A Year of Blind Spots: Court and Spark

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Court and Spark

Joni Mitchell

1974

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell:

Ladies of the Canyon (1970) offered the right-on environmentalism of "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock," a much-covered paean to the festival (Which she did not attend); the painstaking confessional of Blue followed. More so than David Crosby (whom she dated) and James Taylor (a guest on Blue), Canada-raised, California-based Joni Mitchell was the archetypal early Seventies singer-songwriter, a mascot for lost souls with acoustic guitars and broken hearts. Which made the early 1974 arrival of single "Raised on Robbery," a boogie helmed not by Mitchell's dulcimer but Robbie Robertson's heads-down electric guitar, so unlikely.

The rest of Court and Spark is not such a radical departure, but still, the main characteristic it shares with Ladies of the Canyon is that both have Mitchell paintings on the cover. The songs are less intense than on Blue. "Free Man in Paris" is a sly tribute to label boss David Geffen, "Stoking the starmaker machinery behind the popular song." But the loose, sun-soaked sound is the greatest surprise, from the starry-eyed lap-steel of the title song to the winking silliness—and guest turn from, of all people, stoner comics Cheech and Chong—on "Twisted." Like Steely Dan, with whom the likes of "Car on a Hill" shares a jazzy radio-friendliness, Court and Spark could only have come from California.

Any commercial imperative went out of the window with 1975's The Hissing of Summer  Lawns, as Mitchell began a retreat into artfulness and, eventually, her acoustic roots. The atrocious Travelog (2002), a two-disc indulgence in which she reworked her catalogue with a glutinous orchestra, was a sad valediction.

What Joe has to say about Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell:

The album is a Blind Spot because I've never heard it before, and yet this book is telling me that I need to hear it before I die. However, the artist herself, Joni Mitchell, I'd classify more like a Weak Spot. I have a passing familiarity, but have never really attached myself to any of her music. My generation tends to overrate the whole "Laurel Canyon Sound" thing based mainly on aesthetics (i.e. it's cool to be a hippie again in 2025). I think Joni is cool as fuck when she shows up on The Last Waltz. I've never been as enamored with Blue as pretty much everyone else is. I don't dislike her, obviously, I'm just still out here looking for the Joni album for me.

And I chose this album for this column from this book very purposefully. It was either this or The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Honestly, both probably would've worked for my purposes, based on their respective blurbs. Hissing was made out to be more experimental (not sure if that's true, I still haven't heard it), whereas Court and Spark was said to just have jazz keeping its thumb on the scale. Felt more appropriate to start here. I'll also cop to seeing Robbie Robertson's name in the blurb right after reading Levon Helm's autobiography and taking that as my cue. I have no regrets.

"Raised on Robbery" really is the one that's hits here. I have gotten bored with Joni Mitchell's dreamy sound in the past; this one just fucking rocks. I knew she had it in her, I just didn't have the energy to look for it. Well, here it is. And it rocks hard enough that it spreads that power to some of the other songs that might have felt lacking outside of its orbit. "Free Man in Paris," for instance, has been in my head all goddamn week. I could see it being on Blue, but I couldn't see it feeling as essential on Blue as it does here.

I want to like Joni Mitchell. I haven't been able to say I like her music up until now, but I didn't want it to be because of a lack for trying. I didn't want my opinion to feel jaded like the end paragraph in that blurb above (what the hell is up with that?). I just wanted to find an album that felt like it had some energy. I think I've found it here. I know the description reads that it feels more laid-back and casual than Blue, and that's true too, but Joni is able to capture a wildness within that casualness. It's not that she's relaxed, it's that she's loose, and up for jamming and strumming. This is a step in the right direction for me.

I don't even know that it had to be. There was no pressure here. I know this isn't necessarily for me. Since my iPod broke, I've had to resort to listening to albums like this on YouTube, with ads, and the ads while listening to Court and Spark were mostly for AARP. So I get it—I'm not necessarily in the demographic. But fuck all that, I think Joni Mitchell seems cool, and I'm going to respect her music until I like it.