talktooloose

This year is the 30th anniversary of one of my favourite albums, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter by Joni Mitchell.

This was the first Joni album I bought (on vinyl, circa 1983?) and maybe that's one of the reasons it has such a strong place in my heart. As is typical of my taste, I am more into the work of musicians after their notorious or most popular periods. For instance, I can take or leave early Elvis Costello but think his late-80s and 90s work is brilliant. I think Joni only hit her stride with Hejira (the album which preceded Don Juan).

As far as the industry was concerned, this album was the beginning of the end for Mitchell. She was no longer the whispy folky or the angst-girl prototype and they didn't know how to market her. The music is simultaneously free and tight, majestic and spare. Sonically, this is an album about her guitar and vocals dancing an intense tango with Jaco Pastorius' fretless bass (along with tasteful percussion). Lyrically and melodically, she dances and spraypaints and it's raw, red and sophisticated.

My LJ name comes from the song, "Talk to Me" on this album.

On the infamous cover (see it here), she is in boy-drag as a hip black scenester with a big hat and a moustache. This audacity is part of what drew Charles Mingus to ask her to collaborate with him on her next album, Mingus.

Here is the opening of Don Juan's, Overture and Cotton Avenue.