappela and they mentioned in their introduction that they attended a workshop with Bobby McFerrin.  They opened their improvisational piece with Shadows and Light and improvised through about 5 more songs, including Come In From The Cold, Woman of Heart and Mind, and Chelsea Morning (i'm forgetting a couple others).  So creative and powerful.  
14. Colleen Kattau, another regular performer, played guitar and was accompanied by Mike Brandt on bass as they sang the two bookends of the album Hejira; Coyote and Refuge of the Roads.  Colleen always plays in the correct alternate tuning and actually thanked the Joni Mitchell Database authors for their work!  Mike really channeled Jaco Pastorius in this set.  Great songs, great musicians.  
15. Sally Ramirez is a very accomplished singer and actress (she revealed that she was a nurse on the Young and the Reckless!) and she graciously helped Joe Gaylord and I advertise the Tribute on the Nonesuch folk radio show on WVBR the week before the Tribute.  Sally sang amazingly on Blue and Carey.  
16. Sue Terwilliger, a wonderful guitarist, closed the show with a beautiful version of River, and called up Molly, Colleen and a member of Ephemera to do harmonies on the finale, Tea Leaf Prophecy.  The audience joined in with the refrain "study war no more."  

Alas, my favorite night of the year was over, but I loved every minute and so did the sold out crowd.  Thanks to Joe Gaylord for doing the heavy lifting to get this Tribute off the ground year after year.  The Joni Mitchell fans in Ithaca are forever grateful.  

Welcome to The Wanderer

This blog was created to give me a space to journal about the incredible experiences I've had and continue to have researching the life and art of Joni Mitchell.  Call it obsession but since a young age I've been completely entranced by the beauty and honesty of Joni Mitchell's art, including her music, her painting, her philosophy on life, and her intensity of spirit.

My involvement in this search for Joni Mitchell has brought me friends, bold adventures, hours of frustrating and sometimes richly rewarding scrutiny into her method of guitar playing, and also a place to meditate about my own life, the sometimes lonely, sometimes transcendent, revelations that have brought me to where I am today.  Not all of these experiences, outwardly or inwardly have been about Joni Mitchell, but about my life, and what it means to be honest, courageous and willing to take the path no matter where it leads.  

The Wanderer refers to the I Ching symbol of the 56th Hexagram.  The book says "Strange lands and separation are the Wanderer's lot."  The feeling this meditation conveys is one that reminds me of the song Hejira, where she sings "I'm traveling in some vehicle, I'm sitting in some cafe, a defector of the petty wars, that shell shock love away ..."  Joni Mitchell is a frequent reader of the I Ching and even had its symbols carved into a guitar she had custom made.  You can see the image below, with the symbol of the Wanderer on the top left of the sound hole.  

This is my first post ... I hope to continue to be able to write about this incredible journey as it unfolds.