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Joni Mitchell Speaking About Meeting Jimi Hendrix

~ davidbiddle ~ 4 Comments
For the next few months I am going to periodically offer commentary on video clips by famous artists on what it was like to meet Jimi Hendrix and what he meant to them. You can find most of these clips easily enough on YouTube, but there are special ones I want to highlight here at my website because of the special insights they give us into the creative process. Great artists speaking about other great artists provides us with unguarded insights into the life of the creative spirit.
 
Joni Mitchell
Cover of Joni Mitchell

Below is the first clip I want to offer. It starts out with a Joni Mitchell interview and ends with a weird video rendition of “Voodoo Chile.” Note how “Mitch” appears to know Italian. That’s impressive as hell.

Joni and Jimi were both on the rise in the late 1960s when they met. We all know how much Jimi revered the Beatles and Bob Dylan. It’s likely he respected a lot of the other innovators of that era as well. And there were many. Certainly by the time Jimi and Joni met, it was clear that Joni’s ability to mix complex melodies with real poetry (not just lyrics) was worthy of Hendrix’s attention.

Joni says that Jimi recorded her concert using a big reel-to-reel tape recorder and Continue reading →