Episode Ep 653 July 12, 2024 46 min 21s

How Joni Mitchell joined the boys’ club and why we don’t need a comeback – by Ann Powers

From Word In Your Ear Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Broadcaster and music writer Ann Powers lives in Nashville and grew up listening to Kate Bush and Blondie. The siren call of Blue sparked a life-long and deep-rooted devotion and her new book Travelling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell takes a different tack from the standard biographies, mapping the context of the songs, the forces that drove her, the steel will it took to succeed and the love affairs that shaped her and her music. All discussed here. As is this ...

… the scale of your ambition when your heroes are Nietzsche, Beethoven and Picasso.

… how she got her revenge for not being allowed to go to Woodstock.

… “she had to learn to walk three times”.

… the psychological impact of her “dynamic father and homemaker mother”.

… the love affairs with Leonard Cohen, David Crosby and Graham Nash.

… her capacity to turn disaster into triumph.

… the influence of Laurel Canyon neighbour Derek Taylor and the Beatles.

… the many reasons she declared the music business “a corrupt cesspool”.

… the tone of Rolling Stone’s ‘70s coverage and the letters she wrote to Mo Austin about the way she was marketed.

… David Crosby’s regret about not involving her in Crosby Stills & Nash.

… her reaction to the continued success of Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel and Don Henley in a world where mid-career women are “put out to pasture”.

… why the current renaissance seems “all legend, no bite”.