Joni Mitchell public appearance

[Whitman]

Total fan here - she added meaning to my adolescence and now to my nostalgic yearnings for those complicated times. A treasure to be celebrated, nourished, cherished.

She's a national treasure. I adore her.

I slightly disagree ... She is a world treasure.

Don't miss this piece on Joni Mitchell in the November 2017 issue of The Atlantic ...

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/the-unknowable-joni-mitchell/540618/

 

" ...Mitchell turns 74 this month, and may or may not make music again. She will almost certainly never seek out the Boomer-in-winter adulation that has proved so lucrative for many of her contemporaries. Nor does she need to. Her influence on popular music is staggering, heard in artists ranging from Taylor Swift to Frank Ocean to James Blake to Lorde. And it is only growing. “I am a lonely painter / I live in a box of paints,” Mitchell sang in “A Case of You” nearly 50 years ago. The box is still hers, but today we all live there."

[TruthBTold]

. . . .

Don't miss this piece on Joni Mitchell in the November 2017 issue of The Atlantic ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/the-unknowable-joni-mitchell/540618/

" ...Mitchell turns 74 this month, and may or may not make music again. She will almost certainly never seek out the Boomer-in-winter adulation that has proved so lucrative for many of her contemporaries. Nor does she need to. Her influence on popular music is staggering, heard in artists ranging from Taylor Swift to Frank Ocean to James Blake to Lorde. And it is only growing. “I am a lonely painter / I live in a box of paints,” Mitchell sang in “A Case of You” nearly 50 years ago. The box is still hers, but today we all live there."

 

Thanks for the reference. While Bob Dylan undoubtedly deserved his Nobel Prize award for literature, I can someday imagine that it should be given to Joni Mitchell for her lyrics. (Of course, I am not familiar with important foreign musicians and lyricists so there are other considerations.) Unfortunately, I believe that being a woman played against being the first musician to receive the award. At any rate, eventually I think that will be corrected someday.

[adventurous old guy]

Thanks for the reference. While Bob Dylan undoubtedly deserved his Nobel Prize award for literature, I can someday imagine that it should be given to Joni Mitchell for her lyrics. (Of course, I am not familiar with important foreign musicians and lyricists so there are other considerations.) Unfortunately, I believe that being a woman played against being the first musician to receive the award. At any rate, eventually I think that will be corrected someday.

Amen!

[P Gren]

Thanks for the reference. While Bob Dylan undoubtedly deserved his Nobel Prize award for literature, I can someday imagine that it should be given to Joni Mitchell for her lyrics. (Of course, I am not familiar with important foreign musicians and lyricists so there are other considerations.) Unfortunately, I believe that being a woman played against being the first musician to receive the award. At any rate, eventually I think that will be corrected someday.

Joni Mitchell is foreign. Canadian.

[TruthBTold]

You're right. And really those damn Canadians really have quite a lot of outstanding musicians. Almost weirdly out of proportion to the population. And actually the one that I would say could compete with Mitchell for the next Nobel Prize is also Canadian: Leonard Cohen. I am not sure if Trump has any designs to build a wall along the Canadian border after he gets his Mexican dream built (yeah, right) this might be a good reason not to build it. Too many Canadian musicians making money for the U.S. I mean Celine Dion in Vegas pulls her weight in gold.

[P Gren]

You're right. And really those damn Canadians really have quite a lot of outstanding musicians. Almost weirdly out of proportion to the population. And actually the one that I would say could compete with Mitchell for the next Nobel Prize is also Canadian: Leonard Cohen. I am not sure if Trump has any designs to build a wall along the Canadian border after he gets his Mexican dream built (yeah, right) this might be a good reason not to build it. Too many Canadian musicians making money for the U.S. I mean Celine Dion in Vegas pulls her weight in gold.

Sorry, a digression from the thread, but since you brought up Leonard Cohen, Montreal has murals of him on new construction:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/leonard-cohen-crescent-mural-1.4392449

[body2body]

You're right. And really those damn Canadians really have quite a lot of outstanding musicians. Almost weirdly out of proportion to the population. And actually the one that I would say could compete with Mitchell for the next Nobel Prize is also Canadian: Leonard Cohen. I am not sure if Trump has any designs to build a wall along the Canadian border after he gets his Mexican dream built (yeah, right) this might be a good reason not to build it. Too many Canadian musicians making money for the U.S. I mean Celine Dion in Vegas pulls her weight in gold.

Just a note on the Nobel Prize for Literature, it can only be awarded to a living author. Now that Leonard Cohen is dead, he cannot be considered for the Nobel Prize, but Joni Mitchell can. However, since Canadian Alice Munro won in 2013 it would not be likely in that the Nobel Committee tends to try to keep the linguistic and geographic sources of the winners varied.

