Happy Birthdays!

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite chirps*… Joni Mitchell. The lovely Ms. Mitchell is (gasp!) 65 years old today. In celebration here are a couple of my very favorite Joni Mitchell tunes, beginning with “A Case of You” (which also features a very nice slide-show, with lotsa great vintage photos):

And… “Both Sides Now:”

No less an august institution than the Wall Street Journal was compelled to commemorate the occasion of Joni’s birthday. (Lengthy parenthetical aside: The credit goes to great good friend Lori, who tipped me to this article. Lori and I share a love of and for Joni... Ms. Mitchell was a bond between she and I in the way-back, and that bond remains. Joni got Lori and I through some pretty long and cold North Dakota nights all those many years ago and those nights are among my fondest memories.) So. Here are a few excerpts from that WSJ article (“A 65^th Birthday Tribute to Joni Mitchell”):

Joni Mitchell turns 65 years old on Friday. As a milestone, reaching that age doesn't mean what it once did, but any opportunity to celebrate Ms. Mitchell and her work is worth seizing. Gifted and fearless, she remains among the finest singer-songwriters of the rock era, a title that doesn't quite accommodate the breadth of music and the audacity of her career. As David Crosby told me when I called him last week, "In a hundred years, when they ask who was the greatest songwriter of the era, it's got to be her or Dylan. I think it's her. And she's a better musician than Bob."

Mr. Crosby produced Ms. Mitchell's first album, "Song to a Seagull" (Reprise), which was released in 1968. Though she had a democratic approach to music, enjoying Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Edith Piaf and the scat-singing trio Lambert Hendricks and Ross, among others, she developed her skills playing folk in coffeehouses in western Canada, Toronto, Detroit and New York's Greenwich Village. On "Song to a Seagull," she's presented as fully formed -- a thrilling folk singer and gifted songwriter.

"It was the quality of her songs," Mr. Crosby said when I asked him what he found appealing about young Ms. Mitchell. "And the singing, and the instrumental ability. She was beautiful and intriguing, but the songs were so good." Her early catalog was so strong that she chose to omit from her debut album three of her compositions that had already been recorded by a variety of other singers -- "Both Sides Now," "The Circle Game" and "Urge for Going."

I’ve been a fan since 1970, at least, and perhaps slightly longer than that. Ms. Mitchell provided the sound track for a good portion of my life and most certainly the soundtrack for some memorable love affairs. Some Joni songs still bring a tear to my eye when I hear them… the memories are that strong, that vivid, that lasting. Part of that effect is the person (or persons) with whom I associate the memories, but it’s Joni that invokes the feeling. I owe the woman a lot… a whole helluva lot.

Happy Birthday, Joni… and many happy returns.

* Joni’s self-description, as immortalized in the stage patter on “Miles of Aisles” (“… and me… the chirp”)

―:☺:―

Apropos of something… The First Mrs. Pennington also turns 65 today. It would be churlish of me to not mention this… even though TFMP has never read EIP, to my knowledge. Her boys do read, though, and I don’t want either to think poorly of me.

Happy Birthday, Ramona. And many happy returns to you, too.

The First Mrs. Pennington (circa 1969) in our very tiny apartment in Wakkanai, Japan. That’s SN2 in the high chair.