Joni Mitchell and Brian Blade Interview: TimeTalks Luminato 

She's made multiple double platinum albums, I'd call her a pop star. She certainly didn't set out with the intent to make pop music, but the people decide what's pop, not the artist.

@Rhys Jones "Call it anything" Miles Davis :)

She's was always wise beyond her years. Certainly an old soul.

she should have a mind like a steel trap in this interview - she was in her late 60s...

I saw him playing with John McLaughlin’s Fourth Dimension band. And with Bob Dylan, as far as I remember. He’s superb.

Carol Spillman: I quite agree with your comment. This is the best interview of Joni I've ever seen, & he gives her lots of room to range in her replies, which, naturally, let's her genius shine.

Except for the fact that he totally ignored the other invited guest sitting opposite him until Joni, after an hour of speaking, urged him to ask BB some questions ..

Yes. They say it's because the universal comes out of the specific.

She is quite funny and quite the mimic great story teller must be the Irish blood!

@@kerrymullin94 The gift of gab!

Four, out of a population of 38,000000. Impressive.

Also Bruce Cockburn

If you are unfamiliar with the body of work generated by the National Film Board of Canadá, there’s great delight ahead! You will make that comment about what happens during Canada’s long winter nights.

Can't say that about the Canadian music talent today. I won't say names but the quality of music has gone into the dumper. Even Joni said she couldn't listen to the radio today, even though she tried.

Yep, but I think they were good friends and he realized he'd not done a great job with the album....

Excellent!

Why clairvoyant? Curious. What do you see?

I was a play-by-ear multi-instrument child in the very late 80s early 90s. Came from a musical family. I of course first learned in E tuning. By the time I was 12 or 13 (left to my own designs with no outside influence) I was playing the most absurd tunings on guitar and developed a "Pick with 3 claws" style with my right hand and could rhythm to lead or play rhythm as lead with my left. I never left my homeland and ventured out, but had some connected ppl show intense interest In what I was doing, but I very much speak Joni's language but sadly I was beset by some of the ironies (and cliches of chemical kind) musicians run into. I'm 41 now and I'm clean, so I'm brushing up on Joni and other musicians who can verbalize things well to help center me again.

@@exspiravit6920 that's very interesting. And greatly encouraging too. I hope you feel encouraged. She received another accolade recently. I'm glad she was alive to receive it.

@@scapegoatiscariot2767 Yeah it's weird. I was a creative powerhouse in my 20s (a riff/melody factory ), but right as I was maturing I got into the bad stuff. By maturing I mean I was on the cusp of becoming a real Composer, or at least learning to take the melodies/riffs/intros/bridges and arrange them, give them structure along with writing a lot of potential lyrics. Luckily I still have a good bit of my stuff worth keeping recorded (just bits and pieces of riff ideas or melodies I didn't want to lose) but now that I'm back in my right mind, I'm finding my output is still solid, but my playing has changed a lot. If I ever get any of it together I'll upload some stuff.

@@exspiravit6920 that's quite impressive. I just play guitar by ear. What am actually doing is parroting what I perceive. I entertain myself. The most I've ever made on it was twenty bucks. The guy asked me to play wild thing as a particular lady was arriving. He said she would get it. She did.

Brian Blade: terrific Jazz drummer, but also a singer and guitarist. If you don't hear any other music by this guy listen to "At the Centerline." WOW!!!!!

Am in absolute awe of Joni, how did she come up with 'A case of you'??!!! brilliant beyond words ❤😊

Larry Carlton played on Help Me. He played on everything from Court and Spark to Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. Pat played on Shadows And Light, maybe something else too.

Pat was playing with Jacko Pastorius on Shadow and Light, he was really young at the time .....yes

@@loonaya Yeah you're right! I do get it mixed up but I remember now that you mention it because I was surprised to see that on the credits given I was not loving him replacing Lee Ritenour in Fourplay. Still why not mention him?

@@yodservant That's what I thought but I couldn't remember if it was only live or not. Rainy night house is the one I remember the most with Jaco and her. She gave Pat a whole solo on her live album after Amelia. I'm just being nosy about why but who knows maybe it slipped her mind.

Well, Mr. Blade is a friend and collaborator of Ms. Mitchell's. Perhaps the presenters felt that just having her and the interviewer would be a bit too naked. Does it really matter? Would you have not watched this video if Mr. Blade were not there?

"Black man in a blonde woman's body," eh. Too stupid for words. So now colour is art. Joni is really just an artist, one of the finest who ever lived, at least on this planet. This interview almost made me doubt my own insight because I have no idea why Brian Blade was there. Strangest interview that has ever occurred, with Brian saying nothing even though he was billed as a participant.

1:21:06 ask Brian some....

@@TrumanGN maybe Brian was holding the energy....??

Brian I think was a kind of safety net. He's obviously someone Joni trusts and feels inordinately comfortable with. She also recognizes his brilliance in his own right. She can therefore lean on his expertise as a barometer or weather vane to give herself a contextual playground to romp around in. Still waters run deep & Brian is a living example of what this means. He can act as a kind of spirit- filter. He's a good energy which with to reflect or sometimes deflect - to negate or confirm- Joni's variated musical hypothesis. Notice how she defers to him with an occasional sideways glance.

