Joni Mitchell-Hejira (1976)

 

Artist: Joni Mitchell

Title: Hejira

Label: Asylum

Format: LP

Cat: 7E 1087

Year of Release:1976

Country and Year of Edition: US 1976 Specialty Pressing Gatefold

Sell Price: $19.99 VG/VG+ 2/26/23

Discogs Last Sold: 2/14/23 NM/VG $20.00

Low:$2.37 G+/VG

Median: $9.95

Average: $12.03

High: $39.80 NM/VG+

Current low price: $7.00 VG/generic, $8.99 VG+/VG+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 50

Have/Want: 2267/359

Where Sold: Santa Fe, NM

Time it took to sell:  1 year

Where and When Purchased: Facebook market lot

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go: No

"Which do you prefer, JG's Run For The Roses or For The Roses?" asked the Pinch Point editor via text shortly after my write up the other day.  I had For The Roses by default.  "I bet she was a lousy lay!" he scoffed, extolling the virtues of post-Terrapin solo Jerry.

Well, this morning Hejira sold a couple hours before I woke up wide awake on 4AM Sunday.  This was a record I bought in a Facebook lot of 5 for 20 last year, and I never got around to listening to this until today.  It really plays into the conversation in a what if fantasy world, her miraculous recent health recovery from aneurysm notwithstanding.    This is also not the love traumatized early 70's Joni with cretinous junkie contemporaries like James Taylor or David Crosby orbiting her in Los Angeles.  Nor is this the Court and Spark hitmaker of 1974 or Jazz Artiste of later 70's Joni, although Jaco is all over this record as is Larry Carlton and even Neil Young blows a harmonica for a song, "Furry Sings The Blues."  Joni was all grown up at 33, and maybe I like this Joni best musically.  

There's a confidence from hits on this record lyrically and all she wants, as in "Song For Sharon," is to find another lover before she gets disillusioned with everything.  There's plenty of that to be had in your 40's, 50's and beyond until your health puts the kibosh on all of it and the grim reaper points you to your last hurrah.  That Joni suffers perpetual indignity is for us all to ponder in the religion that is Rock And Roll.

The star instrumentalists fade whether Neil or Jaco and those fade outs keep you listening in headphones, but of course this is Joni's show.  The Joni I like to imagine in 1976 is a bit of a hoarder and a bit of a whore.  She'll clean up nice in a beret and a cape when she's on the scene at a rock n roll dive she talks about in "Coyote."  Then she'll take you back to her place strewn with beer bottles and pizza boxes and play a song about Amelia Ehrhart.  Just for you.  Maybe someday you can take the refuge of the road with her.

A man can still dream!