Warning - politically incorrect rant!! ;-) Mack wrote about the constant attribution to smoking as being at the root of all Joni's vocal "woes":
> Balderdash. The only ones that would know that would be Joni herself and > her physician. Absolutely. Joni has also spoken about having surgery on her vocal chords about a decade ago, as I recall. She's lucky she can sing at all when you think of what such surgery did to Julie Andrews. > As a smoker, I would imagine Joan would not be interested in this > anti-smoking tripe than I am. Yes, Mack, she is similarly irked by the smoking lectures and they probably only make her more defiant. Joni's voice started changing a long time ago when she was too young, IMO, to attribute it all to the "ravages" of smoking. There are plenty of singers out there who also smoked liked chimneys for years and it never effected them much. Of course, Joni and none of us *should* be smoking - it's not a good thing - but there are plenty of other medical reasons for the change in her voice. I will agree smoking is part of it but not all of it, no way. I still go with improper vocal strain in her younger days, hormonal changes (sorry but it's a real thing and it really affects a significant number of female singers in middle age), throat surgery, and perhaps even some post-polio syndrome effects. > Then don't listen. Sad, but obviously true, that the anti-smoking agenda > has even reached here. But of course! ;-) I think her vocie is actually a bit better than a few years ago. To my ears, she is getting more inside the voice she has now rather than trying to strain for something else. I was amazed when I listened to the first song Otis and Marlena - to me her voice sounded exactly like it did way back in '77 on DJRD. Kakki, huffing and puffing! ;-)
