[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”article-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”||||||||” header_text_align=”center” header_text_color=”#111111″ header_font_size=”68px” custom_margin=”40px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
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1975 was JONI MITCHELL<\/b>\u2019s roller-coaster year: 12 months of romance and heartbreak, adventure and retreat, cocaine and Rolling Thunder. And in the middle of it, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns<\/i>, her doubling-down on jazz rhythms, exotic melodies and songwriting-as-literature, with (for now, at least) a simpatico crew in tow. \u201cIt was just a good vibe,\u201d they tell GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN<\/b>. \u201cAnd Joni was at the centre of it, at the peak of her powers.\u201d<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-main” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
Photography by CHARLES W. BUSH<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/1.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell (Nov.1975)” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n The grass is singing: Joni Mitchell, November 1975.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n JONI MITCHELL NEEDED TO GET OFF-STAGE IMMEDIATELY. By late February 1976, she was two dozen dates into a 30-show tour with the L.A. Express, the band of California aces who had helped her cut The Hissing Of Summer Lawns<\/i>. The plan was to wrap a Stateside run on Leap Day, take a month off, and jet from Japan to Australia to Europe for more shows. But Mitchell wasn\u2019t even going to make it through the start of this one, as 14,000 listeners waited in the University of Maryland\u2019s basketball arena. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n As they\u2019d done most nights, the band began with Help Me from Court And Spark<\/i>, Mitchell\u2019s voice swan-diving above Robben Ford\u2019s ragged electric tone. Halfway through the tune, she put down her guitar \u2013 \u201cimpossible to hear,\u201d read an outraged account in the university\u2019s newspaper \u2013 and stalked off the stage as the band slunk toward awkward silence. Word soon came that Mitchell was sick, that the show was cancelled, and that $7.50 refunds would be available. Mitchell was in the bathroom, crying and vomiting. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/2-1.jpg” title_text=”Jimmy Webb & Patsy Sullivan Wedding – 13 Jul 1974″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Stormy weather: Mitchell with L.A. Express drummer John Guerin, July 13, 1974<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s had the flu for the last two or three days,\u201d her co-manager Ron Stone told the Washington Post, attributing the cancellation to a nationwide flu epidemic. \u201cShe probably shouldn\u2019t have gone at all.\u201d <\/p>\n Mitchell was<\/i> sick. Three days earlier, after a set in Boston, she\u2019d asked that the plane leave when the gig was done, so she could convalesce all day in New York before the next day\u2019s sold-out show at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. But the source was less national outbreak than personal heartbreak. Since the L.A. Express had become her band, Mitchell had been in a turbocharged relationship with its drummer, John Guerin, a strong-jawed jazz obsessive with bright eyes and a prodigious sex drive. <\/p>\n They\u2019d broken up and reunited a half-dozen times before Guerin became jealous of Mitchell\u2019s potential relationship with Bob Dylan, her road buddy for 1975\u2019s cocaine-fuelled Rolling Thunder Revue. Dylan stopped by their show in Austin, Texas, for the encore. Guerin cheated. They fought. When he told Mitchell he wanted to bring an ex-girlfriend, Judy, on tour, she agreed, so long as she stayed out of limos, planes and gigs. She didn\u2019t. \u201cIn the next town, I got sick,\u201d Mitchell eventually told her biographer David Yaffe. \u201cI got the flu from the stress.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/a.jpg” title_text=”a” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Three years later, Mitchell confessed to Cameron Crowe that she still regretted that night, leaving so many people disappointed. The venue was a Quonset hut of bad acoustics, she said, and she was already reeling. \u201cIf I listed for you the strikes that were against me that night, I think that you could dig it,\u201d she said before enumerating bronchitis, back aches, and lingering Rolling Thunder fatigue. \u201cI was in physical pain. I was in emotional pain. I was going with someone in the band, and we were in the process of splitting up.\u201d <\/p>\n Five shows later, the tour ended, Mitchell and the L.A. Express limping toward barbaric reviews at the Wisconsin finale. In three weeks, the inevitable announcement arrived: those international dates weren\u2019t happening. \u201cThe decision was taken for medical reasons,\u201d read the notice in Record Mirror & Disc. \u201cDoctors who treated her for exhaustion and flu during her recent American tour advised her to cancel.