Joni Mitchell has a story to tell.
The story is about love and human relationships and it unfolds across four CDs on her new boxed set, Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting to be Danced (Rhino, four CDs, $59.99).
Mitchell, a revered songwriter whose career challenged the perception of female songwriters and musicians, approaches her project in unconventional fashion. Most boxed sets focus on an artist's biggest hits, essential songs from their best albums and some unreleased studio and/or live material.
Not this time.
The story began as a request from the Alberta Ballet in her native Canada, which asked her to put together a set of her love songs for a 75-minute performance. But, Mitchell says, over 18 months, "I sequenced and sequenced. I wanted the music to lead and feel like a total work -- a new work. No matter what I did, though, at that length, it remained merely a collection of songs," she writes in the fascinating liner notes. The performance had to be canceled.
But Mitchell kept at it, describing the process as "documentary filmmaking." Finally, themes began to emerge, "scenes began to hook up ... moods sustained." After two more years of work, Mitchell had four ballets and a boxed set.
The set's organization jumps across time, styles and sounds. The approach presents selections from her body of work as a four-act play, linking characters and themes. There is much enjoyment in hearing how she makes the links among songs work. Some are juxtaposed for lyrical links, others for the pieces' similar or contrasting moods.
So what we have is a beautiful-sounding remastered boxed set of songs that is a very personal look by Mitchell at her impressive catalog; one that is idiosyncratic, to be sure. That translates into a listening experience that doesn't include some of her most popular songs, such as "Chelsea Morning," "Big Yellow Taxi," "Woodstock," "The Circle Game" and "Help Me."
But don't panic. You'll still find "You Turn Me On I'm a Radio," "Court and Spark," "River," "Carey," "Blue," "A Case of You" and "Raised on Robbery." And yes, "Both Sides Now" is here, although it's the orchestral version from the 2000 album Both Sides Now and included in the soundtrack of the film Love Actually. Mitchell also selected versions of songs from her other orchestral album, 2002's Travelogue. These choices, such as the orchestrated "Both Sides Now" and "Amelia," can challenge our memories and our resistance to a version other than the one we hold dear.
But the very way in which Mitchell approaches this boxed set invites and, in some cases, provokes thoughts about the songs she has chosen and how the songs are presented. There is a heavier representation of some of her more overlooked albums such as Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm and Night Ride Home. The set's theme tends to favor the more ambitious, especially jazzier, side of her work.
Hearing some of these songs outside their original album settings and in a different thematic context invites a reassessment of sorts. Three songs from Night Ride Home underscore the fact that this album was woefully underappreciated. Mitchell apparently felt so, as she chose to close the first three discs of the boxed set with three of that album's songs: "The Only Joy in Town," the sensual and romantic title track and the Canadian hit "Come in From the Cold." They shine even brighter on this set.
Did she overthink this? Maybe. But with Love Has Many Faces, Mitchell requires something of the listener, something few are willing to give these days: time and participation. And time is what it takes -- it's like reading a well-written novel or seeing a quality film and thinking about the experience -- to follow what she has created. The rewards for doing so are there.
Mitchell also seems to be assessing and defining her legacy. We've had glimpses of that vision on previous compilations she curated: 2004's The Beginning of Survival and Dreamland and 2005's Songs of a Prairie Girl. Now we have Love Has Many Faces.
Fans will especially appreciate Mitchell's extensive liner notes, which are wonderfully insightful as to her creative process. Her recollections of the recording sessions, how the music developed and evolved, are absorbing reading. Conflicts emerge here and there, as some musicians resisted her creative vision.
Among those mentioned are Bob Dylan, John Guerin (L.A. Express), Charles Mingus, David Geffen, actor Rod Steiger, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and many more. The booklet also includes lyrics, session details and some recent Mitchell paintings.
Mitchell's notes make one yearn for a full-fledged memoir. And, to a certain extent, that is what we have here. Love Has Many Faces is a very good boxed set, more thoughtful and rewarding than many others. Mitchell has, for the most part, succeeded in reimagining her songs and stimulating our own thoughts about her work. She successfully tells the story she intended, but Love is not the Joni Mitchell story.
There is room for that story, too, in a boxed set that takes a more traditional approach with the hits, the deep album tracks and some unreleased material.
That's a love story many fans will be waiting for.
Email:
ewidner@arkansasonline.com
Style on 12/28/2014