The same day that "Shine" comes out (Sep. 25), Herbie Hancock is releasing his latest album, which is a tribute to Joni called "River: The Joni Letters." Most of the tracks are instrumental, but it includes guest vocalists Norah Jones ("Court and Spark"), Corinne Bailey Rae ("River"), Leonard Cohen ("The Jungle Line"), Luciana Souza ("Amelia"), Tina Turner ("Edith and the Kingpin"), and Joni herself ("The Tea Leaf Prophecy").
On Herbie's
MySpace
page, you can hear clips of a few tracks, including Tina singing "Edith and the Kingpin," which I was having a hard time envisioning, but there it is. I honestly never thought I'd ever hear Tina Turner singing a Joni Mitchell song.
Also, the song clips for Joni's "Shine" album are up on Amazon. Her voice sounds better than it did on Travelogue - though it's hard to say how different it is based on 30-second song clips. It seems to be a piano-dominant album; the guitar work I'm hearing on the clips don't sound like her. But those of you who hated the VG8 on Taming the Tiger will be thrilled that it's nowhere to be heard on this album, I'm sure.
