Untitled Document
It seems unimaginable that Joni Mitchell, one of the
most influential singer/songwriters of the latter part of the previous
century, hasn’t received the tribute-album treatment until now, but
it’s true. A victim of label consolidation and executive turnover,
the unimaginatively titled A Tribute to Joni
Mitchell languished in limbo for nearly a
decade, until Nonesuch president Bob Hurwitz decided to resurrect it. The
result is a wildly inconsistent jumble of tracks that were recorded at the
project’s inception, tracks that were recorded as late as last year,
and tracks that have already appeared on other albums. Collectively, the
contents are both wildly inconsistent and strangely constricted: The
featured artists are the very definition of a motley crew (do Björk
and James Taylor even qualify as the same species?), but the source
material doesn’t begin to represent Mitchell’s wide-ranging
canon. There are three songs from 1971’s Blue, three from 1975’s The
Hissing of Summer Lawns, and two from
1974’s Court and Spark; the only offering that isn’t at least 20 years old is
from 1994’s Turbulent Indigo. It’s hard to dismiss the importance of
Mitchell’s 1970s output, but even as far as that decade goes the
selection isn’t very deep. Why nothing from Hejira or Mingus?
A Tribute to Joni Mitchell isn’t a terrible album, just an uneven and sometimes
disappointing one. Truth be told, its flaws probably have to do less with
its execution than with its subject. Prickly, paradoxical, and deeply
idiosyncratic, Mitchell might be the weirdest performer ever to have scored
a Top 10 radio hit. Many have mimicked her bird-call coloratura, but it
takes more than a freakishly flexible mezzo-soprano range to match her
style. With her off-kilter phrasing and her crystalline pitch, her ruthless
irony and her naked empathy, her jazzbo patter and her coffeehouse
confessionals, Mitchell is essentially inimitable. The only way to honor
her work is to make something entirely new from it.
In short, it takes a weirdo to understand a weirdo.
Love her or hate her, there’s no denying that Björk is every bit
as peculiar as Mitchell, and although her twinkling celesta-driven version
of “The Boho Dance” sounds very different from the original,
it’s a triumph. Acerbic but not unsympathetic, the song is a study in
exquisitely modulated emotional dynamics, the narrator’s sharp-eyed
critique of conformity among nonconformists giving way to a melancholy
acceptance. Prince, another card-carrying freak, deftly captures the
collision of sacred and profane in “A Case of You,” replacing
Mitchell’s acoustic guitar with gospel-steeped piano and organ. He
cuts out most of the verses, but he totally nails those lines that he
deigns to include, squeezing out every last drop of blood and holy wine
with that lubricious falsetto of his. If his reading lacks the solemn
psalmlike quality of the original, it makes the transition from cathedral
to revivalist tent without sacrificing a smidge of its power.
Other highlights include Brazilian oddball Caetano
Veloso’s deceptively languid percussion-centered take on
“Dreamland,” a sly condemnation of colonialism; Annie
Lennox’s lustrous, exotic, electronica-laced “Ladies of the
Canyon,” Mitchell’s homage to hippie-chick domesticity; and
jazz diva Cassandra Wilson’s spare, sepulchral “For the
Roses,” a minor-key lament about one of Mitchell’s pet topics,
the moral bankruptcy of fame. Aside from Taylor’s listless, drippy
“River” and Sarah McLachlan’s florid, borderline parodic
“Blue,” most of the remaining songs range from pretty good to
halfway decent. If nothing else, the album invites listeners to reacquaint
themselves with Mitchell’s vast and eclectic catalog, still the best
tribute to her talent that exists.
Contact René Spencer Saller at rssaller@core.com.
Contact René Spencer Saller at rssaller@core.com.
