Though critics and fans alike are often encouraged to separate art from artist \u2013 a not untroubling notion at a time when celebrity figureheads are falling from grace with increasing rapidity \u2013 that has always been impossible with Joni Mitchell. However much she\u2019s bristled at the term \u201cconfessional\u201d, her songs, with all their unflinching honesty, are deeply intimate divulgences from one that can\u2019t help but speak not only their deepest truths, but to the deepest truths of her listeners.<\/p>\n
Perhaps making the task of separation even more difficult with Reckless Daughter <\/i>is the feeling that Joni herself hangs over the book. If the biographer\u2019s job is to get to the core of his or her subject, Yaffee, who early on reveals that he has enjoyed both intimacy with and banishment from Joni\u2019s world, seems to find her cutting to his core instead. Repeated returns to Joni\u2019s physical beauty, or perhaps too quickly defending her side in an argument, sometimes come off as attempts to show Joni that he remains worthy of her attention.<\/p>\n
But then why write a book if you don\u2019t love your subject? And Yaffe\u2019s is no blind love, either; his feeling for Joni\u2019s art is matched by his writing: impassioned, informative and doing justice to the unique brilliance of Mitchell\u2019s work. In Reckless Daughter <\/i>she is held up against her self-proclaimed \u201cpace runners\u201d, Dylan and Cohen, and very often found surpassing them \u2013 as an artist, as a person, as an inspiration. With Joni herself now seemingly out of the game for good, and her health, by all signs, increasingly on the wane, we are left with the gift of her music \u2013 particularly those albums created during her imperial 70s period \u2013 and Yaffe is the perfect guide to unwrapping it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Though critics and fans alike are often encouraged to separate art from artist \u2013 a not untroubling notion at a time when celebrity figureheads are falling from grace with increasing rapidity \u2013 that has always been impossible with Joni Mitchell. However much she\u2019s bristled at the term \u201cconfessional\u201d, her songs, with all their unflinching h\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8023,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[919],"issue":[10093],"class_list":["post-193479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","category-reviews","tag-joni-mitchell","issue-january-2018"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n