Will You Take Me as I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period

by Michelle Mercer

Book Overview

Joni Mitchell is one of the most celebrated artists of the last half-century, and her landmark 1971 album, Blue, is one of her most beloved and revered works. Generations of people have come of age... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416559299
• ISBN13: 9781416559290
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Will have you digging out those Joni albums

Found this book on library shelf and devoured it in a few sittings. I love knowing the backgrounds of the different albums. A few years back I was on a Ms Mitchell kick and I think the Joni mania has returned, not a bad thing at all!

An Artist's Life

It'd be easy to convince a Joni fan that Joni was an amazing artist. Anyone could've done that for me. But as a reader and a woman curious to know what fed Joni's creative spirit, I felt wholly satisfied reading this book. What Mercer is able to accomplish here is a thorough and mediative look into another dimension of a woman's life, what fed her music, what fed her ideas about who she was, is, and what drives her to create. I found the way Mercer incorporated personal experiences interesting enough to establish authorial presence while she interwove interviews and researched bits on Joni that seem to add a whole new dimension to the artist, who I felt I already knew through music. I feel as though I really know Joni after reading this book, not just as an idol, but as a woman; not lacking flaws, but no less amazing.

The Definitive Take

Underpinned by first-hand interviews with Her Joni-ness, this is a searching, eloquent and revealing study of her "Blue" period - Blue to Hejira - that far surpasses anything else I've ever read on the subject. Or Joni period. The lack of a question mark in the title strikes the only false note. I won't spoil it for anyone by providing more than a couple of titbits, but to read of Leonard Cohen's early catalytic influence and to learn more about Joni's companions on the road trip that sired Hejira were both eye-openers to me. Don't expect an analysis of Joni's shift from acoustic troubador to guitar goddess. It's the lyrics and personal context that come under Michelle's microscope. But do read this book. At least twice.

Not to be missed!

I had the great fortune to read the uncorrected proof of Michelle Mercer's forthcoming book. _Will You Take Me as I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period_ and I can tell you that you are in for a real treat when it comes out in April. I read a lot of books about music and this one is really distinguished by the high quality of the writing. Mercer breaks with strict chronology that makes run-of-the-mill music criticism so uninteresting. Her discussion about "confessional" songwriting is fully informed by the literary history of confession from Augustine to Robert Lowell. There is a wonderful Joni monologue on Augustine--one of many fascinating excerpts from Mercer's original interviews. For me, she really captures the core appeal of the records that she focuses on--_Blue_ through _Hejira_--, blending memoir and biography with criticism in useful ways. The book really took me back to my own personal connections with the music. While I like gossip as much as anyone else, this book has none of the prurient interest of Sheila Weller's book; rather, it captures the intricate essence of the music. It has a meditative quality that reminded me precisely about how I felt when I was coming of age with Joni's music. I didn't care about who her boyfriend was; I wanted to know, "How does she understand so well the way I feel?" This book goes a long way toward exploring that question, summed up in the quotation from Wallace Stevens's "The Man with the Blue Guitar" that serves as the book's epigraph: And they said to him, "But play you must, A tune beyond us, yet ourselves, A tune upon the blue guitar, Of things exactly as they are. The book so exceeded my expectations that I couldn't put it down till I finished it.

So Blue, So Lovely

When I ordered this book I had no idea Joni Mitchell was involved with it. That the author, Michelle Mercer, actually spoke with Joni when writing the book. I could not put the book down, I read it in one day/night (I'm unemployed). Ms. Mercer follows Mitchell's career leading up to Blue and as the book suggests, the "Blue" period. One learns things about Mitchell. If you are reading this review- buy the book. You won't be disappointed.