Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell – the new biography from celebrated music critic Ann Powers

Unfortunately the author seems to have confused biography with autobiography and although we learn a bit about Joni we have far too many revelations about Ann Powers, which are not only annoying but far less interesting.

If you like Joni Mitchell, if you're actually fond of her, perhaps grown up with her, don't waste time and money on this book. It's laughably - or tragically - unsympathetic and wrong-headed. Altogether, not for Joni fans.

Of the ten books I’ve read on Joni Mitchell, this one is unique. Rather than being told from the perspective of someone who has followed her career from the beginning, it is a book of discovery. Mitchell’s story is not told by a fawning fan, nor is it a conventional biography or song-by-song survey. Ann Powers is a journalist and music critic who did not begin as a Joniphile, and I, as a person who was smitten with the very first album while still in my teens and went on to follow Joni’s every move, almost envy Powers’ gradual journey to becoming a fan, not to mention her physical access to Mitchell’s friends and to Joni herself.Just to begin with, this book is beautifully organized and written. Powers’ facility with language almost rises to the level of Mitchell’s songwriting, and that is no small feat. Then there is Powers’ refreshing take on Mitchell’s later career from the 1980s and beyond. Too much of the great music Mitchell wrote and made after she stopped having commercial hits has been ignored or dismissed by critics, and especially fans of BLUE and COURT AND SPARK, who couldn’t adjust to her many changes as she got more and more “experimental.” For instance, author and musician, Sean Nelson uses his 2007 book focusing on COURT AND SPARK to trash most of Mitchell’s later work. This has been typical, and it’s too bad. (some of Mitchell’s later recordings are among my favorites). What some people miss is that Mitchell was experimental from the very beginning; why would she want to stay in one place for long? But some of her fans apparently wanted her to. So I feel that Powers is setting the record straight here, pun intended. In other words, she doesn’t drop Joni off at the first bump in the road.Oh, to discover Joni Mitchell’s music all over again! Reading this book was a vicarious thrill, riding along with Powers as she dug up treasures and gained insights into Joni’s artistry. Then there are the contributions later in Mitchell’s life by collaborators like Brian Blade and her friend, Brandi Carlile, who did so much to bring Joni back into the spotlight, first with the “Joni Jams” at Mitchell’s home, and then slowly back to concert stages. That struggle to regain health and mobility could not have been easy, but once again, Mitchell shows up not as merely a survivor and living legend, but rightfully sitting back on her throne at the center of modern popular music.If I have just one criticism of this book, it’s the way Powers dissects the more controversial aspects of Mitchell’s life and career. She occasionally slips into obvious political messaging that seems to me like pandering to the so-called “progressive” influencers of the moment, with their emphasis on identity politics and the guilt of the privileged elite. Mitchell has done things, most specifically having to do with the cover images of herself on the album DON JUAN’S RECKLESS DAUGHTER (and there’s more), for which she has too often been given a free pass, when probably no one else would have, even back in 1977. Powers is right to call her on it, but she devotes several pages to it and slips into easy talking points about appropriation and cultural theft. I’m glad she brought this up, and I get it. Nobody’s perfect, but personal motivations do make a difference, even when someone else’s feelings might get hurt in the process. Powers makes a legitimate argument (yes, Joni, you should have known better), but then takes it into generalities about the larger culture that I feel have little or nothing to do with Joni Mitchell’s creative talent, which is really what the rest of this volume is about. Just my opinion.Now, I’m sure there will be Joni Mitchell fans for whom Joni could never do wrong, who will feel offended by any criticism of her at all, but I’m glad that Powers was bold and honest enough to express herself in the way she has, even when I haven’t agreed sometimes. This is what made this read so much richer than the average biography, or memoir, and the book is not a puff piece. Mitchell is a complex woman who has very human flaws and demons, and the struggles with physical and mental health that nearly everyone has had to confront and deal with at some point. Among her few warts, she has been accused of being egotistical, sometimes obnoxiously so (I’ve never liked to hear her easy, public dismissals of other musicians -- as someone who has few equals, she could be more gracious), but if any artist has ever earned the right to such bluster, it’s Joni Mitchell. There are maybe a handful of songs written and composed by Mitchell during the long length of her career that I don’t much care for, but she has a better track record in my book than just about anybody else. I put her above her male peers and mentors, Dylan and Cohen, as a poet, and especially as a musician. Yet Powers, on her fascinating road trip to discover Mitchell’s music and learn about the woman, her life and her loves, has given me some new perspectives on why she is such an important figure in American (and World) music, aside from my unflagging devotion. Excellent book – highly recommended to both fans and those who are curious about what all the fuss over Joni Mitchell has been about over the past fifty years.

When is a biography not a biography? When it is a critical appraisal of the artist's body of work, but the publisher thought it would sell better if it were called a biography. I enjoy books about music I like because you get the songs bouncing around in your head while you are reading. A Day in a Life, by Mark Hertsgaard, about the music of the Beatles remains one of my all-time great reading experiences for exactly that reason. With this, I enjoyed this book only when I was familiar with the albums under discussion. But I really didn't follow Joni all the way through her experimental period, which seems to be of far greater interest to author Ann Powers. These sections of the book lost me. Also, quite a bit of the book is more about Ann Powers than Joni Mitchell and I found that self indulgent. "You don't meet too many straight guys who love Joni Mitchell," this book quotes Annette Benning telling Mark Ruffalo in the movie The Kids Are All Right. That is certainly true enough, but when I see I belong to a demographic of no interest to the author, it is easy for me to lose interest. In honor of Joni's releasing a greatest Hits collection, and following it up with a collection called Misses, here is a hit and a miss from the book that may help you decide if you want to buy the book or not: Hit - around page 300 there is a 2-3 page critique of 70s culture, including music, art, film and literature that represents this book at its best. Salient observations about popular music are scattered through the book. Miss - she actually met Joni once, and tells you this very late in the book. (Naomi Klein pulled the same thing in her book Doppelgangers. Is this a trend in feminist writing now?) She was invited to give a lecture on the album Blue, and Joni was in attendance. When the author became flustered, Joni encouraged her to go on. Sweet story. But then there is tape of the incident, and it shows the whole thing to be actually much more mundane. I wanted to scream at the book - stop jerking me around. Recommended for fans of Ann Powers. Seriously, I am not just being snarky, she is a remarkably insightful critic. But this is not a biography of Joni Mitchell, nor does it attempt to be one.

As someone who always appreciated Joni Mitchell but did not know a lot about her, this book was a great way of getting into both her life and music. I liked—indeed, I really needed—the autobiographical framing narrative that told the story of how Powers “traveled” along Joni’s path. By the time I was done reading this wonderful book, I felt closer to both the subject and the author…and understood more deeply how difficult it is to really get close to a complicated artist like Mitchell.In short, for those who don’t know Mitchell’s life and work all that well, this is the ideal introduction. For those who do, I still think it will be a good read—that it will make you think differently about Mitchell, about music, and about biography.

I'm a fan of both Joni Mitchell's music and Ann Powers's writing--so I loved this book! I really appreciate Powers's thoughtful approach to Mitchell's music and her career. Not a traditional biography--there are plenty of those--this instead considers puts Mitchell's life and music in conversation with the culture and other music, along with her own responses as a music fan. I'd love to read another book like this about another musician.

Exactly the type of music book I most want to read -- a thoughtful consideration of the music, persona and mythology of Joni Mitchell