Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• VHS Release Date: March 30, 1999
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305302545
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #370,901 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

After more than a decade of de facto exile from the mainstream, Joni Mitchell has regained much of her media profile, if not her commercial impact, thanks to deserved if belated accolades from critics and music business peers. Recent Grammy Awards and a special Billboard citation epitomize the ironies of Mitchell's '80s obscurity: Because she reached her highest profile with the broad success in 1974 of Court and Spark, which remains Mitchell's lushest, most accessible album, the Canadian musician and painter has found herself comparatively ignored in later years simply because her work ventured into more eclectic amalgams of her already diverse influences. Yet in her forays into world music, jazz, and pop collage, Mitchell has remained a prescient and influential artist.

This 1998 concert special sheds welcome light on the work from that post-Spark quarter century, its 22 songs dominated by the confessional works that have remained Mitchell's strong suit. Early favorites like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Just Like This Train" retain their charm, but it's Mitchell's more mature pieces such as "Amelia" (from Hejira) and "Sex Kills" (from Turbulent Indigo) that convey the depth and acuity of her work. A superb band--including Brian Blade, Mark Isham, Larry Klein, and Greg Leisz--provides a sinewy, sympathetic framework well-suited to the palette of jazz, folk, and pop colors that Mitchell daubs on her songs. Adding further intimacy to the performance is a circular stage design, a small audience, and a welcome lack of "big" production effects; instead, Mitchell indulges her second career as a painter through a pre-show stroll around a gallery of her visual works.

Mitchell's frail health in the late '90s, as well as a lifetime of cigarettes, has taken a toll on her voice, which has lost much of its upper register. Yet there's also an added richness to her lower range befitting this sharp-eyed survivor's art. Old fans will also recognize the flurries of girlish laughter in between-songs patter, while savoring how Mitchell's powers as a writer and player (especially on a new, striking electric guitar) have matured as well. --Sam Sutherland

Product Description

Joni Mitchell, the Queen of folk/rock, performs for an intimate audience on the Warner Brothers lot in Los Angeles. This concert is classic Joni Mitchell, and her repertoire here covers the complete arc of her career. With a stage backdrop of her own paintings, this program gives a unique insight into the talents and life of Joni Mitchell. Songs: Big Yellow Taxi, Just Like This Train, Night Ride Home, Crazy Cries of Love, Harry's House, Black Crow, Amelia, Hejira, Sex Kills, The Magdelene Laundries, Moon at the Window, Facelift, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?, Trouble Man, Nothing Can Be Done, Song for Sharon, Woodstock, Dreamland.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joni in a small club fantasy comes true, March 7, 1999

By 

Nicholas Bates "Niccho" (Syndey, NSW, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Painting With Words & Music [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Released in late Feb in Australia, I grabbed this off the shelfas soon as I saw it. Mitchell is really in her element here - a smallintimate venue ( one of the studios at Warners in LA) decorated with sofas and Mitchell's paintings. The band is just right - not too lush not too sparse. Drums, guitar/pedal steel, bass and trumpet and of course Mitchell herself on that new whizz bang guitar of her's which I think sounds great. She jokes with the audience, dances with one of her singers and tells a great story at the end about Woodstock, knitting and stars. As you would expect, most of the material is post Court and Spark except for Big Yellow taxi for openers and Woodstock in closing. Lots of wonderful stuff from Hejira and fortunately only one from her "I'm angry with the world, so lets write a silly song" repetoire. Throughout the concert (a selection from two consecutive nights) Mitchell's singing is great; 'live' her voice seems fresher than on CD and though the upper register is shot to pieces, what's left is full of character, reveals more light and shade. Plus her phrasing is right on. There are really no dud tracks here and I tend to just put it on as if it were a CD (nice and loud), popping back to the screen every now and then to watch the still beautiful woman do her stuff, though other times I sit down and just indulge in the whole 98 minutes of it. One particularly shining moment is Mitchell's cover of Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man. Its a heartfelt and beautifully sung version that reveals what a great singer Mitchell really is. It sends shivers up my spine everytime I replay. This video is a great introduction to what Mitchell has achieved over the last 20 years. It should send people out to snap up records like Hejira and Hissing of Summer Lawns not to mention more recent stuff. A perfect complement to this video would be Shadows and Light, the double live album that came out in the early eighties and featuring Jaco Pastorius on bass and other luminaries.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic, esoteric performance of the great one, February 15, 2001

By 

Charlie Peterson (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joni Mitchell - Painting with Words and Music (DVD)

Because it hasn't appeared on this page yet, here's the setlist of songs that are featured on this DVD:

Tiger Bones * Big Yellow Taxi * Just Like This Train * Night Ride Home * Crazy Cries Of Love * Harry's House * Black Crow * Amelia * Hejira * Sex Kills * The Magdalene Laundries * Moon At The Window * Face Lift * Why Do Fools Fall In Love? * Trouble Man * Nothing Can Be Done * Song For Sharon * Woodstock * Dreamland

Everything is exquisite here: we've got Joni in rare form, an older and wiser version of the folk singer of the 60's and 70's. The supplemental players are first-rate, including Brian Blade on drums, Larry Klein (aka Joni's ex-husband) on bass, Mark Isham on trumpet, and Mark Leisz on additional guitars. The small, intimate theater is filled with multicolored couches, and the stage is a small circle, sized perfectly for this excellent evening of music. Highly recommended! If you're a fan, this is one not to miss.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice, intimate overview of Joni...., August 10, 2004

By 

J. Bilby "littlebibs" (Kingston, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Joni Mitchell - Painting with Words and Music - DTS (DVD)

Not withstanding the sound problems mentioned many times by reviewers,
this was a pretty nice overview of Joni Mitchell's work,
presented as she is now. The voice has lost much of its
original spectacular presence BUT I really like the new deeper
Joni voice. She is still capable of doing great work, just
at a lower register. The new guitar she uses is perfectly suited for
her stylings, still love the way she moves her hand across the frets making little percussive noises along the way, nobody
plays likes this. The Band is such a compliment to her music,
dreamy, lonesome, searching always relevant. Nice pedal steel
and especially the BASS work is terrific. I especially
enjoy the likes of "Comes Love" and how much she enjoys herself
taking on this style. Shes never been afraid to explore her
muse so this show comes off beautiful for the most part, whatever happened to the mixing, the most important part to me
I'll never know, it just should have been more striking considering all the time taken to look so good. This show is
a must for those who've traveled with Joni all these years and just let her be who she's become as she ages and
well for those forever lost to the 1970s and unable to deal with
the artist evolving and changing and getting along its sad. She
smokes big deal, she pays the consequenses of this but getting
back to the show, it has many great moments to recommend.