In a message dated 10/15/02 11:09:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Emily Gray Tedrowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>writes: > > From: Emily Gray Tedrowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Joni on the music biz > > hi everyone. > > i have to say, i find joni's ranting and raving about the "cesspool" music > industry so tired.
Emily, I have to agree with you. It's almost a given when you open up a magazine interview of Joni that you will find this, by now, very familiar rant. I kind of see this subject of the music industry as not worthy of mention. It's a given at this point in time, isn't it? It's the music BUSINESS. The point has been made. "Let me speak, let me spit out my bitterness-" At the same time, I can see how it might be very hard for Joni to let go of the way things were when she first started out. The music business was different in the 60s and early 70s. "I'm all complaints...." I just finished reading the Rolling Stone "Women in Rock Issue" and it was very interesting. Well worth the few bucks if you have the time and the inclination. I have to say I was kind of shocked that a few of these women managed to get any kind of record made at all. One of them, when asked if she was feminist, didn't even know what the word meant. "And you let the wicked prosper, You let their children frisk like deer..." One of the artists said there are two kinds of people who go into the music business. Those who want to make art and those who want to make money and get famous. Those who want to be artists and those who want to be entertainers. Of course nothing is ever that simple or that black and white. There is some desire on the part of artists to make money and be famous. And there is some desire on the part of people seeking fame and fortune to make art and be respected. Some of the women had very insightful, intelligent things to say. And some of them didn't. It's the music business. Some will make money and some will make art. Some will be around next year, and most of them won't. Grace Slick had some interesting things to say about how in the old days artists just put on whatever was clean and got on stage. Now everything is studied and choreographed and planned and styled down to the last piece of fringe. But I do wish Joni would just let the subject of the music business drop. She has a kind of success that most musicians can only dream about. She comes across as bitter. She comes across as envious. And it makes me sad, because I'd like to see her, especially at this point in her life, appreciate her amazing success as an artist, rather than complain about the lack of this or that. In spite of everything she says in interviews, I think there is an important part of Joni that has always wanted that big commercial success. That kind of love/adoration/fame/success is a powerful drug. I think that once someone has experienced that degree of fame, like Joni did in the 70s, it must be very hard to live without. "Once I as blessed; I was awaited like the rain, Like eyes for the blind, like feet for the lame. Kings heard my words, and they sought out my company. But now the janitors of Shadowland flick their brooms at me...." all quotes from: The Sire of Sorrow (Job's Sad Song) And here I sit, chicken scratching, once again writing about the singer instead of the song. Frank
