Joni Mitchell aficionados will find Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by US music critic Ann Powers an engrossingly nerdish read. Many of the book’s more-than-400 pages are devoted to a comprehensive cultural analysis of the legendary singer-songwriter, who rose from a ukulele-wielding, singing-at-a-bonfire teenager in the 1950s to the heights of fame during the 60s and 70s. Mitchell became an avatar of longed-for freedom, acknowledged as a musical genius at a time when sexism was the norm.
Powers provides a PhD-warranting exegesis of many songs from Mitchell’s 19 studio albums from 1968 to 2007; as well as a staggeringly long roll call of the musical legends (mainly men) who worked alongside her. Cross-pollinating musical styles and influences are traced, debated and dissected. It’s all rendered in such beautifully crafted prose that our minds are mercifully spared from information implosion. But non-Mitchell geeks, be warned: you’ll find yourself skimming pages to the juicy parts, of which there are plenty. For example: in 1976, Mitchell donned “blackface” to create “Art Nouveau”, a black male pimp alter ego. Powers hosts a fascinating, multi-voiced discussion of what she ultimately judges to be a racist move, despite Mitchell’s many collaborations with black musicians and professed alliance with black culture.
You could spend a year, with this book as your guide, immersing yourself in Mitchell’s music. Or you could focus instead on Powers’s retellings of Mitchell’s love affairs with towering male figures, including David Crosby, Graham Nash, James Taylor and Leonard Cohen (the most likely muse for A Case of You).
When Mitchell was 21, abandoned by her partner, she gave their four-month-old daughter into closed adoption. Powers opines with sensitivity on the personal and creative impacts to Mitchell of the loss and subsequent reunification with her daughter, 33 years later.
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When the last biography came out in 2017 – David Yaffe’s Reckless Daughter – Mitchell was still recovering from a brain aneurysm. Travelling brings us right up to Mitchell’s post-illness resurrection over the last couple of years, crossing into her 90th decade to renewed accolades, tributes and live performances. Musical and cultural critique is what Powers brings to the shelf of Mitchell literature; those wishing to hear Mitchell recount her life from her own perspective should turn to Yaffe’s book instead.
