SHEROES

The title of this week's episode comes from a term that legendary rock photographer Norman Seeff uses to describe a truly innovative artist, one who is willing to risk sacrificing their career in order to expand beyond their creative comfort zone. He calls these people “boundary dweller artists.” Norman says that he sees Joni as the archetype of this concept. Her evolution to incorporate jazz influences in the 70s, threw some of her fans for a loop, but as we’ve heard in previous episodes, Joni was not concerned with what others think. Working with the likes of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Charles Mingus, Joni pushed her own boundaries. She pushed Norman’s boundaries, too.

His photo sessions with Joni Mitchell spanned over 15 years and 12 sessions, and his photography of Joni has appeared in the album packaging and covers for Court and Spark, Hissing of Summer Lawns, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Hejira, Dog Eat Dog, and her Hits and Misses compilations. Norman Seeff tells host Carmel Holt that Joni is one of the most courageous people he’s ever worked with, and in this fascinating episode that traces Norman's road to Joni and where it led him, we learn how the process of writing and compiling his book Joni: The Joni Mitchell Sessions he realized that he had not only captured Joni's metamorphosis but he also had been led to the guiding philosophy about creativity and the artistic spirit that has guided his work, and his personal evolution.

SHEROES is on The Road To Joni, but in this episode we discover that sometimes that road is a bridge. A bridge to healing. A bridge to holding your own. A bridge to a new creative path. A bridge from one generation to another. Episode 4 of the Road To Joni begins at the SHEROES studio in upstate New York with 5x platinum recording artist and activist Natalie Merchant. A long time friend of host Carmel Holt, they discovered that they were both Joni Mitchell fans at a 1999 at breast cancer benefit concert that Carmel organized and Natalie headlined. The closing song from that show was a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want.” 25 years later, Natalie Merchant sits down with Carmel to reflect on her road to Joni, talks about crying at her kitchen table after missing Joni's return at Newport Folk 2022, and shares an exclusive listen to a previously unreleased recording of her cover of "All I Want" from her personal archives. Then, it's on to Newport Folk Fest 2024, where 4x Grammy Award Nominee Madison Cunningham (who also missed Joni's 2022 Newport performance) recalls listening to Court and Spark and feeling like Joni was looking into her soul. The self-taught guitar and songwriting prodigy tells us that her road to Joni is more of a bridge, partly because of all the literal bridges she crossed while listening to Joni’s music, but the deeper metaphor she uncovers during this conversation reveals that Joni Mitchell provided Madison a bridge to cross the “moat” of her religious upbringing to a place that opened up not only her musical world, but made her available for all the opportunities that found her.

Episode 3 of The Road To Joni picks up a thread from our conversation with Don Was… and leads us to esperanza spalding. In 2021 esperanza collaborated with her mentor Wayne Shorter on Iphigenia, an opera with a revisionary take on Euripides' Greek tragedy Iphigenia at Aulis. It was Ipheigenia that led esperanza to Joni’s living room, though her path on the road to Joni started years prior with a track from the 1976 album Hejira. esperanza tells host Carmel Holt how, at a recent Janet Jackson concert, she was reminded that Joni Mitchell has “literally influenced everyone.”

Joni’s influence on powerhouse string players and Joni Jam members Chauntee and Monique of SistaStrings began with “the lady that sings on the Janet Jackson song. (‘Got Til It’s Gone’).” A move from their hometown of Milwaukee to Nashville immersed the sisters in the Americana scene… which led them to a place in Brandi Carlisle’s touring band… which led to that fateful Newport 2022 performance when Joni took the stage. SistaStrings credit Joni for being an example for women to “stand on your own, be who you are, make weird music and be loud about it.”

We travel to Los Angeles for the first half of Episode 2, where Carmel talks to legendary producer, bassist, and Blue Note Records president, Don Was about his first gig ever at age 12 opening for Joni Mitchell. Don also shares how he learned an important life lesson from listening to Blue, and discusses the sophistication of Joni's harmonic and poetic compositions, and how this naturally intersected with some of the greats of jazz, including their mutual friend, the late Wayne Shorter. Next, in a heartfelt conversation, host Carmel Holt tells Bonnie Raitt that her own road to Joni began with cassettes of Blue and Bonnie's 1974 album Streetlights, and we learn that her version of "That Song About The Midway" also holds a very special meaning for Bonnie, including performing the song in Joni's living room at one of the Joni Jams. Bonnie shares how inspirational and important Joni has been for her, and the ways she has impacted her work.

Episode One takes us back to South By Southwest 2024 in Austin, TX where an interview with Kathleen Edwards takes an unexpected and affirming turn, and Kathleen remembers how a case of mistaken identity temporarily changes the backstage rules at Toronto's Massey Hall. Then we travel to Newport Folk Festival 2024, where Joni Mitchell made her big comeback in 2022, and Carmel meets up with Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes who shares how talking to Brandi at Newport a few years ago led him to getting the invitation to jam sessions at Joni's house and getting to play his favorite Joni song with his "forever north star." And Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius tell us of the first heartbreaking missed opportunity to go to Joni's house, which soon would turn around into an unforgettable Christmas and six year journey of witnessing the incredible healing power of music and community of the Joni Jams, from living room to stage.

Grammy-winning artist Arooj Aftab returns to SHEROES this week to discuss her fourth solo album, Night Reign, and her journey of the last two decades, staying true to her vision, and pioneering a sound that she wanted to hear.

Singer, songwriter, playwright and author Anaïs Mitchell returns to SHEROES to discuss her newest album with Bonny Light Horseman Keep Me On Your Mind / See You Free, the threads that runs between her solo work, her Tony-award winning Broadway musical Hadestown, and writing with Eric D. Johnson and Josh Kaufman in Bonny Light Horseman, and the importance of passing the flame from one generation to the next - and back again.

On release day of the new album Milton + esperanza, bassist, composer, singer, songwriter, and producer esperanza spalding returns to SHEROES to discuss the two decade long journey she has been on since her college days at Berklee when she first heard Brazilian legend Milton Nascimento singing on the Wayne Shorter album, Native Dancer, and the full circle moment that brought her to working with Milton to produce this collaborative new album.

Singer, songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader Shana Cleveland returns to SHEROES to celebrate the release of the fifth full length album from her longtime band La Luz, called News of the Universe. Carmel Holt and Shana discuss the themes of change on the new album, the first following her cancer diagnosis and treatment, birth of her son, and departure of two of her longtime bandmates.

SHEROES returns to Newport Folk Festival this year for an on-stage conversation with none other than SHERO of SHEROES, Joan Baez, who has just published her first book of poetry, When You See My Mother, Ask Her To Dance.