Got my copy from Amazon, spun it this morning.... Her voice: better than I had expected. Better than on TI or TTT. Still, damaged goods, but it is what it is, and is suited much more to her own material than tackling the standards of BSN. There is no escaping comparisons to Billie Holiday. Her phrasing and vocal nuances certainly recall Billie, and this is no accident. Her voice holds up well in most of the songs, but not always, as on the raspy a capella intro to "Love". Throughout, she clearly enunciates her words, often to the point of annoyance, over- pronouncing as if paranoid we might miss something. You wish she would loosen up.
The orchestration: mostly ICK! Worst examples of Vince Mendoza's heavy hand, as in "Sex Kills" suggest an amateur orchestrator aggressively packing overblown instrumental blasts into every available open space. John Lennon once advised Joni to tart up her tunes with strings. I have a feeling he is somewhere screaming "enough already!" FTR, stripped of it's rhythm, sounds like stillborn bachelor pad music. "Be Cool" would be a far better track without the distracting orchestration. While "Refuge" begins with an incredibly beautiful harp piece echoing Joni's original guitar arrangement, the song becomes bogged down with saccharine symphonics. Other poor fits stylistically include "Just Like This Train" which sounds slightly baffling, and the hugely ponderous treatment of "Woodstock", at heart a musically simple song with earthy hippie-era lyrics. The male chorus in "Sire of Sorrow" sounds like what it is, a group of hired hands who most likely have never heard a Joni Mitchell record, and recall nothing so much as Mitch Miller's boys lost in a musical fog. In "Hejira", the conga percussion against the orchestra just sounds weird, and Joni's spasmodic vocal phrasing doesn't help. Occasionally, the overly romantic strings fit the material, as in the melancholy "Chinese Cafe". Hearing Joni sing "nothing lasts for long" moved me to tears. A pleasant surprise was "God Must Be A Boogie Man". Here, at last, is a hint of what could have been. Joni fronting some tasteful jazz greats who understand her material, a touch of swing (THANK YOU!) and a tasteful, small string section. "Trouble Child" and "Be Cool" also swing a bit, and suggest a much more effective musical direction. IMO. RR
