Mine was less Epiphany than one of those quietish Christmases where there's not a lot of money around, so you're not expecting much. It was after Clouds and before Ladies of the Canyon and it was summertime (Hey, I thought you said Christmas? Never mind, figure of speech. Move on.) That makes it 1969 according to the album release dates. That makes me 16 at the time.
My family had moved from small-town Ontario to big-city Toronto (not really. Burbs. So what.) A friend of mine was visiting from the old home town. She mentioned Joni and how good she was. Being Canadian and afflicted with the then-prevalent (but not so much now) attitude that anything Canadian was inferior and somehow sucked, I was reluctant to take her word for it, and figured I'd probably hate it, and it would be too country or something, but nonetheless sprung for Clouds at the local cheapy department store (Zellers, or K-mart, or one of those. I think it cost me $3.99, which, in those days, was probably quite a few babysitting hours' worth of money.) The things that happen when you're expecting not much at all. From the opening notes of "Tin Angel", this was the voice (the singing voice and the poet's voice) I had been waiting for. Bonus - there was another record I could buy and not have to wait, since I didn't have and had never heard Song to a Seagull either. Double bonus - when Ladies of the Canyon came out, my older sister bought it, but I kind of took it over and played it all the time. Mysteriously it ended up in my record collection when we all grew up and moved away from home. Mugsie, if you're wondering what happened to your LOTC album, wonder no more. ===== Catherine Toronto ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
