One of the occasional series I have run over the past few years has been my A Classic Album sets, in which I take an in-depth look at an album that I have loved for many years. Previous ‘winners’ of this accolade have been The Beatles, Steely Dan, George Harrison, Cat Stevens, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Crosby Stills and Nash, and one thing immediately leaps out at me from that list: they are all male! Given my love of female singer-songwriters I really should be redressing that balance, and that is what I’m doing today.

The obvious candidate for this would probably be Mary Chapin Carpenter, but as all of the previous ones in this series have been from the Sixties and early Seventies I thought I’d share another from that vintage. This is what I’m playing today:

 

 

This is what Wikipedia says about the album:

Blue is the fourth studio album by the Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, released on June 22, 1971, by Reprise Records. Written and produced by Mitchell, it was recorded in 1971 at A&M Studios in Hollywood, California. Created just after her breakup with Graham Nash and during an intense relationship with James Taylor, Blue explores various facets of relationships from love to insecurity. The songs feature simple accompaniments on piano, guitar and Appalachian dulcimer. The album peaked at #3 on the UK Albums Chart, #9 on the Canadian RPM Albums Chart and #15 on the Billboard 200.

I bought the record fairly soon after it came out, at around the same time that I bought James Taylor’s Mudslide Slim And The Blue Horizon, which had come out a couple of months previously, and played both of them to bits. I had recently bought myself my own record player, which meant that I could listen to whatever I chose in my bedroom without worrying about what Mum and my sister might want to hear – it felt like heaven! Usually I play a selection of tracks and provide links to the others, but this time I’m playing them all: this will make for a slightly longer post than usual, but I think the album is worth it.

Something about Blue clicked with me from the beginning, probably those stripped back song treatments. It isn’t an album of anthemic songs, just a collection of ten pieces of beauty. This is its opening track:

There is a live recording of Joni playing All I Want in a BBC concert show in late 1970, but it was at that point a work in progress so I decided to go with the finished article. The Appachian dulcimer is very much to the fore on this track, and I have loved it since the first time I played it. This is one of the tracks that refers to her relationship with James Taylor.

Side 1 Track 2 is My Old Man, which was inspired by her time with Graham Nash:

A comment on YouTube quotes Graham on this song: “I remember leaving the house to give her the space to finish My Old Man. I’m sad that it’s about me again, but it’s so brilliant. Like the song suggests, I asked her to marry me but I think she thought I wanted a “wife” to cook meals and so on, which was never my intention. I wanted her to be as free as possible, to be as brilliant as possible. She’s an amazing woman. I’m proud to have been a part of her life.”

Three songs that Joni had written in earlier years were originally planned to be on this album, but only one of them made the final cut – Side 1 Track 3, Little Green:

Joni wrote Little Green in 1966, shortly after she had signed the papers to place her daughter for adoption the previous year, while she was a poor folk singer in Toronto. She made occasional references to this during concerts, but it didn’t become public knowledge until 1993, and they were eventually reunited in 1997. If you know the background the song has added poignancy, I think.

Side 1 Track 4 is one of my favourites on the album:

Carey was written in 1970, and was inspired by her time spent with Cary Raditz, living with a cave-dwelling hippie community at Matala, on the Greek island of Crete. After breaking up with Graham Nash Joni and a female friend took a break, went to Greece, and met Cary and others, with whom they spent a couple of months. You can feel the joy in this one, can’t you: it was written to celebrate his 24th birthday.

Side one closes with the album’s title track, Blue, which was about her time with James Taylor. He was a drug addict at the time, which may explain some of the references in the lyrics:

That performance was slightly later – from 1974 – but the song still had its haunting quality.

Side Two opens with California, another that Joni wrote during her 1970 travels:

I remember watching that concert when the BBC broadcast it in October 1970. It was shortly before we moved house, after our parents separated, and we still had the old monochrome tv set. It was magical, though, even without colour. Joni described the song as a “letter back home”. She wrote the first verse of the song in Paris, the second verse in Spain, while longing for the creative climate she had experienced in California, where the last verse was completed. If you’re quick, take a look at the audience shot at the end of the song: the bearded guy is Peter Green, of Fleetwood Mac fame.

Side 2 Track 2 is This Flight Tonight, which tells of her regrets as she leaves her lover on a flight and wishes to return:

The Scottish rock band Nazareth released a cover of this song in 1973, which went to #11 in the UK and #1 in Germany. Joni has apparently been known to start concerts by saying “I’m opening with a Nazareth song” – I love that self-effacing nature!

Side 2 Track 3 is possibly the best known song on the album – certainly on my blog, as I play it every Christmas! This is River:

The song is about a break up – thought to be the ending of her relationship with Graham Nash. Although never released as a single, River holds second place among her songs most recorded by other artists. In 2021, it was ranked at #247 on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Best Songs of All Time.

The next track – A Case Of You – actually scored more highly with Rolling Stone, as it came in at #26 on their list. It’s another beauty:

This is another on which Joni plays the Appalachian dulcimer, and she is accompanied on guitar by James Taylor.

The album closes with The Last Time I Saw Richard:

Contrary to rumours regarding the song being about Joni’s first husband Charles Scott “Chuck” Mitchell, she has said it was inspired by a conversation with fellow folk singer Patrick Sky, in which he told her “Oh, Joni, you’re a hopeless romantic. There’s only one way for you to go. Hopeless cynicism.” She does a pretty good job of that on this one, which has some cutting lyrics, whoever it might have been about!

Blue sold well, going Platinum in the US for 1m sales and 2x Platinum in the UK for 600,000. Retrospectively, it has been widely regarded by music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. In January 2000, The New York Times chose Blue as one of the 25 albums that represented “turning points and pinnacles in 20th-century popular music.” It was rated the third greatest album of all time in Rolling Stone‘s 2020 updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the highest entry by a female artist. And just to round off the apparent sexism, in July 2017, Blue was chosen by NPR as the greatest album of all time made by a woman.

Snarky comments aside, Blue is an album that has been with me for 55 years, and I still love it today as much as I ever have. I hope that I’ve shown you why.