Leaving The Dream
In 1976, JONI MITCHELL left behind the wreckage of a failed relationship, a cancelled tour and heightened commercial expectations and disappeared into the American wilderness, seeking refuge on the road. “I’m porous with travel fever”, she sang, “but you know I’m so glad to be on my own”. She returned, at last, with the songs that formed Hejira – a dazzling meditation on resilience and responsibility, love and independence that counts as Mitchell’s true masterpiece. Here, collaborators and confidants share Hejira’s secrets, from Mitchell’s studio practices to the enduring sleeve artwork, while admirers including THE WEATHER STATION, WEYES BLOOD, ALLISON RUSSELL and COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS hymn Hejira’s many musical achievements. “This record must have taken a lot of courage to put out,” muses one acolyte. “It was not at all what people would have thought of when they thought of Joni…”
Photo by JOEL BERNSTEIN
White lines: Joni Mitchell skating on Lake Mendota, Madison, WI, March 1976
GINNYWINN/MICHAELOCHSARCHIVES/GETTYIMAGES
IN March 1976, Joni Mitchell packed up her car – a big boxy Mercedes 280SE she called Bluebird, bought with her first royalty cheque in 1969 – and headed out onto I-15, on her way to Damariscotta, Maine, about as far from Los Angeles as you could get while remaining in the continental USA. She didn’t have a driving licence, but that wasn’t about to stop her. She should have been promoting The Hissing Of Summer Lawns in Europe. Instead she was off on a wild goose chase across the country with an old lover and her latest flame, plus several trailers worth of emotional, psychological and pharmaceutical baggage.