Blue

by Joni Mitchell

Overview

On 1971's, Blue, Joni Mitchell took a poetic look inside and produced some of her most enduring work. The first song, "All I Want" begins "I am on a lonely road and I am traveling/Looking for something to set me free," and those sentiments set the tone for the recording. With great eloquence, she examines the expectations of romance, the cost of wanderlust, and the discipline of art. On the title track she sings "Hey Blue/here is a shell for you/Inside you'll hear a sigh/A foggy lullaby/There is your song from me." Featuring remarkably spare accompaniment by Mitchell, and guests, James Taylor and Stephen Stills, Blue highlights Mitchell's maturity as a singer. When people speak of Mitchell as the godmother of Lilith Fair, this is the Joni they speak of.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/25/1990
Label:	Warner Records
UPC:	0075992719926
catalogNumber:	2038
Rank:	253

Tracks

1. All I Want
2. My Old Man
3. Little Green
4. Carey
5. Blue
6. California
7. This Flight Tonight
8. River
9. A Case of You
10. The Last Time I Saw Richard

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Joni Mitchell   Primary Artist,Guitar,Piano,Keyboards,Vocals
Steve Stills   Bass,Guitar,Bass Guitar
James Taylor   Guitar,Vocals
Sneaky Pete Kleinow   Guitar,Pedal Steel Guitar
Russ Kunkel   Drums
James Taylor   Guitar

Technical Credits

Joni Mitchell   Composer,Audio Production
Gary Burden   Art Direction
Henry Lewy   Engineer

Editorial Reviews

Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell's songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss (two words with relative meaning here) etched with stunning complexity; even tracks like "All I Want," "My Old Man," and "Carey" -- the brightest, most hopeful moments on the record -- are darkened by bittersweet moments of sorrow and loneliness. At the same time that songs like "Little Green" (about a child given up for adoption) and the title cut (a hymn to salvation supposedly penned for James Taylor) raise the stakes of confessional folk-pop to new levels of honesty and openness, Mitchell's music moves beyond the constraints of acoustic folk into more intricate and diverse territory, setting the stage for the experimentation of her later work. Unrivaled in its intensity and insight, Blue remains a watershed.

All Music Guide - Jason Ankeny