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Show DAILY B2 Mitchell Continued from B1 "For the Roses and "Hejira," she wrote about matters of the heart with grace and unflinching detail, helping launch the confessional school of pop music. It was music fueled by pain the pain of a young girl spending months in isolation because of polio and the pain of a young woman forced to give away her only child. "I lost my daughter at 21. 1 had to give her up because I was broke, no place to take her, no money to take her," she says. "That was very traumatic. So my gift for music was born out of tragedy, really, and loss." Yet despite the anguish beneath the songs, the music was never morbid. In fact, it was often jaunty, worldly, witty and, above all, honest. In a time of rising feminism, she never made romance into dogma. She's still trim and you can see in her eyes and cheekbones the features that caused her photo to be on thousands of dorm walls. The glow leaves her face, however, when asked if she plans to display or sell the paintings. She might show them in a museum at some point, but that's it. "I don't want to get into merchandising them," she says sharply. "I want nothing to do with galleries, even in terms of exhibitions. When money meets up with art, there is a lot of pain, and it's the pain of ignorance, arid I don't want to meet up with that ignorance again. My work is personal, too vulnerable. That's why I quit making records." Although invariably labeled folk ("because I was a girl with blond hair and a guitar," she snaps), Mitchell traces her own influences to the classical music she adored as a youth and, later, jazz. On this afternoon, she talks about how she developed her style, but the most essential quality of a songwriter, she suggests, may be mental toughness. Like Bob Dylan, and fellow Canadian Neil Young, Mitchell has fallen in and out of favor over the years. She has been revered, imitated and ridiculed for being esoteric and out of touch. Ultimately, she was not tough enough. "Everything in my later career, with few exceptions, has been compared unfavorably to my early work," she says matter-of-factl"I've done 16 records hearing people say, 'You're not as good as you used to be. Finally, I said, 'OK, I agree with you.' Mitchell announced she was leaving the musk business in 2002 and hasnt looked back. "My goal as a writer is more to comfort than to disturb," she says, explaining her decision. "Most of the art created in this particular culture is shallow and shocking, and 1 can't create music for this social climate." She pauses. In conversation, she is outspoken, funny, and stimulating. But she doesn't find anything ' funny about the topic at hand. "There's not much room for subtleties today. It's the shal-- , low, flashy heart that grabs the attention; chase scenes, atrocities." HERALD Monday, September 20, 2004 "In painting, you're brain empties out and there's not a word in if it's like a deep meditation, like a trance. I could step on a tack and probably wouldn't know it when I'm painting. In writing, it's kind of the opposite. That's why some people take stimulants. You stir up chaotic thoughts, then you pluck from this overactive mind." , ( ; . telling. on the creative process of her two arts ii.n mi in lit GENARO At 60, Joni Mitchell is a fascinating jumble of confidence, crankiness and vulnerability. She claims that the grossness of the business led to her retirement, but', hours later, you realize the real explanation is more She and the father, a fellow student, soon parted and Mitchell struggled to make a living singing in folk clubs in Canada. Hoping to provide a home for her baby, she says, complicated. Mitchell is hard to corral on she married American folk the subject of songwriting. She singer Chuck Mitchell, but the cle. didn't start out to be a writer and marriage was short-live- d she put the baby up for adopEven after all this time, she (painting was her first love) and tion. The move left herewith a doesn't understand all the exnever saw much mystery in it. sadness and guOt that colored She'd rather talk about psychol- citement over the song. "I ogy, Eastern culture, nature, thought 'Both Sides Now' was a her songwriting.. It was the heart of the folk failure, so what do I know?" she politics, her grandchildren and painting. Nowadays, she gets so says, smiling. "I was not a good explosion and Mitchell kept runabsorbed in her painting that judge of my early material; ning into other singers as she she often spends all night in the none of it sounded all that good moved to New York and even-tuall- y to me. That's why I wanted to Los Angeles. She found studio, her Jack Russell dog or three cats her only companions. keep moving forward." they were drawing from the Pain and toughness came to Her two arts, painting and same material, so she began Roberta Joan Anderson at an songwriting, happen in almost writing. She had always been opposite ways for her. "In paintearly age. The Fort MacLeod, good at poetry and had been able to make up melodies on the Alberta, native, whose father ing, you're brain empties out was a grocery chain manager and there's not a word in it; it's piano as a child. like a deep meditation, like a and mother taught school, was Mitchell's debut album atstruck by polio so severe during tracted some critical attention trance," she says. "I could step on a tack and probably wouldin 1968, but it was "Ladies of the grade school that there were fears she wouldn't walk again. n't know it when I'm painting. Canyon" two years later that She believes that some of that In writing, it's kind of the oppoconfirmed her artistry and site. That's why some people "Blue" in 1971 that certified her isolation stimulated her imagitake stimulants. nation. Being so confined, she greatness. "You stir up chaotic thoughts, would imagine all kinds of stoTo understand the honesty , then you pluck from this overries and pictures and scenes. and depth of emotion of "Blue," active mind. It's part of my Mitchell says, you have to unHer early musical appreciation was tied more to the beauty derstand her frame of mind. process as a writer, being emoand structure of classical music. Part of the album's introspectionally disturbed by something exterior someone said or someThe first singer who excited her tion and vulnerability grew out of her own