Why Joni Mitchell refused to play Las Vegas: “I turned down $1 million”
Riding the pop wave was never something that appealed to Joni Mitchell.
She had her favourite songs that came on the radio from time to time, but she didn’t get into the business to be someone’s musical meat puppet, trying to pump out the next single every time she played. She was an artist before anything else, and she knew when some choices were for her art and when she was working to cash a paycheck.
Then again, all songwriters have to play this kind of game at least once in their lives once they hit the big time. No one stays a rock and roll legend without having some major backing behind them, and while it can be a little painful to see some of your favourite artists sell out, there’s a good chance that they are often rolling their eyes at the ridiculous things that they’re being asked to do when they make a record. But Mitchell was a bit of a different breed when it came to her music.
Everyone knew that she was able to make the most beautiful pop songs ever created, and since she could hang with the greatest jazz musicians of all time, it was better to let her do her thing rather than worry about whatever the hell everyone else was doing. Her music existed outside of trends for the most part, but she also drew the line when it came to who she was performing to every single time she broke out her acoustic guitar.
She was never going to fit into a proper rock context with people like Wayne Shorter and Jaco Pastorius standing next to each other, so the best way for her to find her muse was to build an audience that appreciated her for the music first. There were still fans lingering around from the days of ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, but if an album like Hejira or Mingus proved anything, it was that she wanted to step outside of that zone and go into uncharted territory.
Her music didn’t really exist for the nostalgia crowd, but that didn’t stop some of her contemporaries from jumping on that bandwagon. The Beach Boys spent the last two-thirds of their career riding the waves of nostalgia every time they played, but when it came time for Mitchell to consider a tour through Las Vegas, she knew that she would rather stay home than play to everyone’s glory years.
No matter how big the paycheck was, it was never going to be worth looking like a fool for everyone’s amusement, saying, “I turned down $1 million to play in Las Vegas for one night because it was the kiss of death to me. It was a symbol of corruption. What happened was that no contemporary rock was going to Las Vegas. And the youth of that town – and there’s a lot of many in that town – complained, ‘Daddy, Daddy, no one is coming into our town,’ so they built this big hall, but nobody would open it. So they figured if they could get Dylan or me, the ice would be broken and everyone else would follow suit. I wouldn’t do it.”
And honestly, more power to her. That’s not even to disparage everyone else who have their own Las Vegas residencies. There are probably plenty of artists that give their audience a good time, but for someone that wrote songs about living in the moment and trying to appreciate the beauty of life, it’s hard to think of a tune like ‘Both Sides Now’ going over well with audiences that want to hear her play the hits.
The cash would have certainly been nice, but it was never about that whenever Mitchell made a new record or even put on a show. Every song is supposed to be a reflection of her as an artist, and there was no way that she was going to play the same tunes over and over again in the hopes that someone would remember her folk beginnings.
