Joni Mitchell: "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" Song by Song Thread

I get a bit bored with the 'loudness wars' debates, but I did keep an eye out for what credible anti-compression campaigners have said concerning this album's recording giving its listeners very wide dynamic range. For this reason at the very least getting your hands on the highest quality vinyl makes sense. I have the weird 'auto-coupled' sequenced version that was immediately remaindered when released. One record has side A and D, the second B and C.
To Discogs knowledge the only vinyl reissue in the last 15 years didn't ride the 180g wave.
What I normally play are HiRes digital files admittedly.

 

Don't want to get in to a track by track discussion or anything, but I think is a hugely underrated album. maybe Paprika Plains puts people off. I dunno... I love it. I love a lot of what follows, but for me, this is her last really great album (following another three). Still plenty of good stuff to go, though.

 

Overture/Cotton Avenue is great way to test speakers

 

Great call. Will try that at some point

 

Jaco's introductory bass note (1:45) should rattle the fillings in your teeth

 

Gotta say, really looking forward to going back for a relisten this evening. I couldn't say that with every thread.

 

If you skip The Tenth World, because drum circles are for scoundrels, this is a fine album. No, not on a par with Hejira, but frankly, what album is? I'd put Jericho, Otis & Marlene, the title track, Off Night Backstreet and The Silky Veils Of Ardor up there with her finest work.

 

We agree then that side D is exceptional.

 

Exceptional is precisely the right word.

 

I should have written, 'we disagree that side D is exceptional' if I use a precise definition of the word.

 

Now I'm confused but I hope you mean "Joni is the Queen, side D is the greatest, let's share the love".

 

Sorry. Side D is truly great but not the exception for being so on the album. The love can still be shared.

 

Gotcha. Joni love for all!

 

I'm not terribly familiar with this album, though not because I dislike it...in fact, the few times I've actually listened to it, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I just haven't had the chance to really spend time with it. That having been said, I quite appreciate its daring, and of course, Jaco's playing is phenomenal throughout. Listening to it now, Overture - Cotton Avenue strikes me as an excellent opener because it gives you a sense of just what kind of album you're about to experience. The buildup to the groove proper (starting around 2:44) is particularly effective. As a side note, it sounds fantastic on headphones.

Looking forward to this thread and everyone's thoughts/stories/insights!

 

To me, that sounds like a truly GREAT day!!

 

This album was my first introduction to Joni Mitchell (I was very late to the game, since I was mostly into jazz during Joni's rise to fame). The moment the needle hit the groove on side 1, I was immediately blown away. The opening track simply blew the doors wide open for me. Right away, when I heard the first couple of minutes of the opening track, it was obvious to me that we're dealing with a first class musical genius (I'm ashamed to admit, but I used to think that Joni was an overrated dumb blonde hippy, almost like a Muppet character, hence my 'jaw on the floor' reaction upon hearing, for the first time, her album).

Of course, I got mighty intrigued right away and started tracing her back catalog, buying her older LPs.

Today, I think her first 10 years (from "Song to a Seagull" to "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter") are her golden period, unmatched in the history of solo recording artists.

That being said, I today hold that "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" is her weakest record of the brilliant bunch. Which is saying a lot about all her other records.

 

To test speakers for what?

 

I picked up this album without pre-listening, which is something I very rarely do. I think I may have heard bits of the title song a long time ago. On the strength of the previous few albums of hers, I thought I could not go far wrong.

On my first listen, I wondered if I had make a big mistake. This stuff was weird. By the time I got through The Tenth World I was thinking "what has got into Joni?"

I was a bit unenthusiastic about it - yet I found myself wanting to hear it again just to try and assimilate it. In fact it has grown on me, and while I would say I like it less than Hissing or Hejira it has its own charm.

I do have trouble thinking of it as a double album because it's not that long, and fits comfortably on the one CD.

Overture/Cotton Avenue set up the listener to expect something different. I really like this opening. I believe this was the first time Joni opened an album with an intro like this, as if to announce "this is a work, not just a bunch of songs."

By the way no one seems to have yet commented on the name "Cotton Avenue". Is it an actual place, one that I should know about?

 

To find out if they're working!

 

I hope you mean to say "obscure"!

 

Gotcha. But one could use any record for that.

 

I've grown to love this album more over the years. I never really disliked it, but when I first became a Joni fan during college years, I struggled with the more non-traditional pop/rock forms on this album. Even though Joni was always creating outside of those boundaries anyway, she was still somewhat near the campsite on earlier albums, so to speak. DJRD was the one that really tested the boundaries.

I've become much more open to instrumental music (and forms that the music world would probably think of as more "classical" forms) as I've gotten older, so that's made me appreciate the album more as a whole. And the Overture in the first track.

I love the "chorus" in Cotton Avenue, and how the percussion/staccato rhythms roll through "no place special."

 

Spring '85. I went into DJRD with only the vaguest notion of what Joni sounded like pre-1974, and with Court / Hissing / Hejira firmly established in my head as how she was "supposed" to sound.

Little did I know. Re-reading the Maslin review today, this line leapt out at me:

Since Blue, Mitchell has demonstrated an increasing fondness for formats that don’t suit her.​

The nerve! But then I recalled how I felt when Dog Eat Dog came out later that year: betrayed. The format didn't suit her, 21-year-old Black Thumb wailed!

So I get where she's coming from. But I realize she and younger I left out some crucial words: Joni had a fondness for formats that didn't suit our expectations of her.

DJDR is a work of (often mad) genius.

But I gotta second the "not cool" on Art Nouveau.

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Anyway, the spectral Jonis have left the blue motel room and are headed for Cotton Ave. Spread some sand on the floor and start the sly slow shuffle.

I've always enjoyed playing the track loud - the overture lulls everyone in the room listening into a nice meditative space, and then suddenly that first BRRRRRRRRR from Jaco hits. Great fun.

I always imagine confetti blowing out of cheap speakers as the paper cones disintegrate.

Such killer chord changes on this one. And those lead vocals! Well, my dear ...

Love the imagery conjured up by "somewhere in there's Cotton Avenue" - gazing at distant city lights and dreaming of what might be happening beneath their glare.

Sometimes it's better just to dream about that.

 

yes, and as you get older it's better to dream about it than to actually DO it
it can chew you up and spit you out.
'poor boys will be hanging around outside in the street, they got all the latest words they're dancing to the latest beat while they're hustling inside'

 

Hehehe. Tell me about it. After work today a bunch of the younger folks went out for drinks and I came home and did laundry.

The magnetic moth-like draw that downtown neon has definitely dissipates with middle age. Joni sure as hell wasn't singing as much about it when she got there.