Joni Mitchell

Debra: Yes, Joni painted that..notice the heart on the sleeve..

Pareles's rudeness in ignoring BB, until Joni finally urges him to ask him some questions, is difficult to understand and excuse

Not a nut. She's just not moulded into the three or four industry types we see interviewed all the time. She says no, she says what she wants to say rather than what she's supposed to say. Not a nut at all. Just different.

Absolutely.

That's clearly a misogynistic comment! One of the most authentic and honest artists in the world happens to be a woman who speaks her mind, and you feel entitled to call that 'a nut'? What an insult!

Yea i was afraid to say that in my comment but yes! A nut!

syrup ......wig........dead cat.........pussy..........maybe her mums ashes

@@georgefowler3027 In the inimitable words of (ahem) Joe Biden, "C'mon man..."

Yup. I hope that the sound-person at least made a mental note about earrings. 😅

Dear Hater, go away.

I hate to say it but she didn't really belong in jazz with the big boys. Not that she didn't deserve it...they all wanted to honor her unique genious but it didn't fit. Her vocals on the jazz stuff is too forced. She should have put her great lyrics to better use. Shame really.

@@clsatc you didn't like Shadow and Light ?

@@yodservant i loved shadow and light with pat metheny and jaco ! Forgot about that..but that was more fusion..then she went deeper into jazz

As much as I adore this woman as an amazing writer and tour de force in her own time, her candor and intelligence is always appreciated as a strong women's voice that needs to be heard. And I feel guilty saying this about my all time favorite singer songwriter, she is amazing in so many ways and I relish so much of her music, her incisive writing and how she's had to fight for her voice in a time when the music industry was run by men. I've listened to many of her interviews and as much as I appreciate her keen intelligence, candor and painterly musicality, I do feel bad for Brian Blades, here, I agree with you, Demetrious, that she never seems to give a collaborative nod to him, and Pareles struggles to steer her away from her focus on herself to include any of her collaborators, whether they be musical collaborators or other influential relationships. She's still a legendary songwriter in my opinion, one who I will always cherish, but as with other interviews of hers that I've listened to, not as inclusive of others in her life as I would have liked to have heard about. I guess she will always be a refuge on the road.

Wow, where did that come from? They are two different kinds of artists. Ms. Mitchell could never sing what Ms. Ronstadt could sing -- Ms. Mitchell didn't have those pipes. She didn't have the sustain, the projection, the range, the vibrato, the power. She is a lifetime smoker. Ms. Ronstadt had a natural talent which she honed and trained over the course of her career. She took opera singing lessons when she was in her 30s, when she was already one of the most successful singers of all time. She was the first woman to fill stadiums. She was named the Queen of Rock and Roll by Rolling Stone, Time magazine, Mick Jagger, etc. etc. Many singers of Ms. Ronstadt's era recognized her as the greatest or one of the greatest singers. Take a look at what Johnny Cash, George Jones, Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, etc. said about Ms. Ronstadt. Emmylou Harris said that Ms. Ronstadt had one of the two glorious voices of the Twentieth Century, the other voice being Maria Callas. Don't get me wrong, I love Ms. Mitchell. She is a genius. But she is not a singer's singer like Ms. Ronstadt. Ms. Ronstadt sang triumphantly country, rock, jazz, light opera, opera, Mexican (ranchero, guapango, mariachi) -- selling millions of records in all of those genres, selling out hundreds of venues in all of those genres, and receiving awards in all of those genres. As for Ms. Mitchell "not needing hits" -- Do you mean, that Ms. Mitchell should have lived her life like the hunger artist in Kafka? Without those hits, Ms. Mitchell would not have been able to afford the mansion above UCLA where she lives in comfort today. And using the word "peeps" to disparage singers who don't write songs is not only nasty, it's ignorant. Caruso didn't write songs. Billy Holiday didn't write songs. Ella Fitzgerald didn't write songs. Sinatra didn't write songs. Streisand didn't write songs. Pavarotti didn't write songs. Placido Domingo didn't write songs. There's room in this world for singers who just sing, and singer-songwriters.

Linda Ronstadt actually did write several songs. She wrote: Lo siento mi vida Try Me Again Winter Light

@@thinkerly1 = Songwriters are artists. Singers are entertainers. They are not the same. Linda Ronstadt would be the first to tell you that. BTW, I read recently online a quote from Joni where she said she liked Linda. That's something, given how critical she is of some performers, like Madonna.

@@apocalypseplough8089 And I read that Ms. Ronstadt went to every performance of Ms. Mitchell's whenever Ms. Mitchell was in town -- whenever their paths crossed. Ms. Ronstadt has called Ms. Mitchell a genius. And Ms. Mitchell has said that Ms. Ronstadt defended her and was always kind to her. They are two stars in the musical firmament.