I’m back on the road for a couple weeks, in Japan for a reunion with our long-time comrade on electric guitar, Michio Kurihara. We will play two live shows in Tokyo together – you can join one virtually via livestream November 5 - and we will spend time in a studio working on new songs.
New songs means demos have been much on my mind (and on my iPhone). Demos can be fragmentary or complete, auditions or dress rehearsals, private or public – but whatever they were once, if the artist is famous enough they always seem to end up on a box set.
Volume 4 of Joni Mitchell’s Archive series is just out, and buried in the middle – on disc three out of six – are her demos from March 1976 of nine songs that landed on both Hejira and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. These were all recorded at A&M Studios and with a couple exceptions are entirely solo, just the singer and her guitar.
