of course joni is responsible to herself for the creative decisions made
during the 80s...
james taylor and others who had shacked up with her testified to feeling
inferior on the creative level, when she could drift from guitar to piano to
paints...
she was, after all, a proved and larger creative than larry klein as
well...and so therefore we must give her responsibility for the turn on some
tracks in the eighties that tried to be too poppish
and therefore failed to meet her full capability...
we can't blame him for decisions that she, as SIQUOMB 'president', gave the
final o.k....
my intuition is this...joni has said a thousand times she is both a sensitive
and a vulnerable person... the press was very unfair in their reviews of her
work as well as the industry paparazzi...IMHO, no one who has been so loved
and admired before can completely ditch their desire to be popular...even
dylan felt too deeply the attacks made on him for his spiritual changes,
altering his course accordingly...
...after what was a definite two consecutive masterpiece output in hejira and
DJRD and then the attacks on her for mingus, which was really a gift of love
to a dying man, it is understandable yet sad that with all the crucifying
pressure put on her that she would try to regain some popularity, shown so
obviously, not on all tracks, but on some that have left some of the most
creative fans wondering why her 80s work was, at least as entire albums, less
masterful...
...what the hell, she still put out some songs that seemed better than ever,
even on these 80's albums...who else has been so innovatedly inspired over
such a long period? i get just as thrilled listening to Man From Mars as
anything earlier! i've always maintained that she has always grown, in spite
of a few 'discoiee' tracks in the 80's ...she never got as commercially bent
as mccartney did, even after he put out some of the greatest songs ever...
...nor do i believe that her early love for klein was induced by
substances...there was something unique about their love when compared with
earlier attempts...and this songstress and experimenter of love saw something
potentially great there...there was alot of hurt in the fallout later on...was
he trancing her in all those years? i doubt it...she made choices as we all
do, for better or for worse...in many ways i believe she came out more
grounded after her relationship with him than before she met him...as a few
have pointed out, she seemed pretty scattered around the time of Shadows and
Light...i think she found something good, for a few years at least...they each
gave something needed to the other, for a while...
...feeling so deeply in life, she seems to have been rewarded at times...even
blessed, and as one reviewer noted, a bit like another scorpio rising
creative,... goethe, who with all his romances, yet grew wiser with age, like
fine wine...
ciao to you all,
shane
www.angelfire.com/art/cactussong
