Painting with Words and Music Joni Mitchell Digital Life VHS

Painting with Words and Music
starring: Joni Mitchell

Used Price: $1.25
Third Party New Price: $2.45

Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786305302544
Format: Color, Live, NTSC
ISBN: 6305302545
Label: Image Entertainment
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Image Entertainment
Release Date: March 30, 1999
Running Time: 98 minutes
Sales Rank: 58513
Studio: Image Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: March 30, 1999

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Editorial Review:

Description:
Joni Mitchell, the Queen of folk/rock, performs for an intimate audience on the Warner Brothers lot in Los Angeles. This concert is classic Joni Mitchell, and her repertoire here covers the complete arc of her career. With a stage backdrop of her own paintings, this program gives a unique insight into the talents and life of Joni Mitchell. Songs: Big Yellow Taxi, Just Like This Train, Night Ride Home, Crazy Cries of Love, Harry's House, Black Crow, Amelia, Hejira, Sex Kills, The Magdelene Laundries, Moon at the Window, Facelift, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?, Trouble Man, Nothing Can Be Done, Song for Sharon, Woodstock, Dreamland.

Amazon.com:
After more than a decade of de facto exile from the mainstream, Joni Mitchell has regained much of her media profile, if not her commercial impact, thanks to deserved if belated accolades from critics and music business peers. Recent Grammy Awards and a special Billboard citation epitomize the ironies of Mitchell's '80s obscurity: Because she reached her highest profile with the broad success in 1974 of Court and Spark, which remains Mitchell's lushest, most accessible album, the Canadian musician and painter has found herself comparatively ignored in later years simply because her work ventured into more eclectic amalgams of her already diverse influences. Yet in her forays into world music, jazz, and pop collage, Mitchell has remained a prescient and influential artist.

This 1998 concert special sheds welcome light on the work from that post-Spark quarter century, its 22 songs dominated by the confessional works that have remained Mitchell's strong suit. Early favorites like 'Big Yellow Taxi' and 'Just Like This Train' retain their charm, but it's Mitchell's more mature pieces such as 'Amelia' (from Hejira) and 'Sex Kills' (from Turbulent Indigo) that convey the depth and acuity of her work. A superb band--including Brian Blade, Mark Isham, Larry Klein, and Greg Leisz--provides a sinewy, sympathetic framework well-suited to the palette of jazz, folk, and pop colors that Mitchell daubs on her songs. Adding further intimacy to the performance is a circular stage design, a small audience, and a welcome lack of 'big' production effects; instead, Mitchell indulges her second career as a painter through a pre-show stroll around a gallery of her visual works.

Mitchell's frail health in the late '90s, as well as a lifetime of cigarettes, has taken a toll on her voice, which has lost much of its upper register. Yet there's also an added richness to her lower range befitting this sharp-eyed survivor's art. Old fans will also recognize the flurries of girlish laughter in between-songs patter, while savoring how Mitchell's powers as a writer and player (especially on a new, striking electric guitar) have matured as well. --Sam Sutherland

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- What's to say
it's Joni, it was a fair price, and it's filmed in Joni vision, I'm stuck on her so bad...

Rating:

- Please remaster this!
To the studio that issued this DVD:

The concert is amazing, every bit as good as Shadows and Light, maybe better. Joni's vocals, her guitar playing, and the band are absolutely breathtaking in the quality of their musicianship.

But the sound quality is pathetic, especially in comparison to the music. I know what Greg Leisz and Brian Blade sound like live, and this isn't it.

Is there any way you could remaster this DVD to do it justice?

This isn't just a "random" concert DVD. It's a Joni Mitchell album. It may not have unique songs, but it has unique performances, especially since the band is so good. That makes it every bit as important artistically as Blue, Mingus, or Wild Things Run Fast. Yes, you heard right -- as important as Blue.

Let's consider an analogy. Joni only has about 25 albums. Let's suppose that Picasso only did about 25 ... Read More

Rating:

- Out of the ballpark!
Joni is a goddess and I venture this: she is #1 - a renaissance woman in the full. Far from disappointment that her voice isn't soprano.....it is in full maturity.
Her beauty and talent shine in this movie - I am so thankful to have come across it and watch/listen to it over and over. I always loved her early music but had no idea she had grown into this luminous creature. Don't miss this...her version of Why Do Fools Fall in Love? worth the price.

Rating:

- Nice, intimate overview of Joni....
Not withstanding the sound problems mentioned many times by reviewers,
this was a pretty nice overview of Joni Mitchell's work,
presented as she is now. The voice has lost much of its
original spectacular presence BUT I really like the new deeper
Joni voice. She is still capable of doing great work, just
at a lower register. The new guitar she uses is perfectly suited for
her stylings, still love the way she moves her hand across the frets making little percussive noises along the way, nobody
plays likes this. The Band is such a compliment to her music,
dreamy, lonesome, searching always relevant. Nice pedal steel
and especially the BASS work is terrific. I especially
enjoy the likes of "Comes Love" and how much she enjoys herself
taking on this style. Shes never been afraid to explore her
muse so this show comes off beautiful for the most ... Read More

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