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Christian Dittus
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RECKLESS DAUGHTER

David Yaffe

A Portrait of Joni Mitchell

An intimate new biography of Joni Mitchell, one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.

Joni Mitchell is a cultural touchstone for generations of Americans. In her heyday she released ten experimental, challenging, and revealing albums; her lyrics captivated people with the beauty of their language and the rawness of their emotions, both deeply personal to Mitchell and universally relatable to her audience. In this intimate biography, composed of dozens of in-person interviews with Mitchell, David Yaffe reveals the backstory behind the famous songs?from her youth on the Canadian prairie, her pre-vaccine bout with polio at age nine, and her early marriage and the child she gave up for adoption, up through the quintessential albums and love affairs, and all the way to the present?and shows us why Mitchell has so enthralled her listeners, her lovers, and her friends.

Yaffe has had unprecedented access both to Mitchell and to those who know her, drawing on interviews with childhood friends and the cast of famous characters (Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen, David Crosby, and more) with whom she has crossed paths and influenced, as well as insightful analyses of her famous lyrics, their imagery and style, and what they say about the woman herself. Reckless Daughter tells the story of Mitchell and also of the fertile, exciting musical time of which she was an integral part, one that had a profound effect that can still be felt today on American music and the industry.

David Yaffe has written on numerous subjects (music, film, theater, dance, higher education) for The Nation, New York, Slate, The New York Times, The New Republic, Harper's Magazine, and other publications. He is currently a professor of Humanities at Syracuse University, and is the author of Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing and Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown.

JONI MITCHELL. Ein Portraet
Deutsch von Michael Kellner. Mit einem Vorwort von Thomas Steinfeld
[HC: Matthes & Seitz, 04/2020]
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Published 2017-10-01 by Sarah Crichton Books

Comments

Reckless Daughter is a bewitched, bothered, and bewildered portrayal of one of the most beautiful and enigmatic artists of a beautiful and enigmatic period of American life. It is touching, mystifying, and revealing in equal parts. ?Mary Gaitskill, author of The Mare and National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award nominee for Veronica

The best full-length treatment of Mitchell yet published.

Joni Mitchell, an artist of innervating and daunting complexity, originality, and importance, could have no better biographer than David Yaffe. He knows the music like the serious musician he is, knows the poetry like the literary scholar he is, and is equally attuned to Mitchell's tortured soul. On top of all that, he seems to have interviewed everyone important in Mitchell's life, from her first husband to Leonard Cohen. Reckless Daughter is nothing less than the definitive statement on the life and work of an artist who defies definition. ?David Hajdu, author of Love for Sale: Pop Music in America

Yaffe solidly traces the glory and gloom of a musical career that expanded our ears and hearts The lonely girl ill with polio had survived to become a great artist. Yaffe's books tells us how she got there.

In this dazzling biography, Yaffe so aptly calls Joni Mitchel (born Roberta Joan Anderson) ‘our eternal singer-songwriter of sorrows.' Ironically, Mitchell considered herself a painter first, according to Yaffe. He perfectly captures not only the singer's urban-inflected and American-influenced lyrics but also music that is deeply rooted in Canadian prairie soil...A shimmering portrait of one artist's life, illusions and all. (starred review)

Yaffe is a brilliant analyst of how Mitchell's songs are made.

Joni Mitchell, an artist of innervating and daunting complexity, originality, and importance, could have no better biographer than David Yaffe. He knows the music like the serious musician he is, knows the poetry like the literary scholar he is, and is equally attuned to Mitchell's tortured soul. On top of all that, he seems to have interviewed everyone important in Mitchell's life, from her first husband to Leonard Cohen. Reckless Daughter is nothing less than the definitive statement on the life and work of an artist who defies definition. ?David Hajdu, author of Love for Sale: Pop Music in America

A Harper Bazzar's Must-Read, October 2017

Reckless Daughter is a bewitched, bothered, and bewildered portrayal of one of the most beautiful and enigmatic artists of a beautiful and enigmatic period of American life. It is touching, mystifying, and revealing in equal parts. ?Mary Gaitskill, author of The Mare and National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award nominee for Veronica

#1 Amazon Best Seller in “Rock Band Biographies