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/b.jpg” title_text=”b” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n That decision became one of the defining moments of Mitchell\u2019s career. Rather than fly overseas and continue the tumult, she took a long, discursive road trip across the United States. She cloaked her stardom in pseudonyms and wigs, tucked her guitar into a used white Mercedes she bought on the road, and began writing about her heart again. The exit ultimately allowed her to make another confessional masterpiece, Hejira<\/i>, while expanding on the experimental sounds with the jazz players of her recent records. She abandoned Joni Mitchell The Folk Singer on the highway. <\/p>\n \u201cThe journey back was one of detoxing basically from Rolling Thunder,\u201d she once said. \u201cThat whole album was written coming out of the fog and having been really delivered from the fog into a state of absolute mental health.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/3.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell (1975)” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Mitchell on-stage, 1974<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI WOKE UP ONE DAY,\u201d MITCHELL TOLD A LOS ANGELES audience in March 1974, \u201cand I said, I can\u2019t be having fun in this city. I gotta be supporting something, growing a garden.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n After she finished Blue<\/i> in 1971, Mitchell stumbled into a Hollywood hangover, years of public relationships, music-industry manoeuvring, and international escapades having worn her down. She wanted to reset in the woods. \u201cSo I went up to Canada and picked out a piece of land, which looked to be pretty self-sufficient,\u201d she continued, \u201cand also had enough chromatic changes and scales in the atmosphere to keep me from going stark-raving mad.\u201d <\/p>\n Mitchell wrote most of For The Roses<\/i> there, reflecting on the surrealism of stardom as if she could see it fully for the first time from afar. To record it, Mitchell returned to LA, to A&M studios and a familiar producer, Henry Lewy. During the sessions, Lewy asked Tom Scott, a young saxophonist with his own quartet and credits on more than 100 records, to stop by so Mitchell could hear his take on her song Woodstock. She told him to stick around. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI absolutely couldn\u2019t believe what I was hearing,\u201d Scott remembered in 1974. \u201cI knew she was a heavyweight whose music was far beyond any so-called folk-rock person I\u2019d ever heard. And we found we worked together really well.\u201d <\/p>\n Scott harmonised with Mitchell\u2019s guitar on Barangrill and slipped dramatically into the spaces of the finale, Judgement Of The Moon And Stars. Still, For The Roses<\/i> was transitional, a half-step away from her acoustic start. Mitchell was living mostly with agent-manager and Asylum Records boss David Geffen in a Hollywood mansion, after her bitter break-up with Jackson Browne led to a suicide attempt. At Geffen\u2019s, she began working on songs for her sixth album. <\/p>\n With Lewy behind the boards, she cut demos in the summer of 1973, chaining four new tunes in a 13-minute piano medley and slipping through the melodic switchbacks of Just Like This Train on guitar. Drummer Russ Kunkel, who had played with Mitchell since Blue<\/i>, bowed out; she needed a new band, he said, a jazz unit comfortable with her burgeoning rhythmic complications. (Neil Young and his Santa Monica Flyers gave it a roughshod try later that summer during the Tonight\u2019s The Night<\/i> sessions.) <\/p>\n Scott had invited her to see L.A. Express, his new band with Larry Carlton on guitar, Joe Sample on keyboards, and a deal with Lou Adler\u2019s Ode Records. They were regulars at the Baked Potato, a funky-looking jazz club in Studio City. \u201cVery timidly, she asked if the guys might be interested in playing on a few tracks on her new album,\u201d Scott told Rolling Stone. By the autumn of 1973, they were all in A&M, the L.A. Express delivering soft, athletic jazz reinforcement. \u201cAs it turned out, we did the whole album.\u201d <\/p>\n That album, Court And Spark<\/i>, arrived via Asylum in January 1974; by that summer, Mitchell had her only Top 10 hit, Help Me. