Joni Mitchell at Newport

CONTEMPORARY FOLK / SINGER-SONGWRITER

This record of Joni Mitchell’s surprise live appearance at the Newport Folk Festival won the Grammy award for best folk album. Joni is helped out by about 2 dozen musicians billed as “the Joni Jam” and each listed inside the jacket. Notables include Brandi Carlile, members of the bands Dawes and Lucius, Marcus Mumford, Alison Russell, and Wynonna Judd. All songs are written by Mitchell except #7 (of course).

FCC clean

1 Spoken intro by Brandi Carlile; she disguises Joni’s appearance until the very end (2:42)
2 Joyful & fun, even if a bit sloppy; the crowd gets into the spirit of the thing (2:41)
3 *** Brandi, Joni, & Marcus share the vocals on this gorgeous song about lost love. It’s from Mitchell’s classic Blue album. Be sure to have some Kleenex nearby. (4:52)
4 Approx 2 mins of talk about the Hejira album, then Taylor Goldsmith sings Amelia (7:59)
5 ** Joni slowly sings one of her signature songs tastefully backed by piano & cello (5:40)
6 mid-tempo instrumental, Joni on lead electric guitar (3:31)
7 *** Mitchell’s now lower voice is surprisingly strong on this Gershwin standard (5:53)
8 Brandi (mostly) & the group give a lively version of “Carey” that is not well mixed (3:38)
9 * an R&B tinged version of “Help Me” with newcomer Celisse on vocal & guitar (5:20)
10 Taylor Goldsmith gently sings a deep cut; it’s very pretty but doesn’t feature Joni (7:34)
11 Brandi Carlile sings a relatively new (& little known) song (5:45)
12 A full-group singalong. I wanted to love this, but honestly it sorta drags along (5:56)