Mike P wrote > There are people who like the > CAS to Mingus streak as her finest work. I would put myself in this last > group.
I find that interesting in two respects, Mike. First, I went over 20 years (from 1975 - late mid 1990's) having essentially abandoned Joni's work after C&S. I knew she was going places I could not handle at that time (I believe I was not alone among Joni's early fans), and I suspected that it was "all my fault". For all 20 years, she remained my #1 solely on the basis of her first 6 albums. I suspected that she was not as good at what I saw as the "jazzy" stuff as she was at her earlier "folky/classic/pop" blends - how could she be the best at both ? - but I had a lot of admiration for her, so I could not be certain. Anyway, I bought and eventually rejected (i.e., failed to get into) THOSL, Hejira, WTRF and DED. After DED, I stopped listening altogether to the post-C&S stuff for at least 10 years. Then, I picked up TI and NRH, liked them a lot, and proceeded backward in time. Eventually, I fell in love with the whole period you cite (except Mingus - which I now know is still my fault - though I was listening to and loving TWTLIL yesterday). Did you hear those albums first - i.e., before hear earlier work? How did you come to like them - quickly, or after many listens ? How do your tastes in music run, outside of Joni ? My "feel" here is that some people (like you ?) are more intuitive, natural and perhaps more sophisticated listeners and appreciators than others (like myself), who need to work at listening to more complex stuff, until we have absorbed it analytically, which then frees us up to listen to it aesthetically and emotionally. Anyway, I ramble sometimes. Second, I find it interesting that C&S was the first in your "magic" string, and the last in my original magic string. It made both our lists. This reinforces for me that C&S was really her transitional album. Maybe it was all of those non-tonic bass chords (put to more use than in earlier albums). And, IMO, C&S got "jazzier" even within itself - with the earlier cuts more accessible on balance, and the later ones taking more time for me to warm up to. And the band, too, was a change, by and large. Ironically, her transitional album proved to be her most popular - she passed through the plane of mass appeal briefly on her otherwise largely off-plane journey to the top of the mountain. Hmmm. Bob S
