Book description
Joni Mitchell
is one of the most celebrated artists of the last half century, and her
landmark 1971 album, Blue,
is one of her most beloved and revered works. Generations of people
have come of age listening to the album, inspired by the way it
clarified their own difficult emotions. Critics and musicians admire the
idiosyncratic virtuosity of its compositions. Will You Take Me As I Am
-- the first book about Joni Mitchell to include original interviews
with her -- looks at Blue
to explore the development of an extraordinary artist, the history of
songwriting, and much more.
In extensive conversations with Mitchell, Michelle Mercer heard
firsthand about Joni's internal and external journeys as she composed
the largely autobiographical albums of what Mercer calls her Blue
Period, which lasted through the mid-1970s. Incorporating biography,
memoir, reportage, criticism, and interviews into an illuminating
narrative, Mercer moves beyond the "making of an album"
genre to arrive at a new form of music writing.
In 1970, Mitchell was living with Graham Nash in Laurel Canyon and
had made a name for herself as a so-called folk singer notable for her
soaring voice and skillful compositions. Soon, though, feeling hemmed
in, she fled to the hippie cave community of Matala, Greece. Here and
on further travels, her compositions were freshly inspired by the
lands and people she encountered as well as by her own radically
changing interior landscape. After returning home to record
Blue, Mitchell retreated to British Columbia, eventually
reemerging as the leader of a successful jazz-rock group and turning
outward in her songwriting toward social commentary. Finally, a stint
with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and a pivotal meeting with the
Tibetan lama ChÃ-gyam Trungpa prompted Mitchell's return to personal
songwriting, which resulted in her 1976 masterpiece album,
Hejira.
Mercer interlaces this fascinating account of Mitchell's Blue Period
with meditations on topics related to her work, including the impact
of landscape on music, the value of autobiographical songwriting for
artist and listener, and the literary history of confessionalism.
Mercer also provides rich analyses of Mitchell's creative
achievements: her innovative manner of marrying lyrics to melody; her
inventive, highly expressive chords that achieve her signature blend
of wonder and melancholy; how she pioneered personal songwriting and,
along with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, brought a new literacy to the
popular song. Fans will appreciate the previously unpublished photos
and a coda of Mitchell's unedited commentary on the places, books,
music, pastimes, and philosophies she holds dear.
This utterly original book offers a unique portrait of a great
musician and her remarkable work, as well as new perspectives on the
art of songwriting itself.
"Michelle Mercer has a quick instinct for the
dynamics of musical creativity, how experience feeds the lyric
imagination, and how private insights go public. Her smart and deeply
felt portrait gives us Mitchell's life, its defining
intensities-everything that went into the making of Blue-but
avoids going in for the explanatory kill. The sweet vibration of the
work remains." -- Sven Birkerts, author of My Sky Blue
Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time
Michelle Mercer, a regular contributor to National Public
Radio in the US, is the author of the critically aclaimed biography
Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter (J P Tarcher). Her
articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Down
Beat, and numerous other publications. She lives in Colorado in the
US. Visit http://michellemercer. com/index. cfm