[+ quoththeraven]

Cohen was alive when Dylan was named. I would have been much happier with Cohen as the honoree.

[+ WilliamM]

Just a note on the Nobel Prize for Literature, it can only be awarded to a living author. Now that Leonard Cohen is dead, he cannot be considered for the Nobel Prize, but Joni Mitchell can. However, since Canadian Alice Munro won in 2013 it would not be likely in that the Nobel Committee tends to try to keep the linguistic and geographic sources of the winners varied.

 

Nobody in Stockholm in a position of authority would agree publicly about Alice Munro and Joni Mitchell. Is Joni Mitchell well enough health wise to travel to Sweden if she was honored?

[+ quoththeraven]

Nobody in Stockholm in a position of authority would agree publicly about Alice Munro and Joni Mitchell. Is Joni Mitchell well enough health wise to travel to Sweden if she was honored?

Is attendance at the ceremony mandatory? I understand it's highly desirable, but if it's mandatory, that's a de facto health policy, not just a requirement that the prizewinner still be alive.

[body2body]

Is attendance at the ceremony mandatory? I understand it's highly desirable, but if it's mandatory, that's a de facto health policy, not just a requirement that the prizewinner still be alive.

You do not need to attend the ceremony in person, nor are you required to give a Nobel Lecture. When Harold Pinter won in 2005 he was far too ill to attend. He gave his Nobel lecture via television shown on huge monitors in Stockholm. Just to clarify, you do not need to be living at the time the award is given, but do have to be alive at the time of your nomination.

When Dylan's award was announced Leonard Cohen said that Dylan's genius did not need the confirmation of the Nobel Prize. He compared it to "giving an award to Mount Everest for being the tallest mountain".

[TruthBTold]

Nobody in Stockholm in a position of authority would agree publicly about Alice Munro and Joni Mitchell. Is Joni Mitchell well enough health wise to travel to Sweden if she was honored?

 

The woman better stay alive until they nominate her (if that is the marker).

[+ WilliamM]

USA Today on the Dylan Nobel Prize:

 

The times are a-changing.

 

On Thursday, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, marking the first time the coveted literary award has gone to someone who is mainly seen as a musician.

 

The 75-year-old won the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," the Swedish Academy said.

 

"For 54 years he has been at it, reinventing himself," said Sara Danius, the academy's permanent secretary. “Bob Dylan writes poetry for the ear. But it’s perfectly fine to read his works as poetry."

 

And while many Dylan fans have rejoiced at the news, others online and in the literary community have had a more tempered reaction. Some are angry that the award has skipped over fiction writers for the second year in a row.

 

New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul tweeted repeatedly after the news broke Thursday morning, saying it was good news but noting how many "deserving" novelists there are.

 

My Comment: After the mostly negative reaction to Pres. Obama very early Nobel Peace Prize, it's difficult to know whether Joni Mitchell has a chance at the Nobel Prize for Literature. True the reaction to Dylan's Nobel Prize was not as wide-spread as Obama's. The day I visited the Nobel Museum in 2011, all the questions were about Obama during the welcoming comments by the staff in Stockholm.

[samhexum]

Has there ever been anything more beautiful than Grace Adler singing Joni Mitchell's songs? That was surely one of the highlights of the original WILL & GRACE.

[Nvr2Thick]

 

My Comment: After the mostly negative reaction to Pres. Obama very early Nobel Peace Prize, it's difficult to know whether Joni Mitchell has a chance at the Nobel Prize for Literature. True the reaction to Dylan's Nobel Prize was not as wide-spread as Obama's. The day I visited the Nobel Museum in 2011, all the questions were about Obama during the welcoming comments by the staff in Stockholm.

 

While I'm not much of a fan I can understand why Bob Dylan is admired as a poet. I respect the opinions of many learned and cultured people who believe that Dylan has been at times a singular poetic artist and genius. I truly love Joni Mitchell's music and lyrics. She has been at times an amazing guitarist, composer, arranger, and bandleader in addition to writing exceptional, innovative songs with bright, sharp, thought-provoking lyrics. I listen to hundreds of musical artists, and Joni is in my personal top five. I do not believe that her body of work for song lyrics as literature taken as a whole are singularly unique and impressive enough to be considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature. I do believe that Joni Mitchell has many songwriting peers, and that none of them is necessarily a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is considered to be a peer of Dylan's because they are contemporaries who rose out of the same era and movements. I feel that Dylan's music is much more lyrically-focused while Joni Mitchell's is more of a beautiful balance between musical composition, arrangement, performance, and lyrics that falls in a category removed from literature.