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/4.jpg” title_text=”Musicians Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Richi Havens, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform the finale of the The Rolling Thunder Revue, a tour headed by Dylan, in Dec. 1975. (AP Photo)” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n The Rolling Thunder Revue finale, Madison Square Garden, December 8, 1975 (from left) Roger McGuinn, Mitchell, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Ramblin\u2018 Jack Elliott, Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n THE DAY THAT ROBBEN FORD\u2019S invitation to join Mitchell\u2019s band arrived was the very day he\u2019d intended to start his own. But as he waited for \u2019Spoon in a Los Angeles office to break the news, the phone rang. It was Scott, the L.A. Express saxophonist and bandleader, calling with an offer: did Ford want to tour with Joni Mitchell? Ford turned him down, but Scott persisted, telling him to listen to acetates of Court And Spark and Tom Scott & The L.A. Express<\/i>. In a big John Coltrane phase, Ford didn\u2019t love the latter, but the former caught his ear and imagination, particularly Guerin\u2019s subtle but steady drumming. Scott invited him to jam with the band the next day at A&M, to see if it clicked. When it did, Scott bluffed, telling Ford other guitarists were on their way to the audition. If he wanted the job, he\u2019d better take it. <\/p>\n \u201cThere was a bunch of money involved, but I didn\u2019t know much about money,\u201d Ford says. \u201cThe deciding factor was that I was going to be around all these great musicians. I could learn a lot.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/5.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell (1975)” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n In full bloom: Joni Mitchell enjoys her garden life<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Scott took Ford shopping for a new guitar, amplifier, and starter pack of pedals that would mirror what Larry Carlton had played on Court And Spark<\/i>. (\u201cThat was instant,\u201d Carlton tells MOJO of his and Joe Sample\u2019s decision not to tour. \u201cWe were still very busy in the studio, and I knew it wasn\u2019t the right thing.\u201d) After two weeks of rehearsals in Hollywood, they were off for a three-month tour of civic centres, opera halls, and even a high-school auditorium. <\/p>\n Nearly a decade had passed since Dylan went electric, and popular ideas of pure folk had eroded. Still, Mitchell and the Express encountered qualms. When someone in Chicago yelled for Mitchell to turn down the volume, she quipped, \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter, do we have a hall full of purists? I thought Chicago liked to boogie.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/6.jpg” title_text=”Photo of Robben Ford” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n L.A. Express guitarist Robben Ford<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Camaraderie quickly emerged. Ford remembers it all seemed like family, driving from show to show in a crowded Winnebago. \u201cIt never felt like, Oh, this is a drag. It was just a good vibe,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd Joni was just at the centre of it, at the peak of her powers.\u201d <\/p>\n Ford even lived with Scott during the three-month break between winter and summer tours. When they returned to the road in July, they headed for bigger stages with a new keyboardist, Larry Nash. Two weeks into the run, they played five nights at Los Angeles\u2019 Universal Amphitheatre, selling 26,000 tickets. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/7.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell Posed In Amsterdam” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Mitchell with her co-manager Elliot Roberts taking care of business, Amsterdam, 1972.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n On opening night, on top of a gown and heels, Mitchell wore a denim jacket borrowed from a stagehand. \u201cOnce a coffee-house folk-singer void of make-up and polish, she has molded a new image around her splendid mystery,\u201d wrote Frank Suraci in the Los Angeles Times. \u201cScattered pleas for songs from the past filled the air Tuesday, but Miss Mitchell virtually ignored them, comparing the oldies to \u2018an old dress I outgrew\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n Those shows became the core of Miles Of Aisles<\/i>, released that November. Mirroring the sets themselves, Mitchell was solo in the live double-album\u2019s centre, strumming the dulcimer on All I Want and floating above piano clouds during Real Good For Free. Scott howled with his saxophone to close a funky Woodstock, though, while Ford\u2019s electric guitar slashed through Carey in neon waves. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/8.jpg” title_text=”Joe Sample” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Joe Sample, L.A. Express keyboardist, 1977<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cNobody ever said to Van Gogh, \u2018Paint a Starry Night again, man,\u2019\u201d Mitchell said, responding to requests and laughing huskily. \u201cHe painted it. That was it. Let\u2019s sing this song together, OK?\u201d <\/p>\n She played The Circle Game, an old tune about ageing and trying to move on, hard as it may be. