Review:
A good biography
I wasn't sure what to expect from Reckless Daughter. There are an awful lot of terrible showbiz
biographies around, so as someone who has loved Joni Mitchell's music for nigh
on half a century now I approached this with some trepidation – but it turns
out to be very good. Yaffe's style is
readable and pretty straightforward and although it's a little over-written in
places for my taste I never found that intruding too badly and I found the
whole thing an enjoyable and fascinating read.
David Yaffe knows his stuff and covers the whole of Joni
Mitchell's life in interesting but not excessive detail. He has known Joni personally for a long time
and has spoken to her extensively for this book. He has also spoken to a very wide variety of others
who know her from childhood friends to musical collaborators and the friends of
older age; what seems like a genuine picture emerges of a stunningly talented
musician who, partly as a result of formative experience is tough, thoroughly
individual, headstrong and self-reliant.
As a woman, this has brought her a good deal of criticism over the
years, but thank heavens she is who she is because it has enabled her to create
and record a body of work which is among the finest of all musical creations of
the last half century, in my view. Yaffe
doesn't skate over her less personable sides; he obviously likes and admires
her very much but this is never a hagiography and it seems to me to be a pretty
balanced portrait which thinks seriously about how Joni's life experience may
shaped her and her music, but– praise be! – doesn’t go in for excessive
speculative psychologising.
Part of the genius in Joni Mitchell's lyrics is that they
are so often plainly intensely personal, but they speak to me of things in my
own experience, often very indirectly but with great poignancy. Learning more about the experiences which
gave rise to many of these songs is fascinating to me, and only intensifies
their significance. Many, many years
after I first heard and loved Little Green, I remember her revealing that it
was about being forced by circumstance to give up her beloved baby for adoption. Even after those decades, it gave it an added
poignancy which I have felt ever since.
I'm not sure that there are revelations here which had quite the same
impact on me, but it has certainly enriched my understanding and enjoyment of a
lot of Joni's music.
The word "genius" is very over-used about artists
of all kinds, but I think it may be justly applied to Joni Mitchell who is one
of the very greatest of all songwriters and performers. I think this is a biography which is worthy
of its subject and I can recommend this to any Joni Mitchell fan - which, let's
face it, ought to be everybody.
(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)
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