“Hey, what about Joni Mitchell’s early stuff?” said the note I got from reader J.M. this week. Good question, J. I did write about her a relatively minor song from a relatively minor album: ‘Cactus Tree’, from her very first venture, “Songs to a Seagull”. Well, one can’t pay too much attention to Joni Mitchell, the unchallenged poetess laureate of popular music, so today we are going to visit her second, the much-more commercially successful “Clouds”. And of course we’ll go for a lesser-known song, ‘I Don’t Know Where I Stand’.
“Clouds” is an album I don’t listen to often, populated by songs I know too well (‘Chelsea Morning’, the overly covered and abused ‘Both Sides Now’), songs I find inaccessible (‘Tin Soldier’, ‘Roses Blue’, ‘The Fiddle and the Drum’), and a number I find attractive but not overwhelming (‘The Gallery’, ‘Songs to Aging Children Come’). Still, I gave it a few serious relistenings, and reached the same old conclusion: damn, she’s one fine artist.
Self-Portrait
Even the songs I’m less drawn to – you look at them seriously and you find them brimming with impeccable craftsmanship, passion, humor, elegance, intelligence, wisdom.
Joni’s not a poetess, she’s a singer-songwriter. Poetry is a medium in which the words themselves are the materials. For a long time now we’ve related to poetry as words on the page, even though it was once a performance medium. Songs are a combination of words and melody and harmony and arrangement and recording and performance. The lyrics, fine as they may be, are not conceived to exist in a context devoid of at least some of those other elements.
Joni Mitchell, 1969
What about Dylan? Dylan’s a genius. He’s written some damn good prose poetry (the liner notes to “Bringing It All Back Home” and “John Wesley Harding” are both well worth spending a lot of time on). His lyrics are the standard by which serious lyrics are measured. But they’re not poetry. They’re an essential part of a complex called Song. Don’t try to sell ‘Chimes of Freedom’ on the page. It wasn’t written for the page, it was written to be nasaled and shouted and banged on the guitar.
What about Leonard Cohen? Well, he was a published poet before he became a singer/songwriter. “Suzanne Takes You Down” was from his first book, “Parasites of Heaven”. From my vague memory, there are discrepancies between the lyrics and the poems, but who cares? An exception to prove the rule, and let’s get back to the fairer Canadian.
Joni’s sometimes deceptive, because her songs are so often so darn pretty, and singable, and full of hooks and melodies and all that stuff that makes pop songs so attractive. But if we look beyond that, we’ll see just how much of an artisan she is. Each and every song is a carefully crafted work, the product of a mistressful artist who happens to possess a magnanimous soul.
Leonard Cohen (left) and Joni Mitchell, Newport Folk Festival, 1967
Let’s take for example “The Gallery” describing her painter-lover, three stanzas and a coda, a narrative of the curve of their relationship, deftly employing an extended metaphor. It’s clever and a half, even when forced (When I first saw your gallery/I liked the ones of ladies/Then you began to hang up me/You studied to portray me). Heck, she was only 26. But there are also lyrics that begin to transcend the cute and the clever and the honest: I was left to winter here/While you went west for pleasure/And now you’re flying bock this way/Like some lost homing pigeon/They’ve monitored your brain, you say/And changed you with religion. Now, that’s interesting! It’s also emotionally naked and a bit frighteningly honest.
They say that Joni’s intimates (and there were apparently many) were frequently shaken by the directness of the references to the details their lives. I’m no expert on Joni’s bio, but I was raised in the school of critical reading that says “I don’t really give a hoot about the relationship to the artist’s life, the work either stands on its own terms or it doesn’t.” I’m perfectly content to let my imagination wander through the very rich and evocative and intriguing and convincing world that Joni creates.
“Clouds” is a major step past “Songs to a Seagull”. Even ‘Chelsea Morning’, the song most reminiscent of the ebullient excitement of her new life in The City is more refined musically and artistically than anything on the first album. It’s a virtuoso performance vocally and instrumentally, showcasing among other elements her use of open tuning.
