Joni Mitchell - Club 47 (Live, 1968)

Review: 4/5

Review:
Great music, indifferent sound

This is a recording made from FM radio of a live Joni Mitchell performance in January 1968.  She plays solo and is, of course, brilliant, but the editing and sound quality leave a good deal to be desired in places.

This was recorded just before the issue of her first album, Songs To A Seagull.  Many of the tarcks from that album are featured here, and I found it a strong reminder of how very good many of them are.  Singable, joyful songs like Night in the City are still a pleasure, but I also remember the extraordinary impact things like I Had A King had on me at the time: poetic, profound and truthful lyrics and some of that extraordinary melodic and harmonic inventiveness which have made Joni Mitchell a unique talent.  It's also slightly surprising that both Chelsea Morning and Both Sides Now feature here but weren't included on the album (they appeared on the follow-up, Clouds).  I'm also glad to have some songs here which I don't have anywhere else in my pretty extensive Joni Mitchell collection

The performance are very good indeed.  It's very obviously unadulterated, with quite a bit of retuning (she has always used a lot of different tunings), some of which don't quite leave the guitar perfectly in tune, for example.  Joni's singing and playing is fabulous, though, still making me marvel at the ease with which she sings some of those extraordinarily difficult melodic lines and hits every note bang on.  There's a little interaction with the audience, which I like a lot, and the balance of music and audience noise is well managed.

The real problem with this disc is the sound.  It's adequate for most of the time, but not great, with a slightly muddy, phasey quality.  There's a horrendous piece of tape slide in the opening track and a couple of other glitches elsewhere and no attempt has been made to edit out some intrusive ident announcements.  Frankly, whoever did the "remastering" really needs to pursue a different career if this is their idea of a properly remastered disc.

I can still recommend this: Joni is on fine form, the music is great and the sound isn't bad enough to ruin it, but it's a qualified recommendation because of the somewhat dodgy sound.

(And as a footnote, I do worry slightly that the early live recordings which are appearing are somewhat cynically cashing in on the publicity surrounding Joni's recent illness.  It's not a reason for me to ignore good music, but it's a concern.)