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/9.jpg” title_text=”Patti Smith and Sam Shepard In NYC” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Playwright Sam Shepard and Patti Smith at the Chelsea Hotel New York, May 7, 1971<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n WHEN THE PHOTOGRAPHER NORMAN SEEFF arrived at Mitchell\u2019s Bel-Air home in 1975, he\u2019d shot her a few times already \u2013 the first time after art director Anthony Hudson called off the cuff and asked if he and Joni could drop by Seeff\u2019s house. <\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t even ask what that was for \u2013 \u2018Sure, I\u2019d love to shoot Joni Mitchell,\u2019\u201d Seeff says, laughing, as he recalls that first meeting. \u201cShe was straight-haired, and hippy-ish, with lots of great flowing clothes and ethnic jewellery. I hung a grey backdrop against the wall, and we had the most wonderful time.\u201d <\/p>\n This time, though, they had a mission: shots for her new album, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns<\/i>. Seeff first shot some anodyne stuff, seating Mitchell on a couch and at her piano. During a break, though, he wandered outside and spotted her pool, with a parapet above offering a commanding view. \u201cI said to Joni, I know that putting a musician in a swimming pool is not anything that anyone does, but why don\u2019t we just do some shots?\u201d he remembers. She didn\u2019t hesitate. \u201cShe has the ability to literally surrender to what\u2019s going on. She started swimming, going into these states of reverie.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/10.jpg” title_text=”Photo of Larry CARLTON” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Larry Carlton, Robben Ford\u2019s predecessor in L.A. Express<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n The album\u2019s gatefold emerged from that shoot, Mitchell floating on her back, eyes closed and arms spread. It was gorgeous, but it also cemented Mitchell inside a concept record about suburban ennui, feminine boredom, and seething rage at societal limitations. Suddenly, she was in the centre of the cover\u2019s skyline. \u201cThis record is a total work conceived graphically, musically, lyrically and accidentally \u2013 as a whole,\u201d she wrote in the linernotes. <\/p>\n Mitchell had previously written, if not entirely about herself, then about her relationship to others \u2013 how she saw people she loved or loathed, how they had shaped her life. But the lens was wider on these songs, focused on the weaknesses and wants of those others, not just herself. In the title track, she wrote of how people used money to buy and control love. In Don\u2019t Interrupt The Sorrow, she explored power structures, from God and patriarchy to money and booze, and the failed quests to fight them. <\/p>\n \u201cBattalions of paper-minded males\/Talking commodities and sales,\u201d she sang during Harry\u2019s House. \u201cWhile at home, their paper wives and paper kids\/Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid.\u201d It was domestic protest music, Mitchell singing for people who wouldn\u2019t sing for themselves. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Fifty years later, Ford remains awestruck by how gentle, pleasant, and commanding Mitchell was during those sessions, his first time in a studio with her. When he struggled with his tone during In France They Kiss On Main Street, for instance, she took him aside. Rather than use his amplifier, she suggested he plug his guitar and distortion pedal directly into the recording console. \u201cI said, Oh, that\u2019s gonna sound terrible, Joan. That\u2019s not going to work,\u201d he remembers. \u201cIt totally worked. That\u2019s what you hear on record.\u201d <\/p>\n That experimental confidence defines Hissing<\/i>, from the way a jazz standard suddenly spills out of Harry\u2019s House to a cacophonous loop of The Drums of Burundi during The Jungle Line, from the electronics that reshape her voice during Shadows And Light to the synthesizer that purrs beneath the title track. Dismissed as \u201cinsubstantial music\u201d by Rolling Stone but praised as \u201cdelightful torture\u201d by Melody Maker, Hissing<\/i>\u2019s self-proclaimed wholeness has only bloomed with time. Mitchell was writing, composing, and band-leading her way beyond others\u2019 perceptions. <\/p>\n Seeff says that she never arrived at a photo shoot without a concept again. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/11.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell In London” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Mitchell and L.A. Express saxophonist Tom Scott during a three-night residency at the New Victoria Theatre, London, March 20, 1974.