Joni Mitchell on KCRW: Love Has Many Faces

Joni Mitchell welcomed KCRW DJ Liza Richardson into her Spanish Colonial home and, with the flick of her lighter, dug into her career as a singer, including her thoughts on love songs.

The occasion was the release of “Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, a Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced”, a four CD box set with detailed liner notes that captures the “diversity of changes you can go through in terms of a relationship.”

As Joni says, “my love songs are very unorthodox…they’re not songs of seduction.”

She also talked about her personal relationship experiences/struggles, saying that “when I was young, because of the way I was raised, it was my optimism that I would find my soul mate” but followed that sentiment with “my generation of men were extraordinarily selfish.”

Her home is filled with art (including her own landscape work), art books and lots of color.

As MBE producer Ariana Morgenstern noted, “her songs are her sorrows and her paintings are her joy.”

Joni may have found solace in life as a painter, but has always used visuals in her music as well, creating scenes with her words. She describes the CDs in “Love Has Many Faces” as acts in a play and implores her fans to listen to it in order as it was meticulously organized.

She also talked to Liza about her history in the jazz scene (I love how she calls Duke Eillington’s work a “subtle lament”) and other artists who inspired her, including Chuck Berry, Hank Williams and Debussy.

Find the full interview on KCRW.com and take a listen to this incredible 1994 MBE performance, hosted by Chris Douridas, from our archives.

RR

Editor’s Note: An only at KCRW moment –Joni Mitchell visited the station to do an interview with Chris Douridas. There was a band down the hall pre-taping a session in our performance studio. The band was R.E.M.

Michael Stipe asked to meet Joni and they had a lovely conversation in the hallway. KCRW: bringing music masters together since 1977! 😉