Guitars are usually tuned in such a way that you need to press down on strings to create a chord, but there are a variety of non-standard tunings make all six strings accord harmonically into, for example, a major chord. This enables the musician to strum more vigorously, to play a series of chords by simply barring the neck rather than fingering chords. This gives different voicings to the chords, including a distinct resonance from all open strings. It’s often used on slide guitars and in the blues; Keith and Brian Jones and The Allmans and even Dylan have used it in rock; but Joni uses it exclusively.
She’s also a stunning pianist, though these first two albums use only guitar (one cut excepted). I won’t be spoiling anything if I say that these two albums comprise her freshman year. Next will come “Ladies of the Canyon”, a treasure chest of widely varied songs thematically and stylistically. Less consistent perhaps, more exploratory. And then comes–yeah, you knew it before I said it–“Blue”. But we get ahead of ourselves.
Joni Mitchell, 1970 (Photo by Martin Mills/Getty Images)
There’s a lot of emotional growth here in “Clouds” as well. ‘Both Sides Now’, the iconic paean to disillusionment, is the underbelly of all that manic elation. I have trouble with the song today. It’s hackneyed for me, it’s been performed to death. But truisms are true. Herbie Hancock won a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo on his treatment of the song in his tribute album to Joni, “River: The Joni Letters” (Thom Jurek says it “feels like it is being played from the inside out”). Note also Wayne Shorter’s contribution. So who cares if I have problems with the song?
Joni chooses to open “Clouds” with ‘Tin Soldier’, a love song on paper, a dirge in performance. There are songs about Viet Nam (‘The Fiddle and The Drum’), mental illness (‘I Think I Understand’), the lunacy of the nouveau-religious (‘Roses Blue’) and a quasi-traditional folk/art gem that defies description (‘Songs to Aging Children Come’)
One expression of that new maturity is our Song of The Week, ‘I Don’t Know Where I Stand’. It’s perhaps less of a showpiece in terms of craftsmanship, but it’s harrowingly honest, and it’s beautiful.
She has strong feelings towards him. She wants to express them, but she’s unsure of herself. I come back to one of my recurrent thoughts about Joni, quoting myself from SoTW 106: “Much of the little I understand of the female psyche I’ve learned from Joni Mitchell. I don’t take her to be emblematic of Womanhood. She’s an individual, with a unique vision of the world, but one that is profoundly female. She has thoughts and feelings and desires and disinclinations that seem to me engendered in that other side of the fence, visions and versions that would never cross my testeronic landscape.”
‘I Don’t Know Where I Stand’ could never be written by a male. But it sure does give me a glimpse of illumination of that most profound of mysteries, what goes on inside a woman. Perhaps the persona knows not where she stands, but the artist certainly does.
Funny day, looking for laughter and finding it there Sunny day, braiding wild flowers and leaves in my hair Picked up a pencil and wrote “I love you” in my finest hand Wanted to send it, but I don’t know where I stand
Telephone, even the sound of your voice is still new All alone in California and talking to you And feeling too foolish and strange to say the words that I had planned I guess it’s too early, ’cause I don’t know where I stand
Crickets call, courting their ladies in star-dappled green Thickets tall, until the morning comes up like a dream All muted and misty, so drowsy now I’ll take what sleep I can I know that I miss you, but I don’t know where I stand I know that I miss you, but I don’t know where I stand
Ever here of Piqua, Ohio? It’s 25 miles north of Dayton, The name comes from the Shawnee “Othath-He-Waugh-Pe-Qua”, roughly translated as “He has risen from the ashes!” In 1749 it was called Fort Pickawillany, and by 1800 Upper and Lower Piqua merged into—you guessed it, Piqua. In 1833, John Randolph passed away and freed his slaves. Rossville, which he founded, also joined the burgeoning metropolis. By 1910 it had a population of 13,388, including John and Eathel Mills. John owned a barber shop on Public Square, so he and Eathel appropriately formed a barbershop quartet.
