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Reckless Daughter
Reckless Daughter
A Portrait of Joni Mitchell
by David Yaffe
Price: $28.00 (Hardcover)
Published: October 17, 2017
Rating: 0.0/ 5 (0 votes cast)
From the Publisher: 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 tenexperimental, 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 heraudience. In this intimate biography, composed of dozens of in-personinterviews with Mitchell, David Yaffe reveals the backstory behind the
famous songsâfrom her youth on the Canadian prairie, her pre-vaccine
bout with polio at age nine, and her early marriage and the child she gaveup for adoption, up through the quintessential albums and love affairs,and all the way to the presentâand shows us why Mitchell has soenthralled 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 famouscharacters (Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen, David Crosby, andmore) 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 anintegral part, one that had a profound effect that can still be felt todayon American music and the industry.
Rate This Book
Add To Wishlist
|Rate/Review Add To Bookshelf
Get This Book
Personalize / Add More ChoicesGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site where
you can get this book.
What We Say
Let's be clear. Joni Mitchell is NOT the greatest female singer-songwriter of all time. She is NOT one of the most influentialShare This Book
About The Author
David Yaffe
David Yaffe was born in Dallas, Texas, in
1973. He is a professor of humanities at
Syracuse University and a 2012 winner of theRoger Shattuck Prize for Criticism. Hiswriting has appeared in many publications,including The Nation, Harper’s Magazine,
The New York Times, Slate, New York, The
Village Voice, The Daily Beast, andBookforum. He is the author of Bob Dylan:Like a Complete Unknown and FascinatingRhythm.
Release Info
List Price: $28.00 (Hardcover)
Published: October 17, 2017
Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
Pages: 544
ISBN 10: 0374248133
ISBN 13: 9780374248130
female guitarists of all time. She is NOT one of the most important female artists of all time. She is quite clearly one of the
greatest singer-songwriters, guitarists and recording artists of all time, full stop. Adding on her gender to that praise is tolimit the scope of her remarkable accomplishments. Writer David Yaffe knows this well. He knows even better that the
whip-smart, prickly Mitchell would rightly take offense by such a designation. Yaffe delivers a serious biography that tells of
her childhood and proceeds album by album through an illustrious career. He is clearly in Mitchell's corner but not afraid (ornot too afraid) to clearly lay out when Mitchell may have been in the wrong or unnecessarily holding a grudge. She may beher own worst enemy in her private life but she was equally uncompromising in her music -- and that's what matters.
Mitchell isn't within a mile of the boorish or hateful behavior of Miles Davis, Pablo Picasso and other artistic peers (she
doesn't have many) but she's clearly a handful. So what? Genius makes its own rules, even if that doesn't excuse them. Allthat said, the book is dutiful more than fun, if only because her private life wasn't so much fun. Without ever reducingsongs to certain people and places and times (be it David Geffen's inspiration on "Free Man In Paris" or Mitchell inspiringCrosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Our House"), Yaffe details the real-life context to songs that have long since transcended
"Oh, that was about the time I fought with..." to become classics. As an ardent fan, I enjoyed the seriousness of purpose.
And I doubt a better biography will come along. But unlike Dylan's memoir (which stands outside his music as its ownstrange thing) or Springsteen's confessional (which informs our appreciation of his music, especially the early years) thisbook is a good addendum. It adds zest to the list of musicians who played on her albums since we appreciate more fully who
they are and how they served Mitchell's vision. But her real testament remains the music and happily this book sends you
back to album after album, realizing anew what an amazing body of work she has produced. -- Michael Giltz
What Others Say
"Joni Mitchell’s gift was so enormous that it remade the social space around her. As David Yaffe’s new
biography, “Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell” (Sarah Crichton Books), suggests, it is no small burdento possess something as valuable as Mitchell’s talent, and it meant that this girl from the Canadian prairie would
be in the world, whether she liked it or not . . . Yaffe, who teaches at Syracuse, charts these encounters with a
sure hand, and is a brilliant analyst of how Mitchell’s songs are made. " ―Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker
"Dazzling . . . A shimmering portrait of one artist's life, illusions and all." ―Booklist (starred review) "The
essential biography of Joni Mitchell." ―Now Toronto “Reckless Daughter is a bewitched, bothered, andbewildered portrayal of one of the most beautiful and enigmatic artists of a beautiful and enigmatic period ofAmerican life. It is touching, mystifying, and revealing in equal parts.” ―Mary Gaitskill “Joni Mitchell, an artistof innervating and daunting complexity, originality, and importance, could have no better biographer than DavidYaffe. 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 definitivestatement on the life and work of an artist who defies definition.” ―David Hajdu, author of Love for Sale: PopMusic in America “It’s so easy to get Joni Mitchell wrong, or to leave out the most important things, or to missthe point altogether. Reckless Daughter is the definitive correction to all the errors, a sharp yet sprawling lookat one of the most brilliant musical artists of modern times. David Yaffe grasps the nuances―of the music, thepoetry, the intellect, the madness. He gets it. He gets her. I couldn’t get enough of this fine biography.”―Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion “David Yaffe is an artful andincisive critic who writes with such grace and clarity. With Reckless Daughter, he makes a figure as iconic as
Joni Mitchell feel wholly new. This portrait is loaded with revelations, both spiritual and actual. I thought I
understood something about Mitchell―the way her tough and tender songs move, her sweetness andrebellion―but Yaffe understands everything. What a book.” ―Amanda Petrusich, author of Do Not Sell at AnyPrice: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records
What You Say
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about us |faq|advertise |privacy policy |newsletter |contact us ©2018, BookBuddha LLc. All Rights Reserved.
