> Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 01:43:43 EDT
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Confessions and Joni's Best Albums
Bob said..
> I quit on what was then Joni's 'newer' stuff in the late-70"s when I
couldn't
> "get into" Hejira (even after listening to it about 50 times). I really
> wanted to like the album. I listened to it in the dark; I listened to it
> while riding a stationary bike. Nothing worked. I had disliked THOSL, and
now
> this one seemed to leave me cold. So I quit - after Hejira, of all albums.
> Ugh. ( I expect to hear the gasps in the distance, breaking the silence in
my
> office, when I 'send' these posted words).
Wow Bob. G a s p . I'm choking here. Help me!
> Then, a few years ago I picked up TI and liked it. That
> got me to re-visit Hejira again. Lo and behold, I started to like it. Then
> the tribute concert charged me up some more, and all of a sudden - I get
it.
> After almost 25 years, I finally came to the realization that it is one of
> her (two ?) masterpieces (a defined term in my lexicon, to be sure).
Phew. Thank God for that!
>
> There was a lesson in humility I learned there, that I hope to share with
the
> JMDL'er who asserted (as I recall - I deleted the digest, and have
forgotten
> his name - nothing personal) that he did not think that Blue was among
Joni's
> best albums, and that he has played it at most 5 times (perhaps that was
an
> exaggeration, but even so...)
I was sharing a house in Clapham (London) when I got into Blue. I already
liked S&L and Hejira, but hadn't heard much else of her music - certainly
not early, 'high pitched' stuff like Blue. Someone moved into the room next
to mine and had an album on constant rotation, featuring a very young Joni.
I didn't really like her voice or all the soaring lines, but I heard it in
the background so often that I got completely familiar with all the tunes,
and after a while didn't mind the singing style so much. Then one evening, I
was in the room when The Last Time I Saw Richard came on and I heard the
words, and suddenly I was completely hooked. I listened to A Case Of You and
fell further in love, and went out and bought the album. The lyrics to the
title track got me next, and then all the rest in quick succession.
Like I said, I was already into Hejira and S&L, but realised that I was
really just listening to the music. I went back and for the first time,
listened to the words on Heijra and fell in love with the album all over
again.
And then Wally, in another post said..
> i am bored by joni's chord progressions,
> especially after CMIARS.
And my confession is a 'me too' I'm afraid. But that doesn't mean I might
not some day have a blinding revelation and come to love her later albums
too.
>bluehejira is the cornerstone. the beginning and
> end. alpha/omega. anything else is literature. in my opinion, of course.
> wallyK
True.
atb,
Martin. In London.