Four Boys and their Big Momma
Their four boys would sing and play kazoo for passersby (we’re guessing there wasn’t a whole lot else to do in 1925 Piqua). They entered an amateur contest at Piqua’s Mays Opera House (a movie theater in reality), John Jr (b. 1910) on guitar, all four singing tight harmonies. But alas, while on stage, Harry (b. 1913) discovered he had left his kazoo at the barber shop, so he cupped his hands to his mouth and imitated a trumpet. They won the contest, and began imitating popular orchestras from the radio. John sang tuba; Harry, trumpet; Herbert (b. 1912) second trumpet; and Donald (b. 1915) the trombone. By 1928, they had graduated to playing between Rin Tin Tin features at May’s Opera House. They got an audition at WLW Cincinnati, the biggest radio station in the Midwest, and became local stars. Duke Ellington heard them and arranged an audition at CBS radio, which William Paley heard over a loudspeaker. He walked downstairs and put them right on the air. Billed as Four Boys and a Guitar, they became the first African-Americans to have a network radio show. It was a giant hit. They even co-starred on The Fleischmann’s Yeast Hour hosted by Rudy Vallee and were featured in several movies.
Go, Fleischmanns!
Their very first recording, ‘Tiger Rag’ (from The Big Broadcast), hit #1 in 1931 (remember, the boys were 21,19, 18 and 16 at the time), quickly followed by classics such as ‘St Louis Blues’, ‘Rocking Chair’, ‘I Heard’ and ‘How’m I Doin’, Hey, Hey’, Swing It, Sister, the charming ‘Sleepy Head’ and ‘Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet’. Printed on all their records of this period was the disclaimer “No musical instruments or mechanical devices used on this recording other than one guitar.”
In 1934 they were invited to England to perform before the King (the first African-Americans to be so honored), but John Jr caught pneumonia there and died. The boys wanted to break up the band, but Eathel said John Jr would have wanted them to continue, so John Sr replaced him and they hired a guitarist from outside the family.
Jungle Fever 1934
The Andrews Sisters may have been the most popular tight-harmony tight-family group of that era, but The Mills Brothers and The Boswell Sisters (see SoTW 105) were the real innovative artists. The Boswells were mistresses of technique, wonderful harmonies and oodles of humor, with gravity-defying shifts in tempo and key. The Mills Brothers, the epitome of good taste and paragons of class, could scat nose-to-nose with Louis and Ella, invented both voices imitating instruments and vocal contrabass. Their materials are still lovable, charming and disarming after all these years. They collaborated with the likes of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong (check out this trumpet duet!), Ella Fitzgerald, and Bing Crosby (here’s their giant hit ‘Dina’ from 1932, here they are with him in 1966). Bing calls them “the smoothest group of all time”, and Bing knows ‘smooth’.
Jungle Fever 1991
Their biggest hit was ‘Paper Doll’ in 1942, after which they stopped recording in the ‘Four Boys and a Guitar’ format in favor of more conventional accompaniment. The group was widely popular throughout the war years, and continued performing in the Dad and three sons format till 1957, when John Sr retired. They were still scoring numerous hits in the 1950s, even into the rock and roll era. They continue to appear today, including third generation Millses.
For our Song of The Week, we’ve picked a zinger which demonstrates all their vocal skills, ‘Jungle Fever’. Today the Urban Dictionary defines that as ‘when a non-black person is attracted sexually to black people’. In 1991 both Spike Lee (in a film) and Stevie Wonder (an album) employed the concept. Must have been something in the air. Here’s Stevie’s cut (“She’s gone black guy crazy, he’s gone white girl hazy/They got jungle fever”).
Four Men and a Guitar
But in 1934, when miscegenation was a crime? What in heaven’s name could they have been talking about? Well, you use your imagination and I’ll use mine. Our mores have certainly evolved since then. As have our sense of the exotic, the mysterious and the sexually dangerous. But not, I think, our sense of class.
Ever see the Congo when it’s steaming in the night?
Ever see the jungle with the animals in fright?
Put me in the Congo in the jungle and I’m right.
Got that fever that jungle fever,
Oh, you know the reason that I long to go.
Dusky maiden, dark-haired siren, Congo sweetheart,
I’m comin’ back to you.
Wild-eyed woman, native dreamgirl, jungle fever
Is in my blood for you.
Ever hear a kettle drum pounding out a beat?
Ever fight the silence and the madness and the heat?
That’s the thrill I’m cravin’ and the music is so sweet.
Oh, the congos callin’ and I long to go.
I wrote this blog post 10 months ago. All the excitement described below just begins to hint at the excitement and joy that I experienced at the Aarhus Vocal Festival, from which I’ve just returned. Same faces, same stories, but oh, so much much more. AAVF was a truly moving experience for me and for our growing cult of rabid practitioners of “modern a cappella” — virtuoso pop/jazz, voices only.
