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Pivotal Concerts from Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen

Pivotal Concerts from Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen

In 1969, Joni Mitchell was well known as a lady of the Laurel Canyon folk-rock scene. Since 1967, the Canadian transplant had been a fixture of the Southern California coffeehouse/campus circuit. She had toured elsewhere in support of her first two critically acclaimed but modest-selling albums, Song to a Seagull and Clouds, but had played only similarly small venues. Global success and her best albums, including Blue and Court and Spark, were still ahead of her.  

This is the precise moment when her manager, Elliot Roberts, and David Geffen, the soon-to-be record industry magnate, arranged for Mitchell to perform at Carnegie Hall. It would be her first major concert. Out of her element, though surrounded by friends (including beau Graham Nash) and family (her parents flew in from Canada), Mitchell was nervous. She understood the stakes. 

Yet Mitchell knew exactly what she wanted to do. She would give the audience a pure, unfiltered version of herself. Declining her mother’s suggestion to wear a gown, Mitchell instead opted for a second-hand dress that, as Nash fondly put it, made her appear to be cloaked in rags. Nor were there a bevy of instruments or any accompanists on stage. There was simply a piano, a guitar, Joni, and her songs. 

Wouldn’t you like to know what it was like to be in that audience? Now you can, thanks to a wonderful new release, Joni Mitchell Live at Carnegie Hall, 1969. Appropriately, given the era it evokes, the album is available only as a double-LP set.  

Thanks to a combination of sonic factors—careful microphone positioning, quiet vinyl, the venue’s well-captured acoustics—the album proves immersive. We feel that we’re truly sitting in on a historic occasion. We laugh along with the audience at Mitchell’s impish between-song patter, and grow reverently hushed during the songs—the better to hear and consider every word. 

Of course, Mitchell had much more music—and many stylistic changes—to come. But this concert showcased all of her enduring traits: the astute, poetic lyrics; the hummable melodies on songs like “Both Sides Now” and “The Circle Game”; the open-tuned guitar; an inimitably agile voice that could flit and soar and dive at will. 

The audience, clearly familiar with her two albums, was on Mitchell’s side from the outset, and its warm reception seemed to give her courage. The music flowed, the words reverberated, and on that night Joni Mitchell became a star. 

Ten years later, Bruce Springsteen was also at a critical juncture. Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and Born in the U.S.A. had earned him worldwide renown. But his live shows, though the stuff of legend on the Jersey Shore and in New York clubs, remained hearsay elsewhere. The reason was simple: there had never been a professional recording or film of a Springsteen concert. 

That changed in 1979, when Springsteen agreed to join a stellar ensemble giving live performances to raise money against nuclear energy. The resulting No Nukes album and film gave most of the world its first glimpse of the “Boss” live. 

Although Springsteen and the E Street Band performed two 90-minute shows at Madison Square Garden, the No Nukes film included just three of their songs: the haunting debut of “The River,” the crowd-pleaser “Thunder Road,” and the insanely energetic “Quarter to Three.” Nonetheless, these tidbits were more than enough to solidify Springsteen’s reputation as the best live act in rock at the time—and perhaps ever. 

The complete recording of No Nukes went out of print decades ago, along with any official document of Springsteen’s full set. Yet now, magically, we have the entire Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concert as a brand-new film and soundtrack album. They were manifestly worth the wait.  

This album is a reminder of so many things: that Bruce Springsteen gave every concert a nearly-unimaginable level of energy and intensity; that the E Street Band was once a leaner—and yes, meaner—machine; that before his untimely death Clarence Clemons and his sax were indispensable elements of Springsteen’s sound; that in the pre-Nils Lofgren days Springsteen himself delivered the fiery guitar solos; that many Americans once considered nuclear energy a less dangerous alternative to coal. 

Sorry to say, but despite being remastered by Bob Clearmountain and digital formats at 96/24 resolution, the recording is nothing great. To be sure, it’s light years ahead of the previous version. Still, the new recording is never convincingly “live” sounding, owing primarily to limited dynamics and extension. Nonetheless, the sonics don’t obscure the greatness of the music. 

These days there are a plethora of live Springsteen albums. But this was the first recording of the live Springsteen juggernaut. Besides its historical significance, the album captures a band pulling out all the stops in a way that you have to experience to believe. 

Tags: JONI MITCHELL MUSIC ROCK

Alan Taffel

By Alan Taffel

I can thank my parents for introducing me to both good music and good sound at an early age. Their extensive classical music collection, played through an enviable system, continually filled our house. When I was two, my parents gave me one of those all-in-one changers, which I played to death.

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