Joni Mitchell is set to release the recordings of two sets at a Canadian coffee shop that were recorded by Jimi Hendrix. You can listen to ‘The Dawntreader’ below. (NME)
The singer’s performances at Ottawa’s Le Hibou Coffee House were captured by Hendrix in March 1968 during a two week residency by Mitchell ahead of the release of her debut album, ‘Song To A Seagull’.
Hendrix had performed at the nearby Capitol Theatre earlier that evening, and even noted plans to record her performance in his diary.
“Talked with Joni Mitchell on the phone. I think I’ll record her tonight with my excellent tape recorder (knock on wood)… hmmm… can’t find any wood… everything’s plastic,” he wrote.
The recording, which now features on Mitchell’s upcoming collection ‘Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971)’ was captured while Hendrix sat on the floor at the front of the stage.
Recalling the performance in the new collection’s sleeve notes, Mitchell said: “They came and told me, ‘Jimi Hendrix is here, and he’s at the front door.’ I went to meet him. He had a large box.
“The stage was only about a foot off the ground. He knelt at edge of the stage, with a microphone, at my feet. All during the show, he kept twisting knobs. He was engineering it, I don’t know what he was controlling, volume? He was watching the needles or something, messing with knobs. He beautifully recorded this tape. Of course I played part of the show to him. He was right below me.”
Joni Mitchell has not talked with the media since suffering an aneurysm in 2015, but she has spoken with a part-time member of the press — Cameron Crowe, the rock journalist turned writer-director turned very occasional rock journalist again — for a Q&A that has been published in England’s Guardian.
In the interview, Mitchell talks for the first time about the difficulty of her recovering from the debilitating physical setback of five years ago, on top of reminiscing about the earliest days of her music career in the ’60s.
“Iwas lying in bed last night thinking about getting a cat,” says Joni Mitchell. It’s an early summer Sunday, and she’s sitting in her backyard patio, nicknamed Tuscany. Behind her a bird feeder is busy with hungry visitors. “And this guy shows up at the gate around midnight, meowing.”
A light-brown kitten with long white paws, only a few months old, leans contentedly against her shoulder. “I hope nobody comes to claim him,” she confides softly.
Asked by Crowe if “the muse” is visiting her, Mitchell says, “I haven’t been writing recently. I haven’t been playing my guitar or the piano or anything. No, I’m just concentrating on getting my health back. You know what? I came back from polio, so here I am again, and struggling back. … I’m showing slow improvement but moving forward.”
As Mitchell recounts it, “I couldn’t walk. I had to learn how again. I couldn’t talk. Polio didn’t grab me like that, but the aneurysm took away a lot more, really. Took away my speech and my ability to walk. And, you know, I got my speech back quickly, but the walking I’m still struggling with. But I mean, I’m a fighter. I’ve got Irish blood!” Crowe characterizes her as laughing long at the thought of that genetic advantage. “So you know, I knew, ‘Here I go again, another battle.'”
“The early stuff – I shouldn’t be such a snob against it,” Mitchell says. “A lot of these songs, I just lost them. They fell away. They only exist in these recordings. For so long I rebelled against the term: ‘I was never a folk singer.’ I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. I didn’t think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened, and – it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings. And I had this realization… Oh God! I was a folk singer!” To read the full interview click here
Mitchell’s public appearances have been rare in the last decade, fewer and farther between since she suffered a brain aneurysm in 2015, for which she was hospitalized after being found unconscious at her home. But she has ventured into public spaces a little more frequently in the last year.
"That night I told my manager ‘I want to do the whole “Blue” album live,’” Carlile, 38, told a star-studded capacity crowd at Disney Hall that included Elton John and husband David Furnish, lyricist Bernie Taupin and wife Heather, guitarist-singer Bonnie Raitt, actor-singer Taron Egerton, actress Rita Wilson, singer Yola and actor Kevin Bacon.