The artists Joni Mitchell refused to share the stage with: “I’ll do it offstage”
Every musical professional knows how to get the job done, even when things are going haywire. The entire world can be on fire in front of them, but as long as they can hear themselves and are in lockstep with the band, it can feel like nothing can touch them whenever they have the proper musical lift during a concert. But in the world of rock and roll, Joni Mitchell had higher standards, and that included working with people who actually knew what they were doing outside of the usual cowboy chords.
Then again, anyone even trying to use cowboy chords on a Mitchell song clearly didn’t do their homework. The whole point behind her tunes was to make the kind of music that no one had touched on yet, and that meant using open tunings that sounded like they were being beamed in from the other side of consciousness. Not everyone might notice it on first listen, but that kind of attention to detail is something you feel in your heart before the brain knows what’s happening.
But once someone makes themselves out to be a true original in their field, there’s only a matter of time before people get curious, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash were no exception. Crosby was always a big advocate of Mitchell’s work and had started using open tunings in his work, but compared to the bands she was lumped in with, she never exactly fit.
For instance, let’s look at the folk scene around Mitchell at the time. There were certainly people like CSN and the countrified version of The Byrds, but the singer-songwriting coming out of artists like The Band seemed like a completely different world. Both of them used acoustic guitars in their work, but if The Band were the rustic composers creating magic out of nothing, Mitchell was taking her cues from jazz and improvising genius on the spot.
There was enough of an admiration there for Mitchell to turn up for The Last Waltz, but looking back on her time at the concert, she thought that having Young and Robbie Robertson weren’t nearly experienced enough to jam with, saying, “When Neil and Robbie asked me to sing, they were so high and they were so out of tune. I said, ‘I’ll do it offstage’ because it was going to take much concentration. Their pitch was all over the place. CSN was always out of tune. They were never aware how out of tune they were, partially because of drugs, I guess.”
But even if some chemical assistance helped them through the gig, the greatest musicians can turn even the subtlest mishaps into magic. Anyone wouldn’t have been cut dead with someone who couldn’t sing in tune as their vocal partner, but even when singing on ‘Helpless’, it pays to be a little bit rough around the edges, especially for a song about having a frail state of mind.
Considering what the rest of the musicians had to go through that night, though, Mitchell may have made out easy. Eric Clapton may have been a God at this point and moving towards his own singer-songwriter period, but even he wasn’t immune to his strap coming undone midway through his solo and having Robertson take over for him halfway through a tune.
For something as iconic as The Last Waltz, though, things like being in tune and hitting everything right on the money are almost beside the point. This was a snapshot in time that was never going to be seen again, and even if it wasn’t the best show from a technical perspective, audiences will always take something authentic over a premeditated show any day of the week.