I’ve just returned [written August 2018] from Vocalmente 2018, my seventh European a cappella festival in ten years. My vacation and musical-spiritual retreat of choice. We come together, we devotees and practitioners of forward-looking close harmony vocal music, in Fossano Italy or Aarhus Denmark or Västerås Sweden or London England to hear concerts, attend lectures, participate in workshops, sing some very cool music conducted by Peder Karlsson and Merel Martens, record with Bill Hare, drink beer, and socialize.
The afterparty socializing is of course the main attraction. There’s no distinction between the stars and the commonfolk, everyone hangs together, because that’s part of the ethos that defines our little cult–unaffected love of the music and each other. You meet someone who’s become an old friend over the past ten years. You meet someone you chatted with briefly a couple of times, have lunch and get close. You meet new people from exotic places like Paraguay or New Zealand or Portland. You meet people, amateurs and professionals, who know your music from back home (in my case the rock choir Vocalocity) and whose music you have been following for years now (like the Finnish Rajaton or the Italian Cluster).
It’s a tribal gathering, members young and old drawn together by love for this thing called ‘modern a cappella’ or ‘contemporary a cappella’ or ‘rhythm choirs’ or whatever. In the five days since it ended, social media have been choked with participants’ overwhelming love, photos and videos, and post-partum depression. There was a whole world of palpable love generated there. So thanks to Erik Bosio and the whole team and warm, beautiful Fossano for a great, great job, and to Tobia Hug for starting the whole thing (and is now working on an upcoming new one).
So you’re sitting after the concert, drinking beer with some great Dane, and at the next table are sitting the six members of the rising start vocal group Accent, singing of summer in full-throated ease. Just for the fun of it.
Erik Bosio
Way back in 2011, some kids met while hanging around on the street corners of the YouTube channels of old vocal jazz groups. One was from the US, two from Canada, one from the UK, one from France, one from Sweden, all musicians, all freakishly good singers. These 20somethings shared a rare love for a special kind of old close harmony music. Here’s their version of how they met.
They checked each other out, found that they were kindred spirits separated only by distance. Being millenials, they knew how to do things on the interweb that elude or mystify the rest of us analog-bred humans–like forming a vocal group without bothering to meet physically. They started by making clips like “Get Away, Jordan”, a cover of the American gospel-jazz group Take 6; or ‘Too Close for Comfort’, in the style of The Hi-Lo’s and Singers Unlimited, American vocal jazz groups of the 1950s and 1960s respectively, both led by Gene Puerling.
Remember, they had never been in the same room. It’s a new world, Suzy Creamcheese.
Then in 2014 they were invited to a music festival in Sweden, where they met, rehearsed, and performed their first gig. If you think we live in a post-miracle world, just watch the clip. Their first gig.
Since then, their reputation has been growing. They continue to meet at gigs, rehearsing for a few days in hotel rooms each time, currently a couple of times a year.
Accent were at Vocalmente, performing on the final night of the festival. Stars, for the meantime within our community; soon, I assume, worldwide. Because they’re so good. And cool. And cute. And fun. And they sing like six gravity-defying supermen, precise as laser surgeons, enthusiastic as eleven year-olds on a roller coaster.
Old Friends
Friday night at the afterparty, I’m schmoozing with my Grammy-winning buddy Bill Hare, and they’re sitting at the next table singing. Accent, these guys we’ve all been watching for hours on YouTube, our jaws dragging on the floor, sitting at the next table, singing for fun. Then Saturday night at the afterparty, they just picked up mikes and started singing in the courtyard of the early XIVc castle for the fun of it. Because they can. For the pure joy of being young and ridiculously talented and good-looking and together with your buddies and making mind-bogglingly good music. This is how good they sounded and looked.
But just as much fun was watching them jumping around and whooping and hollering and leading a parade of dancing kids to the front of the stage where The Real Group are performing.
So one night Accent is dancing (in the rain) with abandon at the feet of their role models, The Real Group. And the very next night, The Real Group is gazing from the audience at these young ‘uns on stage – perhaps not jumping in the air like 25-year olds (except for Peder Karlsson, of course), but gaping speechlessly like the rest of us.
