Joni Mitchell Benefit Tribute in NYC on Feb. 1
 

I just found out about the "all-star" tribute to Joni Mitchell being held at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 1 to benefit Music for Youth. So far the lineup is pretty B-list: Ben Folds, Suzanne Vega, Neil Sedaka :eek:, Michele Williams (of Destiny's Child), etc., with more to be added, including "some suprise guests," according to the press release. I love Ben Folds and Suzanne Vega... and it's a good cause, so I got my (front row) ticket :thumbsup: . And who knows... maybe Stevie will be there (since Joni's been such an influence). And Lindsey did record "Big Yellow Taxi" for that Joni tribute CD that never got released. And I'm thinking maybe Joni herself will be there; after all, the last two Joni tributes I attended (Central Park 1999, Hammerstein Ballroom in 2000), Joni came on at the end (in CP she couldn't remember the words to "Help Me" :eek: :lol: ). I would simply DIE if Joni momentarily came out of retirement and performed a song or two with just her guitar. It ain't like she's up to anything else these days...

Anyone going?

http://www.carnegiehall.org/article/...ddate=02012006

i would die for another joni record (non-orchestral)
i miss her

I dare say that's not much of an all-star line-up! They should get Cyndi Lauper in there to sing "Carey" again. I just about wept when I saw her sing it a few years back as part of some other Joni tribute.

She has? I only recently began to get into Joni, but I'd love to hear about this. Any influence she may have had on Nicks is inaudible to these ears.

There's that one note in Races Are Run that screams Joni.

I do recall reading a Billboard review of a Buckingham Nicks concert in which the set list purportedly included their cover of "Raised on Robbery." But I also do distinctly recall reading that Joni was one of her big musical influences back in the late 60's. I think some of those early (rather forgettable) 3-chord Fritz era demos could attest to this. But Stevie was also greatly influenced by Bob Dylan, yet you don't really hear much of Dylan's influence on her music either. :shrug:

She also claims to have been influenced by Joplin, not that you'd ever know it when seeing her perform. Methinks she simply took note of the fact that Janis pretty much just stood at the mike most of the time and thought "Whoa, she, like, influenced me. This is serious."

Her 70's performances (namely Rhiannon) are definitely reminiscent of Janis' raucous style, to me. But beyond that, when Stevie says certain people "influenced" her, I think she mainly means that she looked up to them as artists and they inspired her to pursue a career in music, not necessarily that they had a direct impact on her songwriting style or sound. (In Joni's case though, Stevie did say that's where she got her sense of lyrical phrasing).

I've never thought so, personally. Maybe on a slightly surface level, but not much more than that. Janis, to me, was a completely different animal. Stevie never put as much of herself out there for the audience as Janis did. Janis was very special in that regard; her performances revealed herself completely for everyone to see.

I agree with that, definitely.

Eek. I don't see that, either. :laugh:

There are some still photos of Janis in which I felt the pose was so similar to Stevie's. The way she holds on to the mike, the slight squat in her stance while singing. The shaking of her hair, the hand gestures, generally the passion in her performance. Things that, sadly, Stevie has only expressed rarely in performances since the mid-eighties.

Stevie was a Joni groupie in the old days, certainly. In some of the really old demos, you can hear her doing some lyrical kind of things in her falsetto that could be called Joni influenced. None of that ever made it onto a record, though. And she blew out that part of her register so fast that she never sang with that kind of elasticity again. I don't hear any Joni in her lyrics, though. A bit of Janis in the old Rhiannon performances. A bit.

the joni tribute they did a few years ago was pretty spectacular.
kd lang's version of "help me" was sublime.

joni's chords are a lot more complicated then a lot of people realize.
some of her songs are really difficult to cover.
this should be fun -
i hope they get some more people with real talent to show up.