Home
Top Picks: All Books
Reckless Daughter
Reckless Daughter
A Portrait of Joni Mitchell
by David Yaffe
Price: $28.00 (Hardcover)
Published: October 17, 2017
Rating: 0.0/ 5 (0 votes cast)
From the Publisher: 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 tenexperimental, 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 heraudience. In this intimate biography, composed of dozens of in-personinterviews with Mitchell, David Yaffe reveals the backstory behind the
famous songsâfrom her youth on the Canadian prairie, her pre-vaccine
bout with polio at age nine, and her early marriage and the child she gaveup for adoption, up through the quintessential albums and love affairs,and all the way to the presentâand shows us why Mitchell has soenthralled 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 famouscharacters (Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen, David Crosby, andmore) 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 anintegral part, one that had a profound effect that can still be felt todayon American music and the industry.
Rate This Book
Add To Wishlist
|Rate/Review Add To Bookshelf
Get This Book
Personalize / Add More ChoicesGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site where
you can get this book.
What We Say
Let's be clear. Joni Mitchell is NOT the greatest female singer-songwriter of all time. She is NOT one of the most influentialShare This Book
About The Author
David Yaffe
David Yaffe was born in Dallas, Texas, in
1973. He is a professor of humanities at
Syracuse University and a 2012 winner of theRoger Shattuck Prize for Criticism. Hiswriting has appeared in many publications,including The Nation, Harper’s Magazine,
The New York Times, Slate, New York, The
Village Voice, The Daily Beast, andBookforum. He is the author of Bob Dylan:Like a Complete Unknown and FascinatingRhythm.
Release Info
List Price: $28.00 (Hardcover)
Published: October 17, 2017
Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
Pages: 544
ISBN 10: 0374248133
ISBN 13: 9780374248130
female guitarists of all time. She is NOT one of the most important female artists of all time. She is quite clearly one of the
greatest singer-songwriters, guitarists and recording artists of all time, full stop. Adding on her gender to that praise is tolimit the scope of her remarkable accomplishments. Writer David Yaffe knows this well. He knows even better that the
whip-smart, prickly Mitchell would rightly take offense by such a designation. Yaffe delivers a serious biography that tells of
her childhood and proceeds album by album through an illustrious career. He is clearly in Mitchell's corner but not afraid (ornot too afraid) to clearly lay out when Mitchell may have been in the wrong or unnecessarily holding a grudge. She may beher own worst enemy in her private life but she was equally uncompromising in her music -- and that's what matters.
Mitchell isn't within a mile of the boorish or hateful behavior of Miles Davis, Pablo Picasso and other artistic peers (she
doesn't have many) but she's clearly a handful. So what? Genius makes its own rules, even if that doesn't excuse them. Allthat said, the book is dutiful more than fun, if only because her private life wasn't so much fun. Without ever reducingsongs to certain people and places and times (be it David Geffen's inspiration on "Free Man In Paris" or Mitchell inspiringCrosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Our House"), Yaffe details the real-life context to songs that have long since transcended
"Oh, that was about the time I fought with..." to become classics. As an ardent fan, I enjoyed the seriousness of purpose.
And I doubt a better biography will come along. But unlike Dylan's memoir (which stands outside his music as its ownstrange thing) or Springsteen's confessional (which informs our appreciation of his music, especially the early years) thisbook is a good addendum. It adds zest to the list of musicians who played on her albums since we appreciate more fully who
they are and how they served Mitchell's vision. But her real testament remains the music and happily this book sends you
back to album after album, realizing anew what an amazing body of work she has produced. -- Michael Giltz
What Others Say
"Joni Mitchell’s gift was so enormous that it remade the social space around her. As David Yaffe’s new
biography, “Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell” (Sarah Crichton Books), suggests, it is no small burdento possess something as valuable as Mitchell’s talent, and it meant that this girl from the Canadian prairie would
be in the world, whether she liked it or not . . . Yaffe, who teaches at Syracuse, charts these encounters with a
sure hand, and is a brilliant analyst of how Mitchell’s songs are made. " ―Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker
"Dazzling . . . A shimmering portrait of one artist's life, illusions and all." ―Booklist (starred review) "The
essential biography of Joni Mitchell." ―Now Toronto “Reckless Daughter is a bewitched, bothered, andbewildered portrayal of one of the most beautiful and enigmatic artists of a beautiful and enigmatic period ofAmerican life. It is touching, mystifying, and revealing in equal parts.” ―Mary Gaitskill “Joni Mitchell, an artistof innervating and daunting complexity, originality, and importance, could have no better biographer than DavidYaffe. 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 definitivestatement on the life and work of an artist who defies definition.” ―David Hajdu, author of Love for Sale: PopMusic in America “It’s so easy to get Joni Mitchell wrong, or to leave out the most important things, or to missthe point altogether. Reckless Daughter is the definitive correction to all the errors, a sharp yet sprawling lookat one of the most brilliant musical artists of modern times. David Yaffe grasps the nuances―of the music, thepoetry, the intellect, the madness. He gets it. He gets her. I couldn’t get enough of this fine biography.”―Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion “David Yaffe is an artful andincisive critic who writes with such grace and clarity. With Reckless Daughter, he makes a figure as iconic as
Joni Mitchell feel wholly new. This portrait is loaded with revelations, both spiritual and actual. I thought I
understood something about Mitchell―the way her tough and tender songs move, her sweetness andrebellion―but Yaffe understands everything. What a book.” ―Amanda Petrusich, author of Do Not Sell at AnyPrice: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records
What You Say
Filter by
No Reviews Found .....
about us |faq|advertise |privacy policy |newsletter |contact us ©2018, BookBuddha LLc. All Rights Reserved.