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n THE SUCCESS OF THE 1974 TOUR ALL BUT GUARANTEED a full international run for Hissing<\/i>, but it wasn\u2019t set to begin until two months after the album\u2019s November 1975 release. Meanwhile, rather than retreat to her 40 acres in British Columbia or retire to her Bel-Air home, Mitchell cast herself into one of rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u2019s wildest road shows: the Rolling Thunder Revue. She\u2019d just turned 32. <\/p>\n \u201cJoni Mitchell flies in from the Coast and tunes up in the bathroom. Dylan is a magnet,\u201d Sam Shepard wrote in his Rolling Thunder logbook on November 13, noting Patti Smith and Bill Graham had also arrived. \u201cHe pulls not only crowds but superstars.\u201d <\/p>\n Rolling Thunder had careened across New England for two weeks when it pulled into New Haven, Connecticut, the Yale town tucked into a pocket of the Long Island Sound. Mitchell always insisted she had only come to see a show, but she was soon swept up by the enthusiasm and intensity of this madcap assortment of talent, friends, and rivals \u2013 Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Roger McGuinn, Joan Baez, occasional appearances by her Asylum labelmate David Blue. On that first night, she sang a duet with Ronee Blakley and two songs from Hissing<\/i>. She was in. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have another friend that\u2019s with us \u2013 it\u2019s a surprise,\u201d Bob Neuwirth said a week later outside of Boston. He would repeat that bit in subsequent shows, as if Mitchell had always just<\/i> arrived. \u201cWe asked her to sing a song for you.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/12.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell 1975″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Courting the spark: Mitchell paints a new impression, 1974.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n This didn\u2019t seem an optimal career move for Mitchell, since she would be playing some of the same markets two months later with her own band. Her co-manager Elliot Roberts wondered why she would \u201cmake [herself] subordinate to\u2026 those old has-beens?\u201d And she didn\u2019t care much about the money, asking to be paid in cocaine so she could \u201csee what this thing is about\u201d. She would stay up late, reading Freud and writing songs. She stole badges from cops. \u201cI kept thinking this is a warrior\u2019s drug. You\u2019d be like Scarface,\u201d she told David Yaffe. \u201cYou could have 10 bullet holes in you, and you\u2019d still be shooting.\u201d <\/p>\n Mitchell wanted an adventure, and she now had both sides, good and bad. Shepard had worried in his logbook that Mitchell and Sara Dylan would clash, but it was Mitchell and Baez who seemed locked in contretemps<\/i>. Baez envied Mitchell\u2019s fervent reception, while Mitchell noted Baez\u2019s access to Dylan. \u201cThere was all this horrible behind-the-scenes shit going on,\u201d tour insider Larry Sloman told Dylanologist Clinton Heylin. <\/p>\n There was, however, another outlet for Mitchell: Shepard, the fellow Scorpio who had also just turned 32. A handsome, well-connected playwright with a family at home, Shepard had worked as a rancher and collaborated with Patti Smith. An affair ensued, inspiring songs and sketches that filled Mitchell\u2019s notebook. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got this tune that has been growing \u2013 started off with two verses, and a couple nights later I added another one,\u201d Mitchell told the crowd at the Montreal Forum on December 4. \u201cLast night, I got a fourth one. I think it\u2019s finished, but I dunno. Maybe there\u2019s a couple more chapters to go? It\u2019s called Coyote.\u201d <\/p>\n Though Mitchell would make minor adjustments to her epochal account of the tryst with Shepard and the tour, she was right: Coyote, the romance, and her run with the Revue were mostly finished. Four days later, having cancelled her own show at the Hollywood Palladium, she joined the Revue at Madison Square Garden for a star-studded benefit for Rubin \u2018Hurricane\u2019 Carter, the professional boxer wrongfully convicted of murder in 1967. Mitchell had her doubts about Carter\u2019s character and the sincerity of Dylan and Baez, but she starred in the show anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cJoni Mitchell blows the top off the place again, just by walking on,\u201d Shepard wrote. \u201cShe looks incredibly small from where I\u2019m sitting. Like a vulnerable little girl trying to sing a song she\u2019s written for a huge living room full of adults.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/13.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell, November 1975″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n A woman of heart and mind.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n BY THE TIME MITCHELL AND THE L.A. Express began the Hissing<\/i> tour in Minnesota on January 16, album sales were stalling. Hissing<\/i> had debuted at Number 130 on Billboard two days before Rolling Thunder\u2019s 1975 finale, then quickly climbed the charts, rising to the fourth spot on 1976\u2019s first index. It stayed there for three weeks before beginning its freefall. The stats were symptomatic of the shows. <\/p>\n \u201cShe seemed insultingly ice cold, rarely smiling and never talking to the audience,\u201d read an opening-night review, which took shots at Guerin\u2019s \u201cflat\u201d drumming and Ford\u2019s \u201cannoyingly loud\u201d guitar. \u201cMitchell showed little energy and enthusiasm.