In Sunday's Newark Star ledger, there is a lengthy article by Jay Lustig
about concerts at the Fleet Center in Boston (10/7) and at MSG in NY (10/8)
in tribute to music critic and editor-in-chief of Billboard Timothy White,
who died at age 50 in June of a heart attack. Proceeds to his family.
Performers will include Sting, Brian Wilson, Don Henley, John Mellencamp,
Jimmy Buffet, Sheryl Crow (with James Taylot and Billy Joel scheduled to sub
in Boston for Wilson and Buffet). White wrote a bio recently of JT ("Long Ago
and Far away"").
Lustig described the bow-tied White as a writer with a conscience who focused
on the creative process, who spoke out against gangsta rap and record
industry injustices, and in support of the RAC. His friend Mitch Glazer says
he received phone calls from JT, Crow, Henley and Mellencamp, asking to help.
One idea reportedly being considered is to read selected passages written by
White about the artists at the concerts.
For an insight into his views about Joni, I refer you one of the above
featured articles (link repeated below). A quote from it:
In the act of exploring these and other related notions, Mitchell would
create an inspiring, ten-song series of musical dialogues and playlets that
comprise this autumn's "Turbulent Indigo" (Reprise, Due October 25), one of
the most commanding statements of a peerless, seventeen-album career that has
itself questioned most accepted precepts in popular music. "The arts are
important part of cultural justice," says Mitchell, "and truth and beauty are
the essence of their greatness, so artists, so artists have a big
responsibility in every era to probe the rules by which we live, inquiring
whether they serve us well."
He was a pretty decent writer, and if he was careful with his words, then his
choice of "peerless" is significant.
In presenting the Billboard 'Century Award' to JM in 1995, he is reported in
the Karen O'Brien bio of Joni as having said:
"The sole aim of the award is to acknowledge the uncommon excellence of one
artist's still unfolding body of work... the award focuses on those singular
musicians who have not been accorded the degree of serious homage their
achievements deserve. We can think of no artist more deserving than Joni
Mitchell..... in folk and blues, in jazz, in world music, and in every
alternative that one must find to arrive at rock and roll, she has taken
humanity's most noble strivings and made them intimate for each of us."
So I wonder (assuming Joni is not part of this concert):
1. She did not offer ?
2. She was not asked (so she did not offer) ?
3. She was asked, but declined ?
4. She offered but was rejected ?
Any guesses or other insights ? I do not know what other baggage might
affect her history with White, but it seems to me that this would have been a
worthy enough excuse for her to get involved for a change. Unless (4) was the
case, I would like to see her try to get on the bill, even at this late date.
> http://www.jmdl.com/articles/docs/940827bb.cfm
Bob S.
(still brooding about his absence again from the Jonifest and hoping there
will be a next year to break his ice)
