I've been thinking about Joni's ravaged voice (all that smoking, all that talking, all that LIVING), and wondering why it sometimes bothers me and sometimes does not.
I feel like that character on SEINFELD who always answers his own questions. "Do I wish that Joni could still hit those high notes? Of course. Am I put off by the choppy phrasing others have noted here? Sure. But is there much to love in Joni's voice now? Yes! For one, its whiskey-sour quality brings a brand-new sexiness to songs such as FLAT TIRES, TROUBLE CHILD, GMBABM and BE COOL. And Joni's languid, held-back jazz phrasing is more assured than ever. Her thrilling lower register adds a new womanliness and wisdom to DAWNTREADER, RICHARD and CIRCLE GAME. These are older songs; and I like the feeling that Joni is telling me these stories of hers again, years later, and making me really listen to the words. That "And a dream of a baby" in DAWNTREADER is devastating. I love the lightness in RICHARD; where the original is full of sorrow, this version is fond, accepting and hopeful (and, as someone mentioned earlier, she really nails "Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away"). As for CIRCLE GAME, I imagine Joni singing it to a child. Such tenderness in that "Caught a dragonfly / Inside a jar." There's a welcome intimacy throughout. I feel that Joni's readings of LOVE, CHINESE CAFE and CHEROKEE LOUSIE are as naked and intimate as anything on BLUE. And even some of her odd, chopped-up phrasing really works for me. At first I didn't like AMELIA; but now, her breaking up of "It was just a flase alarm" (different each time) suggests that she's searching for the words, singing it for the first time -- which adds to the drama. So too her reading, in HEJIRA, of "A defector / From the petty wars / Until / LOVE / Sucks me back that way." Boy, can I feel that! Finally, I guess I have to confess that some pretty devastating things have happened to me recently; and the very human quality of T'LOG -- with its sorrows and joys, its bombast and intimacy, its roughness and smoothness, its glory and its pits (!) -- is more comforting than I can put into words. And so, for me, T'LOG is viintage Joni; and long may she wave. MICHAEL in Toronto
