MOJO welcomes correspondence for publication. Write to us at: MOJO, Bauer Media Publishing, The Lantern, 75 Hampstead Road, London, NW1 2PL. E-mail to: mojoreaders@bauermedia.co.uk

THERE’S A NICE STORY THE GUITARIST

Blake Mills shared with MOJO last year. On a Thursday in July, just before the Newport Folk Festival, he received a text confirming the miracle gig he’d been booked for. “We get a picture of them all buckled up on a plane, including Joni,” Mills remembered. “I thought, Oh my god, this is actually happening.”

What happened is now part of musical history: Joni Mitchell’s return to the stage, on a golden throne, at the heart of Newport 2022’s Joni Jam. A communal celebration of single-minded genius, it’s been preserved as a forthcoming live album, and is about to be reprised on June 10 at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State. Nearly 30,000 people will be at the Gorge show, but the Joni Jams began on a much smaller scale after her 2015 aneurysm, as illustrious visitors to Mitchell’s Bel Air mansion joined in on musical rehab sessions.

Perhaps, too, these star-studded Joni Jams effectively started much earlier. This month in MOJO, Tom Doyle tracks Mitchell’s path from confessional folk intimacy to the widescreen jazz-pop masterpiece of Court And Spark. Along the way there are walk-on parts for Hollywood royalty, epic studio workouts with Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and Mitchell’s constant imperative to share her music with her peers. John Lennon tells her “It’s all a product of overeducation”. Dylan, meanwhile, falls asleep. “I think Bobby was just being cute,” she said of her old friend; maybe he could show up at the Gorge to make amends?