Some demos from Hissing of Summer Lawns have circulated in pretty good quality for years. Off the top of my head, I forget how much material, but it's enough for most of a CD. I'll check and see... ...ok, shorter than I thought - 9 songs, 36 minutes. There's a version of Dreamland, and Hunter, or The Good Samaritan, which dates back to Blue. The other ones are all from Hissing.
Oh but she does. She did lots of recording before the first album and had something like 4 albums worth of material ready before cutting her first album. Some have leaked to superfans but most are not circulating. And there are Mingus outtakes that recently appeared, alternate takes from Hejira that are known to exist, demos, live concerts pretty much every year from 1965-1976, not to mention lots of video footage in the vault.
I suspect that they will also reissue her catalogue on vinyl. Blue appears to be out of print, and the other Rhino titles are getting a bit scarce. Did she lose tapes in the fire?
Not sure about the Geffen stuff, but the fire did not affect anything from Warner (1963-1980, 1993-2002)
They do mostly online orders these days and often have listings early. I have no doubt these will disappear at some point, only to re-emerge once we get the official announcement.
I’ve been listening to Joni a lot lately. I am enjoying albums I only found mildly entertaining in the past and much of her wonderful catalog and enjoying all equally well. She is unconditionally to me the greatest female artist any genre any time and one of the all time artist period.
I'd have to agree, though I'm sure Joni would take issue with "female." Love that quote -- "Everyone always calls me the female Bob Dylan but nobody ever calls him the male Joni Mitchell."
I suspect these releases are happening for financial reasons. Although Joni, as a dual citizen, is eligible for Canadian health insurance, perhaps it doesn't cover all of the medical care she's had in the U.S. in the last few years. Other than royalties on her existing catalog and whatever she makes from her paintings, she hasn't had a source of income for years.
I definitely agree that Joni does not need the 'female' qualifier--to me, she is simply the greatest songwriter of the 20th century. However, I also don't think there is any denying that her work is deeply and specifically feminine and written from a woman's perspective, and that this is crucial to understanding it. Just as Marvin Gaye being African-American deeply informed his genius and commentary on What's Going On, I don't think we should completely overlook Joni's gender or pretend it isn't there. She blazed trails with that gender, influencing so many women who came after her to write fearlessly from their own uniquely female perspectives. (Also: calling her the 'female Bob Dylan' is awful! I completely agree with her there and I can see exactly why that would drive her nuts. As if her work can only be appraised when viewed through the lens of a different (male) artist. He shouldn't be the male Joni either. They are two different people with their own pretty vastly different artistic perspectives).
How much demand is there going to be for releases like these, though? They also cost money to create. Wouldn't an expanded Blue/Hejira/etc. make more sense if she needed money?
i am in the minority when it comes to joni mitchell in that i much prefer her material form 'court and spark" onward than the earlier material. i can only hope these archive release are career covering.
Rhino tried this back in ‘07 or so. Catalog numbers were assigned, Amazon links went up, then they were canceled.
