> Word > got back to us very quickly through Joni's representatives that Joni > was > not interested. She said she'd just as soon paraphrase the Bible as > touch Eliot.
What I remember is Joni saying 'I'd sooner condense the Bible'. > I was also surprised to hear that Sue and Charles lived in a high-rise > apartment building. I always picture Mingus in his wheelchair on a > veranda in a lush environment, as in Joni's painting of him. Maybe > they > had two homes, or maybe that painting is mostly Joni's imagining. 'Manhattan holds me To a chair in the sky With the Bird in my ears And boats in my eyes Goin by....' The painting you're thinking of is on the back of the Mingus album and is called something like 'Charlie Down in Mexico' and goes with the line 'now Charlie's down in Mexico with the healers' so I always assumed he was down there for some kind of treatment. I think the paintings for Mingus are the most powerful of any that have been on one of Joni's albums. The painting 'Chair in the Sky' in particular. Also the painting of Joni with Mingus called 'I's a-Muggin' must have come from that photograph of Joni and Mingus that somebody else mentioned seeing in WOHAM. That is one of the most stunning photos of Joni I have ever seen. She has her hair braided and put up on the sides of her head. She could have looked like Princess Leia or a Bavarian milkmaid but she doesn't. She looks wholesome and incredibly sophisticated at the same time. And there is a look on her face like she is having the time of her life. It's obvious that there was some kind of special bond between her and Mingus. Mark E in Seattle