\u201d <\/p>\n She had battled the flu throughout Rolling Thunder, and neither the cocaine nor her smoking could have helped. \u201cI was still in bad health from going out on Rolling Thunder, which was mad,\u201d she told Crowe in 1979. \u201cHeavy drama, no sleep \u2013 a circus.\u201d <\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the L.A. Express she\u2019d hired for Court And Spark<\/i> were falling apart. Sample and Carlton had missed the first tour, but now Scott too had split, replaced by David Luell. Her carousel of keyboardists had turned to Victor Feldman, a London-born prodigy who had played with Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley but was nevertheless new to this material. \u201cNeither the keyboard player nor the saxophone player were the right guys for that, so it just became uncomfortable,\u201d Ford remembers. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the same.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/14.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Mitchell on-stage at Massey Hall, Toronto, February 10, 1974, during the Tour Of America.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n During her Rolling Thunder stint, Mitchell had chased the thrill of newness \u2013 romantically, socially, musically. She would perform songs she had finished that day, even play works in progress. She tried this with her own band, not only playing Coyote but also Furry Sings The Blues, a gripping portrait of urban decay and wealth inequality inspired by a confrontational meeting with bluesman Furry Lewis while on the road in Memphis. Outside of Rolling Thunder\u2019s freewheeling atmosphere, the approach could leave audiences cold. <\/p>\n \u201cThe response dissipated from enthusiasm to politeness as Mitchell clearly began to lose touch with her audience,\u201d read that first review, not the last dissatisfied notice. At least the gripes were varied. In Georgia, ticket sales were low. In Philadelphia, the sound was horrid. In Louisiana, she stumbled through guitar chords. Dylan walked on-stage for an encore in Texas, but he barely sang. <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n And then there was her relationship with Guerin. They\u2019d been engaged in 1975, Mitchell even designing their wedding rings and discussing matrimonial plans with her parents. But the turbulence of the road, the affairs, and the jealousy reached a new breaking point when she walked on-stage in Maryland, started to sing Help Me, and split. She did not return to the road in earnest until 1979. <\/p>\n \u201cAfter the end of my last tour, it was a case of waiting again,\u201d she said just before that run. \u201cI had an idea; I knew I wanted to travel.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/15.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n This one’s for the roses: Mitchell in 1975.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n MITCHELL NEVER LIKED GAYLE FORD. BY 1976, THE L.A. Express\u2019s early ragtag adventures with Mitchell had given way to private planes and limousines. Robben Ford brought along his young wife, and the tension with the tour\u2019s principal was immediate. Gayle demanded, for instance, Mitchell not smoke in the limo, just one example of what the singer called \u201cqueen-bee behaviour\u201d. Mitchell assigned her to wardrobe duty, but her clothes sometimes went missing. \u201cThis girl is too much,\u201d Mitchell later joked to Yaffe. \u201cShe\u2019s a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n After the tour fell apart, Gayle Ford would prove much more useful. Mitchell had accepted an invitation to ride across the country, not as a musician on tour but on a mission. A former lover\u2019s daughter was living with, as Mitchell put it, \u201cwicked twin grandmothers\u201d in rural Maine, her mother locked away in a mental institution. The lover had asked Mitchell and another friend to help him liberate the kid. Again, Mitchell was in. <\/p>\n More than 1,000 miles and two continental divides from Los Angeles, the vigilante trio stopped in Boulder, Colorado. The Fords had moved there after the Miles Of Aisles<\/i> tour. Having witnessed Mitchell\u2019s struggles on the road, especially with men and cocaine, Gayle had an idea for the singer \u2013 visit Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the Tibetan Buddhist who had become Allen Ginsberg\u2019s teacher and founded Colorado\u2019s Naropa Institute in 1974. When Rinpoche asked Mitchell if she believed in God, she produced her sack of cocaine and declared, \u201cThis is my god, and this is my prayer.