Anders Edenroth, last of the original TRG members still singing with the group, said with pride that Accent had invited him to their hotel room for their rehearsal that afternoon, “a VIP perk”. Accent said with awe that their legendary hero had graced them with his presence at their rehearsal. The passing of the torch, generation touching generation, live and in person in Fossano, Italy.
I’m still floating from the experience. I know that all my a cappella buddies who were there are still floating as well, each back in his own home territory. But we’ll keep in contact through Facebook and YouTube till next time—the Aarhus (Denmark) A Cappella Vocal Festival, AAVF, May 2019, where many of us will meet up again, hug and sing and listen to remarkable new music. And again we will generate a whole lot of unadulterated love, and feel lucky to be part of this wonderful, unique community.
Here are some more postings on related topics (for extra credit):
Today’s the last day of my Facebook Album Challenge, during which I chose 10 albums, 1 per day, *which made an impact* on me. “Post cover, no explanation,” said the mission statement.
For some of you, that might be a whee little jaunt down memory lane. For an obsessive-compulsive music nerd baby-boomer like myself, it’s torture.
First of all, define your terms. The challenge has been floating around for a while, and it’s been painful for me to watch you lay folks (i.e., normal people with a Real Life) abuse the concept of “Top 10 Albums” so crassly.
You talk about your ten “favorite” albums? That just drives me batty. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Your ten most loved albums?
Your ten most esteemed albums?
Your ten most listened-to albums?
Your ten most impactful albums?
Those are such different questions.
So as is my wont, I distilled the question down to “most life-changing” for the challenge.
And being the rule-abiding nerd that I am, I made no comments on my postings.
Guess what? I’ve held it in too long. Here comes.
Do I really need to explain that I don’t think this is The Beatles greatest achievement? Or can you figure out that as a 15-year old boy, just like those dumb girls on the screen were screaming outwardly, so I was screaming inside, even as I watched them poker-faced?
Eight months and a million light years after the aforementioned, it was Dylan’s third album, the first one that I met in real time. I remember my head exploding, trying to grasp Bob Dylan. Fifty-five years later, I’m still working on it.
I’ve been plumbing the depths of this album since it was released, and never grow tired of it, 52 years. Through the decades, over and over, I’ve listened to all 8 CDs of the bootlegged “Unsurpassed Beach Boys!” studio recordings, listening to how Brian built the tracks pulse by pulse, measure by measure, genius at every stroke. I’ve watched and rewatched all the Pet Sounds documentaries, and read all the books. I’ve listened through atomic earphones to every one of the dozen or so remastered versions, from duophonic to mono to stereo to whatever. That line in “Here Today” where the ukulele and the bass harmonica play in unison? I’ll let you know when I get tired of it.
James’ first album, the obscurity before “Sweet Baby James”. An 18 year old from a patrician family with a heroin addiction and a stay in a loony bin already under his belt. Remember how overwhelming the world was when you were 18? This album is unadulterated existential pain. “Road maps in a well-cracked ceiling.”
Their very first album. I bought it the day it hit arrived at Neumark’s in Swifton, captivated by the cover engraving. I was 14. It was my introduction to J.S. Bach, to vocal jazz, and to genre-busting. Still today the very sound of the album transports me to places long gone and places yet to be discovered.
I was only 10 the day the music died. When I was 16, my sophisticated cousin took me to a bohemian bar in Cocoanut Grove, where the singer, one ‘Duane Storey’, performed an acoustic ‘Peggy Sue’. That performance is a centerpiece in the novel I’m currently engrossed in writing, 54 years later. Not to mention that Garcia and Weir and Lesh let me sing with them because I was the only one who knew the words to ‘That’ll Be the Day’.
He was brilliant at 17. He was brilliant at 50. And he is still brilliant today at 91. I own over a hundred Lee Konitz recordings. Every one of them contains the sound of surprise.
“Clouds” is a major step past “Songs to a Seagull”. Even ‘Chelsea Morning’, the song most reminiscent of the ebullient excitement of her new life in The City is more refined musically and artistically than anything on the first album. It’s a virtuoso performance vocally and instrumentally, showcasing among other elements her use of open tuning.
