Heart’s Ann Wilson names her favourite Joni Mitchell album
No one would argue about Heart’s credentials when they started out. Even though some fans were turned off and claimed that a hard rock band with a female singer couldn’t work, anyone still holding that opinion today can happily argue with the wall whenever they like. Heart kicked ass and still does to this day, but Ann Wilson always had a sensitive side when it came to listening to Joni Mitchell.
While Mitchell came to fruition in the golden age of the singer-songwriter, she had a healthy degree of chops miles above anyone else. Rock and roll may have had a set structure, but Mitchell didn’t put any of those parameters on her music, instead just putting anything that came into her mind onto the page and seeing what she found out of it.
Always playing in her signature open tuning, not even the best guitarists in the world could have figured out where she was going from one line to the next, usually making bold experiments on songs like ‘California’ or the hit single ‘Big Yellow Taxi’. For Wilson, it all came back to when she laid down her soul on the album Hejira.
Compared to the same singer who laid down the amazing tracks on Blue, it almost feels like listening to two distinctly different artists. Mitchell was already well-versed in modern harmony, but hearing her collaborate with the biggest names in jazz was a marriage made in heaven. She could already deliver her songs incredibly well, but hearing the slight reverb-soaked guitar on ‘Amelia’ is like a warm blanket the minute it starts.
Whereas Heart was known for throwing down on tracks like ‘Magic Man’, Wilson considered this album a safe haven, telling SPIN, “This album does not age. Rather, it unfolds with time… I love this album like I love a lifelong friend. On Hejira, Joni is a grown woman, a free agent, travelling solo. The songs are full of the rich imagery of the things and people she encounters and interlaced with her poetic, unforgiving introspections”.
Even though Heart’s music is still indebted to rock titans like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, it’s not hard to hear where Wilson took some of her musical lessons from. As much as the album does unfold as Wilson describes, some of the band’s later material tends to take the best parts of Mitchell’s material and twist them slightly.
The Wilson sisters were never afraid to talk about some of the more spiritual aspects of life, and whenever they got in tune with their sensitive side, there would always be the occasional musical left turn that wouldn’t feel out of place on The Hissing of Summer Lawns. It’s not an exact carbon copy, but it’s certainly enough for Mitchell fans to notice if they were looking for it.
Does that mean that Heart has ripped off Mitchell more than a few times? Not necessarily. Rather than taking the basis of a Mitchell song and making it their own, Ann Wilson seems to be carrying on the tradition of songs of the female drifter, constantly moving from one place to the next and wondering about her own connection to everyone around her.
