The Joni Mitchell album Carole King called “inspired”
In the world of confessional songwriting, Joni Mitchell and Carole King reign supreme. Their timeless ballads on love, loss and life have endured as some of the most moving tracks ever penned. For King, though, there is one Mitchell album that gets her every time.
In a different life, there could have been steep competition between the two musicians. It’s all too easy for female artists, especially, to be pitted against each other. Even though they worked in the same realm, it’s incredible to see King and Mitchell reject cattiness to be instead vocal and enduring fans of each other’s music. In fact, King calls the folk legend her “sister in songwriting”, looking up to Mitchell as not only a friend and peer but as a vital inspiring force for her music and beyond.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that without Joni Mitchell, the world would be missing out on a lot of vital music. Without her, there would never have been a Phoebe Bridgers, a Lana Del Rey or a Taylor Swift, inspiring a whole new generation of songwriters. King is the same because her piano-led ballads remain as influential today as they were in the 1970s.
From the very start, there have been beautiful ribbons tying the two legends together. When Mitchell broke onto the scene, she sent shock waves through music that honestly scared some musicians. “People thought that it was too intimate,” she said. “They’d go, ‘Oh no. Do we have to bare our souls like this now?’”
But for King, it was merely a challenge to keep digging deeper. The two struck up a friendship based on this mutual respect and admiration, challenging each other to lean further into their work. When it came to King’s timeless record, Tapestry, Mitchell provided backing vocals for ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’ And when Mitchell released Blue only a few months later, the record blew her friend away.
“When the album was released in 1971, I was blown away by Joni’s open guitar tunings, unpredictable chord changes, and amazing vocal chops that allowed her to move effortlessly from warm, rich low notes to bell-like high notes and back again,” King told The Guardian. “I loved the simplicity of her rhythmic accompaniment on piano, guitar, or dulcimer.”
When she began diving into the lyrics, King found Blue to be an astonishing release. “It was hard to hear her painfully honest emotions,” she said. “As a young mother, I found ‘Blue’ and ‘Little Green’ especially moving, but then she’d break into something wickedly funny, as in ‘California’.”
From the sonics to the words, the album was an instant classic and an instant favourite of King’s. Unable to even pick a top track, the entire release stands out to her as something special as she said, “The album is such a perfectly sequenced collection of inspired and well-crafted songs that it’s difficult to choose one as a favourite.”
