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  1. #51

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    Getting back to Joni, I think there’s something about an outsider, especially a provincial outsider, moving to the big city as it were and soaking up the artistic influences. They see things in a different way than someone who was born there.

    Joni (who started out as a visual artist btw) was already writing songs and playing in Toronto before meeting Chuck Mitchell and moving to Detroit. She then moved to NYC and eventually made her way to California.

    I think it was the openness there that informed her songwriting, and it was a place that celebrated a bohemian outlook, which she certainly had in spades.

    Sitting in a park in Paris France
    Reading the news and it sure looks bad
    They won't give peace a chance
    That was just a dream some of us had
    Still a lot of lands to see
    But I wouldn't want to stay here
    It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here
    Oh but California
    California I'm coming home
    I'm going to see the folks I dig
    I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
    California I'm coming home

    When I hear Joni, in addition to the wonderful voice and musicality, I just get a sense of no boundaries—a willingness to experiment to find what works. She’s like the Miles Davis of folk and pop music.

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  3. #52

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    I will say that, like Dylan and Neil Young and Woodie Guthrie and so many others who leave home to make a career in music, Joni has a sense of place, which undoubtedly comes from her growing up in fairly rural parts of Canada.

    There aren't a lot of city-born songwriters who sing sincerely about Saskatchewan.