Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, January 1975
The two most annoying things (to me) about Joni Mitchell in the early years of her career were her songs, which often seemed impersonal, shallow and written by formula (remember that oft-played opus about the surly New York cabbie?) and her voice, which leapt all over the place in a shrill demonstration of technique. (‘Congratulations to Joni Mitchell upon her conquest of the octave,’ Richard Goldstein wrote sarcastically of her first album.)
Voice and songs! Two big strikes against a budding singer-songwriter. It’s no wonder many checked out after her second or third record and refused to listen anymore, despite rumours of artistic maturity and increased sophistication.
This two-record live album, then, is an ideal introduction to this artist and her ‘recent’ work: that body of songs in which Mitchell has found her proper subject matter, come into power as an artist and deservedly increased her audience to star proportions. All but two or three of these selections are about men and women, their games, roles, cynicisms and optimisms, despairs and new beginnings. When she strays from the country of the heart, as in ‘Real Good for Free’ [sic] and ‘Woodstock’, she wanders toward an Aquarian age-Redbook magazine soppiness, but when she charts the geometry of emotion and makes pictures of full-dimensioned human beings, she’s as effective, intelligent and entertaining a writer as anyone around.
These are marvellous short stories she creates; her touch is sure and literate. Listen, for instance, to the artful and economical beginning of ‘Peoples’ Parties’; how easily she sets a scene and draws one into it. The talent she always had for summoning and adapting situations – a commercial quality – has in recent years acquired a toughness of mind necessary if her work was to be elevated above the merely clever.
Mitchell’s sound here is not at all jarring. The harsh, brittle attack present on much of her recorded work is replaced by a breathier, free-flowing approach. While she plays around with her voice, the result is not the undisciplined self-indulgence I was dreading but soft, rhythmic and pleasantly blurred. The melodies and tempos are treated with a welcome lack of inhibition and these songs so familiar to the audience seem to blend into a many-faceted suite. The effect is satisfying rather than monotonous with much credit due the L.A. Express, who provide imaginative coloration for a variety of moods. Especially well served is ‘The Circle Game’, pumped along by a catchy blues riff which salvages it from its dated past. Although apparently absent for almost two whole sides of this double album, [the Express’] influence and memory seem to linger until their return.
Two new songs, ‘Jericho’ and ‘Love or Money’, round off this collection of previously released material and are fine enough to deserve more attentive studio versions.
Besides the very generous amount of music included here and the most agreeable manner in which it’s performed, there is another factor making this the perfect record with which to become acquainted with Joni Mitchell: the opportunity it allows for her personality to show through. In contrast to the somewhat aloof impression that has accrued to her in her years of not granting interviews, there is much good humour here: in her pleasant handling of request-shouters; in her perfect Lily Tomlin waitress one-liner in the middle of ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’; and in her acknowledgement of Bob Dylan’s hilarious alternate verse of ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ by incorporating it into the text. In fact, in a year when the fashion is for performers to erect a cool space between themselves and the first row of seats, the good feelings emanating from this set are positively inspiring.