Mark Bego - Joni Mitchell

JONI MITCHELL

BOOKS BY MARK BEGO

The Captain & Tennille (1977)

Barry Manilow (1977)

The Doobie Brothers (1980)

Michael! [Jackson] (1984)

On The Road with Michael! [Jackson] (1984)

Madonna! (1985)

Rock Hudson: Public & Private (1986)

Sade! (1986)

Julian Lennon! (1986)

The Best of Modern Screen (1986)

Whitney! [Houston] (1986)

Cher! (1986)

Bette Midler: Outrageously Divine (1987)

The Linda Gray Story (1988)

TV Rock (1988)

Between the Lines [with Debbie Gibson] (1990)

Linda Ronstadt: Its So Easy (1990)

Ice Ice Ice: The Extraordinary Vanilla Ice Story (1991)

One Is the Loneliest Number [with Jimmy Greenspoon of Three Dog Night] (1991)

Madonna: Blonde Ambition (1992)

Im a Believer: My Life of Music, Monkees, and Madness [with Micky Dolenz of The Monkees] (1993)

Country Hunks (1994)

Country Gals (1994)

Dancing in the Street: Confessions of a Motown Diva [with Martha Reeves of Martha and The Vandellas] (1994)

I Fall to Pieces: The Music and Life of Patsy Cline (1995)

Rock & Roll Almanac (1996)

Alan Jackson: Gone Country (1996)

Raised on Rock: The Autobiography of Elvis Presleys Step Brother [with David Stanley] (1996)

George Strait: The Story of a Countrys Living Legend (1997)

Leonardo DiCaprio: Romantic Hero (1998)

LeAnn Rimes (1998)

Jewel (1998)

Matt Damon: Chasing a Dream (1998)

Will Smith: The Freshest Prince (1998)

Vince Gill (2000)

Madonna: Blonde Ambition (2000)

Aretha Franklin: Queen of Soul (2001)

The Marx Brothers (2001)

Cher: If You Believe (2001)

Bette Midler: Still Divine (2002)

Bonnie Raitt: Still in the Nick of Time (2003)

Julia Roberts: Americas Sweetheart (2003)

Whitney Houston: Fall from Grace (2003)

Tina Turner: Break Every Rule (2003)

Joni Mitchell (2005)

MARK BEGO

Copyright 2005 by Mark Bego

First Taylor Trade Publishing edition 2005

This Taylor Trade Publishing hardback edition of Joni Mitchell is an original publication. It is published by arrangement with the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

Published by Taylor Trade Publishing
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

ISBN: 978-1-58979-134-3

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

To Marcy MacDonald

My multimedia international cohort in journalistic crime

Thanks to

Anne Bego

Bob and Mary Bego

Michael Brecker

Tom Cuddy

Micky Dolenz

Gino Falzarano

Tisha Fein

James Fitzgerald

Deborah Gibson

Susan Gilbert

Raymond Griffis

Randy Jones

Michael McDonald

Zach Martin

Scott Meyer

Ruth Mueller

Krstin Painter

Mandy Phillips

Ross Plotkin

Melissa Porter

David Salidor

Chrisona Schmidt

Tony Seidl

Scott Shannon

Barbara Shelley

Andy Skurow

Mark Sokoloff

Ann Watt

Beth Wernick

and Mary Wilson

Special thanks go to Christopher Gilman and the staff of the Palm restaurant in New York City (250 West 50th Street), for making me feel at home in Manhattan, and for including my portrait on their wall of celebrities.

In the fall of 1969, during my senior year in high school, I attended my first bona fide rock concert in downtown Detroit. It was the group Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young at Masonic Auditorium. As the group came toward the end of its incredibly moving show, Graham Nash announced that they were going to be joined onstage by a dear friend of theirs, Miss Joni Mitchell.

She was a willowy girl with long blond hair and a guitar in her hands. When she took to the stage, the crowd burst into a thunderous round of applause, and she joined the harmonious quartet in the song Get Together. The group also performed Woodstock, Jonis composition that the foursome had recorded and turned into a hit. It was the most magical moment of the show. After years of being a music writer, I remember the concert as one of my all-time favorites.

At the time I knew of Jonis touching, insightful writing from hearing Buffy Sainte-Marie (The Circle Game) and Judy Collins (Both Sides Now) singing her songs. It was a wonderful introduction to her own distinctly touching performing.

During my senior year in college, Joni released Court and Spark. I loved the vinyl album so much that I also bought the eight-track tape version of it, so I could listen to it in my car. In the 1980s, when Walkman portable stereos came in vogue, I purchased Court and Spark in its cassette version so I could rollerskate down the streets of New York listening to it. Later that decade it became one of the first CDs I ever purchased.

In New York City in 1978, I became the nightlife editor of Cue magazine and was responsible for reviewingamong other venuesthe jazz clubs in town. Around this time, Joni released my second favorite of her albums, the jazz-infused Shadows and Light. She provided my true entre into jazz music. I wore out my vinyl version of that album from playing it so much. The featured saxophone player on that album was the very well respected Michael Brecker.

In 1980 I went to work for Michael Brecker and his brother, Randy Brecker. My friend Beth Wernick and I were the publicists for the Manhattan jazz club they owned at the time, which was named for the street it was located on: Seventh Avenue South. One night at the bar I told Michael Brecker how much I loved his sax playing on Shadows and Light, and he told me that the thing he admired the most about Joni Mitchell was her total musicianship, no matter what genre of music she played in.

Album by album, I followed Joni Mitchells growth as a performer. My love of her music grew from her folk-oriented era (Ladies of the Canyon), to her rock phase (Court and Spark), to her jazz era (Mingus), to her electronica jaunt (Dog Eat Dog), through her insightful storyteller phase (Night Ride Home). After my career had made the leap from magazine writing to book writing, editors constantly asked me what person I most wanted to write a book about or in collaboration with. Time and time again I would reel off my wish list, which always seemed to include the name Joni Mitchell at the top. And repeatedly, for one reason or another, it was always passed over