TRAVELLING: ON THE PATH OF JONI MITCHELL
By Ann Powers (Harper Collins)
THE CLICHÉ ABOUT A GOOD BIOGRAPHY or book about a musician is that it makes you want to put those records on and hear them again, maybe even hear them anew with the information you now have. The bonus might be that you could also come away with the satisfaction of having your long-held views justified or amplified by someone with better words, and your favourite albums or songs explained in a way you wanted to but never quite managed.
And that holds true for Ann Powers’ exploration of Joni Mitchell, which took a lot of restraint by me not to leap up regularly from the lounge, bus seat or bed to put on the relevant record/track and go “oh yeah, she is right … so good”, or just nerd out on the finer details. Not to mention congratulating her (and of course, by extension, myself), for recognising the fascinating elements of the too often maligned 1980s albums and loving Come In From The Cold as much as everyone should.
But after the cliché, Travelling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell does so much more than that and asks a lot more – of Mitchell, of Powers, and of the reader – than that. And asking is the right way to put it because in several key ways this book is an interrogation, and a demanding one at that.
An interrogation of Joni Mitchell and her music, sure, but also of the multiple stories that can be built and retold around brilliance and exploitation, misogyny and appropriation; of what we can forgive and what we tell ourselves to ignore so we don’t have to consider forgiveness; of the nature of fandom, including its anti-fan component; of critical writing and interpretation.
Powers is no passive teller of the story, nor some omniscient overlord (though her ability to work from sonic minutiae to broad societal canvas makes for a daunting level of niscience).
From the start we are aware of the reasons for her long resistance to the idea of the “genius” of Mitchell – partly a quite reasonable aversion to groupthink; partly a response to Mitchell’s own need and campaigning for the appellation – and her understanding that neither are particularly rational, even if understandable, starting points. And along the way, her wrestling with the contradictory, complicated circumstances of Mitchell’s creative and personal choices, her response to critical thought then and now, are conducted through multiple lenses that don’t pretend personal response isn’t involved.
But this is entirely consistent with an approach that examines her (and by extension, our) biases and prejudices, as much as her subject’s. All without, quite deliberately, engaging directly with Mitchell, and yet in language and style earning the right to be seen equally as artistic and academic and worthy of Mitchell.
Up for examination alongside the emotional, technical and musical facets of her writing and a singing voice and delivery that continually evolved, are the ideas of feminine and masculine traits in writing, performing, producing and career choices – including what was respected, what was expected, and what would be denied – that both bedevilled and provoked Mitchell from the very start, and how their impact on ego and control still could be at play in the records she made into the 1990s.
Likewise the fascination with Native American and African-American concepts, musical styles, stories and social interactions, even as they led into areas that went beyond highly questionable and into, arguably, offensive; the mutually supportive/competitive environments of her romantic relationships with other musicians that left bruises for all concerned alongside inspiration; creative and personal ambition intersecting with market forces, rewards, and the temptations for more of those rewards; the restless nature of creativity that sought not just the new but the untameable and unforgiving; familial relationships, at both ends of the spectrum, and their entwining with the work; and the need for, weight of and escape from love.
Powers tests them, drawing on Mitchell’s own words at the time, a wealth of previous biographies, the on-the-record contributions of collaborators such as husband/co-producer Larry Klein and drummers Russ Kunkel and Brian Blade, early interpreter Judy Collins, and Powers’ own unsparing but deeply thoughtful appraisals. And we are asked to consider ourselves why we made the decisions we did about which songs spoke to us, what this told us about her and us in the world, and why we came to view Mitchell as something beyond the ordinary, maybe even beyond criticism.
Finally, and not insignificantly, Travelling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell, never forgets the rush of connection and pleasure, the undefinable elevation that a great song, a packaging of great songs, a career of great songs, brings to the listener, the fan, the explorer. Which is both Powers and Mitchell, and us.
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