From the Toronto Star http://thestar.com
Nov. 19, 2002. 01:00 AM
Joni Mitchell `not sour,' will keep making music
Singer `not bitter' after threatening to quit recording Legend receives
Canadian honour at AGO ceremony
MURRAY WHYTE
ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER
Joni Mitchell pauses for a moment, considers the question, and then
delivers some welcome news: No, she's not quitting the music business. At
least, not yet.
"I'm not raffled, I'm not sour and I'm not bitter," she said last night
with a laugh, taking a brief pause from the crush of admirers vying for her
attention at the Art Gallery of Ontario. "All the bosses in that industry
have been so nice since I knocked it, everything's been smoothed over. So
let's get on with it."
Mitchell, in town to receive the Wm. Harold Moon Award from the Society of
Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada for her contributions to
bringing international attention to Canadian music, will likely have given
welcome relief to the legions of fans she's built up over three-plus
decades as a singer-songwriter.
Recently, Mitchell, disgusted at the music industry's insatiable hunger for
Britneys and Shakiras, said Travelogue, her new double CD that will be
released today, would be her last.
"What would I do? Get hair extensions and a choreographer?" she said in the
December issue of W magazine. "It's not my world."
But even if she's changed her mind, she certainly hasn't changed her
position. "I don't want songs to be disposable," she said last night.
"Instead of being swayed to demographic and marketing procedures, it has to
mean something. Music is too calculated now. It's good for aerobics, but it
isn't moving."
Mitchell, wearing a black Issey Miyake dress bought on the weekend at Hold
Renfrew ("It's her favourite," said Mitchell's daughter, Toronto-based
Kilauren Gibb; "they just don't seem to have it in L.A.," where Mitchell
lives), graciously received fellow attendees seeking photos with her, and
autographs.
Also receiving awards last night were Nelly Furtado, rock group Nickelback
and hip-hop artist Kardinal Offishal.
Smoking contentedly in the AGO's Agora restaurant, Mitchell lamented the
turn the business has taken and how far that turn has taken it away from
art that matters. "We need a counter-force. We can't all be bitches and
ho's," she said, referring to the hip-hop boom that has consumed commercial
radio. "The artist's job is to sit on the sidelines. We're supposed to be
outcasts. An artist is not a politician. We have to be non-partisan,
skeptical."
A sampling of Mitchell's philosophy can be found on Travelogue, an album
that assembles many of Mitchell's best-known songs but in a radically
reworked form, using a 70-piece orchestra, a choir, and a corps of
accomplished jazz players. It can be seen as a look back, but it's also a
look forward for new challenges, which Mitchell is committed to pursuing.
"I meet young artists all the time, and I tell them they have to do what
they feel," she said. "Synthesize what you really like. Don't cop out."
To be clear, Mitchell's relenting from her absolute position is not that.
She's made her statement, and is ready to move on.
"I threatened to quit because I was pissed off, and with good reason," she
said. "I don't think I can quit, but in order to write again, there's going
to have to be a real shift in me. Where that will come from, I don't know."
--- Victor Johnson
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Visit http://www.cdbaby.com/victorjohnson
Look for the new album "Parsonage Lane" in March 2003
Produced by Chris Rosser at Hollow Reed Studios