conflict of carrying thing that is happening in soci- - ' was Edith Piaf, whose voice "thrilled my soul." She also "this guilty secret of having a ety. It's on your mind, and it child out of wedlock" and "not won't go away until you deal speaks excitedly about hearing with it." Rachmaninoff for the first time. having been able to bond with Her fans may be shocked to her" and the sudden "elevation At college, she studied commercial art, not music. But she sang hear how little she thinks of of public attention." One song, "Little Green," was written as a folk music in clubs for fun and many of her most celebrated for pocket money. Everything songs songs that established message to her lost daughter. her almost overnight as the first changed when she got pregBut she also wanted to be ' .. nant. truthful because she felt there important female songwriter-performin pop. Her style was was a danger in letting the pub"Immediately my life was in shock," she says. Having a baby lic pick your persona for you greatly influenced by Dylan's when unwed was the "worst a trap that she felt both Jimi emphasis on poetry, but she also wrote melodies as ambithing you could do" at that time. Hendrix and Janis Joplin fell tious as Dylan's words. DrawSo she told her mother she was into, contributing to their ing from classical composers quitting art college to become a and the great War II musician. "Jimi was a very genuine person, but doing all this theatrical stuff was humiliating to him," she says. "I didn't want a huge pop songwriters such as Gershwin, she came up with original and complex chord structures. In "Both Sides Now," a hit for Judy Collins in 1968, the words and the music came together gloriously as she paints alternating pictures of the romantic cy- . - , er pre-Wor- ld 4b w' "Hejira" was written while y alone, driving Mitchell finding a parallel in her solitary mood with the doomed aviator Amelia Earhart. She considers it one of her most inspired works. Her search for new musical textures reached a flashpoint four years later in "Mingus," a collaboration with celebrated jazz bassist Charles Mingus that, many fans point to as when they lost interest in her cross-countr- Joni Mitchell nMjtat, MOUNALos Ttirmr iiinr fn I Angeles Times - yflaa. brows in the 1975 album "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" with its more challenging chord progressions and jazzier, free-form arrangements. . It was during the 70s transition period that Mitchell recorded "Hejira," another master- piece. It's a demanding album whose restless alienation was captured brilliantly in "Amelia,'' which added a rich layer of symphonic color to her story- l gulf between who I was offstage and who I was onstage. I didn't want to be a phony. Basically, what I thought at the time was: You are worshiping me. Let's see if you can worship me if you know who I really am.' " The result was some of the . most captivating music in American pop, songs with a diary-like intimacy and poetic grandeur, songs such as "A Case of You," which is blessed with a melodty as bright and elastic as Mitchell's soprano voice. In today's world of pop exclamations, the album's gentle, almost understated feel seems all the more convincing and honest. The music seemed almost effortless in its articulation of some of life's deepest and most complex emotions. "Blue" represented the point where passion meets art. About the lack of accusation and retribution in the songs, she says, now warming to the subject: "I think men write very dishonestly about breakups. I wanted to be capable of being responsible for my own errors. If there was friction between me and another person, I wanted to be able to see my participation in it so I could see what could be changed and what could not. That is part of the pursuit of happiness. You have to pull the weeds in your soul when you are young, when they are sprouting, otherwise they will choke you." Her next two albums, "For the Roses" in 1972 and "Court and Spark" in 1974, were equally embraced by critics and her fans. Mitchell, however, was far from satisfied. She yearned for more ambitious musical statements, ignoring complaints from old fans who sometimes found themselves alienated by the new works. The move began raising eye- - music. Mitchell enjoyed a critical and commercial resurgence in recent years. Her "Night Ride Home" album in 1991 especially was hailed by many as a return of the accessibility and warmth of her early albums. Turbulent Indigo" in 1995 won a Grammy for best pop album and 2000's "Both Sides Now" won a Grammy for best traditional pop vocal album Mitchell was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. There was obviously something more going on. Maybe it was just that she had finally moved beyond the old anguish, which had been her creative spark. Crucially, she was reunited with her daughter, Kilauren, in 1997 and found joy in the simple pleasures of being a grandmother of a boy, 11, and a girl, 5. Now, the family spends time with her in Los Angeles and she spends time near them in Canada. And no, the restless chronicler of romance, whose marriage to bassist Larry Klein ended in 1994, isn't in a relationship. Tm so happy," she says. "Such good friends. So much in love with life, but romantic love is over for me. I'm very happy about this leg of my life." Yes, she confides, she still strums the guitar and noodles with new melodies, but no more lyrics for her. In the end, her personal contentment and her silence seem to be interlocked "In some ways, my gift for music and writing was born out of tragedy, really, and loss," she says softly. "When my daughter returned to me, the gift kind of went with it.'The songwriting was almost like something I did while I was waiting for my daughter to come back" k ML HW' r? Take your portraits home with you immediately! No appointment required and Never a sitting feel n i 1 f i i .. ML--L J i" , tr ? M HI if m - digital All Information crvw . i"'" or studio locations call toll-fre- e or visit wwwJdddWMndW01" mm mm Ml Plus take advantage of our from 1 pose special for only $29.95 Ltl 3-sh- eet jj!ifiii)Ji)yili)i'J'yg!iifi Please present coupon at sitting. Cannot bt comblntd with other coupons or dlxounts. Seesuxiiofordetails.Expirs: 1Q03AH Source Code: NP3SH IBM 14 1 University Mall 224-116- 1 Provo Towne Centre 852-400- 0 i |