December 20, 2024
Inspired by Craig Brown's Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, Alford (And Then We Danced: A Voyage into the Groove) presents 53 essays about music icon Joni Mitchell. Alford moves readers throughout Mitchell's life, from Saskatoon, Canada, to her recent house jams and return to live performing. Alford's humor draws readers in as he shares stories of Mitchell's time in the 1960s Laurel Canyon folk scene, which was central to her relationships with artists including James Taylor, David Crosby, and Graham Nash. He delves into her reconnection with her biological daughter Kilauren Gibb, whom Mitchell placed for adoption when she was born, and does not shy away from Mitchell's problematic use of blackface in the 1970s and '80s. This well-researched book also examines her musical journey through folk, rock, and jazz. Structured as snapshots into Mitchell's life that move readers between past and present with relative ease, this is a tribute to Mitchell's life and work and a way for Alford, a self-proclaimed fan of the artist, to reconcile with the varied ways she has presented herself to the world throughout her career. VERDICT Alford's smart prose will captivate readers and leave music fans with thoughtful questions about Mitchell and her musical influence.--Rebekah J. Buchanan
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
December 1, 2024
An assessment-in-fragments of Mitchell's complicated musical and personal journey. This stylish consideration of the folk-rock-jazz legend by magazine veteran Alford (And Then We Danced, etc.) is "loosely inspired" by Craig Brown's dishy 2017 book,99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret. Each of its 53 sections begins in a particular time and place and explores a particular theme in Mitchell's life: Her relationship to the '60s Laurel Canyon folk scene, her childhood in icy Manitoba, her cringeworthy late-'70s affinity for blackface, her relationship with her daughter, Kilauren Gibb, whom she gave up for adoption and reunited with in the late '90s. Alford's riffs are typically thoughtful and informed, based on books and previously published articles but also bolstered by his own interviews with Mitchell's childhood acquaintances and collaborators (though not Mitchell herself). Still, the life-in-pieces approach reflects Alford's belief that his subject defies easy summary, or even sense. Why was she so snappish in interviews? Perhaps, he speculates, "we fans didn't realize the repercussions of our neglect. Maybe we didn't realize that we'd abandoned our girl." Her blackface era, he supposes, "is another example of how someone who feels things too intensely is, ironically, someone who can't always read a room." A clear lack of answers prompts some creative approaches: Gathering up all the punctuation marks in her lyric sheets, he finds her early records a series of gentle commas and quotation marks, while her busier, more synth-heavy '80s albums are crazed pileups of question marks and exclamation points. Not every such salvo works: a list of contents of Gibb's Facebook posts illuminates neither her nor her mother. Even if the book doesn't function as a conventional biography, it succeeds as a series of prompts for fans to think about Mitchell's sometimes-baffling artistic choices. A deliberately disorganized but heartfelt reconsideration of an iconic artist.
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