Im 62, but my 14-year-old self is feeling pretty darn proud these days.
Thats when, in the early 1970s, my closest friends and I couldnt get enough of Joni Mitchell.
Its odd to recall, but in those days we Joni devotees were often slipped into a stereotype.
Like our muse, we were viewed as too romantic, introspective and sensitive.
Too moody, blue and self-absorbed.
Couldnt we be more upbeat, a little more Olivia Newton-John?
Jonis star has risen.
The label pinned to her now isgenius.
In January 2022 she will receive the MusiCares Person of the Year award.
The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award was bestowed on her in 2002.
Two years ago, folk-rock musician Brandi Carlile performed all 10 ofBlues songs in L.A.
Songs that fused poetry and prayer, as everyone knows who has ever sung along to Woodstock.
Songs that mapped a womans heart.
Songs more like a flowers essential oil than the flower itself.
I think back to 1973 and remember the dayBluejoined my record collection.
I was in eighth grade, home with a cold and fever, and preyed on my mothers sympathies.
kindly, I said from under my pink bedspread.
Will you go to Korvettes after your errands?
Theres this album,Blueby Joni Mitchell, and I want to learn the songs by heart.
To my great surprise, my mother came into my room that afternoon record in hand.
Eventually Id understand each no had roots in forces far beyond her temperament.
I came of age in a chasm called a generation gap.
Mothers shaped by World War II, the baby boom and the retreat into family.
Daughters shaped by the Vietnam War, the womens movement and birth control pills that made it possible.
Into the maternal silence on love and sexuality stepped Joni.