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/16.jpg” title_text=”Joni Mitchell Performing Live” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Joni jamming during the Miles Of Aisles tour<\/i>, August 1974.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t flinch, but his nose started to flare. And I thought, Does he want some [coke]?\u201d Mitchell told writer Michelle Mercer. \u201cI didn\u2019t notice I was being zapped. And then I had no sense of \u2018I\u2019 or me, no self-consciousness for three days.\u201d <\/p>\n It was an epiphany for Mitchell, as if a dirty window had been flung open, allowing her to see herself clearly again. She had been stuck between so many lovers and inside so many uncomfortable situations; Rinpoche allowed her to set herself free, at least briefly. Cocaine loosened its grip. \u201cHe sees the damage in my face,\u201d she wrote in Hejira<\/i>\u2019s song A Strange Boy, partly inspired by Rinpoche. \u201cHe was the bad boy of Zen,\u201d she quipped in 2013. <\/p>\n After finally reaching the East Coast and cutting her companions loose, she headed south solo, using aliases to elude attention. She headed to Georgia, Florida, and on to Alabama, where she made friends with local musicians, browsed deli meats in grocery aisles, and played it cool when a hotel employee confessed that he knew her real name. She rendezvoused with the revived Rolling Thunder Revue for two May dates in Texas, where a notebook with drawings and lyrics was stolen from her hotel room. To the crowd in Fort Worth she pr\u00e9cised her recent travels. \u201cI just quit working and started driving around the countryside,\u201d she said, before acknowledging the allure of Rolling Thunder. \u201cThe circus was passing through Fort Worth. So here I came.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/17.jpg” title_text=”17″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Mitchell kept pushing west, into the American desert, where she spied jet planes and thought of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, and herself, or of the difficulties that come with being who we were born to be. \u201cThis is how I hide the hurt\/As the roads lead cursed and charmed,\u201d she wrote in the last days of her epic haul. \u201cI tell Amelia it was just a false alarm.\u201d <\/p>\n By the time summer began in California, she was back in the studio with Lewy. Guerin was on drums again, Carlton on guitar. A 24-year-old bassist named Jaco Pastorius arrived, too, months before releasing his self-titled debut album. These were her travelling songs, captured on the road alongside Dylan and Shepard, or alone in her Mercedes. <\/p>\n \u201cI was reading the dictionary, looking for a word that meant running away with honour,\u201d she told Crowe decades later. \u201cI saw that word on a page, and it drew me to it because of the J dangling down. I went, That\u2019s the word I\u2019m looking for. That was Hejira<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-names” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”14px” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Charles W. Bush\/Shooting Star\/Avalon; Fairchild Archive\/WWD\/Penske Media via Getty; AP Photo\/Alamy; Frederick M. Brown\/Getty Images, Shooting Star\/Avalon; Tom Copi\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty, David Gahr\/Getty, Michael Putland\/Getty; Echoes\/Redferns\/Getty, Afro American Newspapers\/Gado\/Getty, Gijsbert Hanekroot\/Redferns\/Getty; Tom Copi\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images; Ts\/ZUMA Press Wire\/Shutterstock, Charles W. Bush\/Shooting Star\/Avalon, Shooting Star\/Avalon; Mike Slaughter\/Toronto Star via Getty, Henry Diltz\/Corbis via Getty<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 12 months of romance and heartbreak, adventure and retreat, cocaine and Rolling Thunder. And in the middle of it, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2773"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2939,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773\/revisions\/2939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“I was in physical pain. I was in emotional pain.<\/span> I was going with someone in the band, and we were in the process of splitting up.”<\/h2>\n
Joni Mitchell<\/b><\/h3>\n
Raised in a small Northern California town, Ford, then 22, had been touring with Jimmy Witherspoon after the blues singer heard the young guitarist\u2019s group open for him. \u201cI was like, Holy shit, I\u2019m playing with one of my heroes, this blues legend,\u201d Ford tells MOJO. \u201cBut after two years, I was really ready to move on with my music. I was just an idiot, a punk kid.\u201d <\/p>\nI knew she was a heavyweight whose music was far beyond any so-called folk-rock person I\u2019d ever heard.<\/h2>\n
Tom Scott<\/b><\/h3>\n
“Nobody ever said to Van Gogh, \u2018Paint a Starry Night again, man.\u2019 He painted it. That was it.”<\/h2>\n
Joni Mitchell<\/b><\/h3>\n
“Cocaine is a warrior\u2019s drug. You could have 10 bullet holes in you, and you\u2019d still be shooting.”<\/h2>\n
Joni Mitchell<\/b><\/h3>\n