Mitchell, Joni - Overture - Cotton Avenue Lyrics

Thanks for this upload Christian.

My biggest regret is never having the opportunity of seeing joni live

Speechless!! As usual when these two make music magic!!! That faraway longing to fill that emptiness!

Jaco Pastorius ladie and gents, deserves a little recognition. He was the best in the world at that time. And he died on park bench. Is that tragic enough for you???

No, he was beaten to death (died in a hospital) by a bouncer at a club he was either kicked out of or trying to get in while out of control. There's an excellent book about Jaco and his mental illness acerbated by drugs that a bipolar non-musician, younger, non-joni aware friend told me about that she learned about through some bipolar news letter she got. It's very sad. A game-changing, magnificent talent.

After the title song, this is my 2nd favorite song on my favorite Joni album, I think I wore out the grooves in my copy of this in the 70s

Was excellent in LP format, maybe ahead of its time. Luckily, I had a pair of Quads 57 in a suitable room to listen to it. It does require a very, very good stereo. On such a system, it just flies. Knowing nothing about it, I would not be able to locate it in the late 70s. It does stay young, fresh, artistic, and could be even classified, these days, as top class audiophile music.

30 years after I was introduced to this album I still think it's a absolute masterpiece

The combination of Joni's songwrting talent and poetry, and Jaco's magical bass...........masterpiece

...a few more records...😆

end of the jaded and self indulgent seventies. great album(s).

Last year, after getting into Joni and falling in love with her previous albums, reading the reviews for DJRD, I went in with zero expectations. I thought this would be the first Joni album that I'd hate. But when I put it on in the car and played the first track, I figured out right then and there I wasn't gonna hate this album. And even now, after listening to 90% of her discography, I think it's safe to say I could never hate any Joni Mitchell album. They're all amazing in their own way! Just goes to show you... don't rely on Rolling Stone or whatever music publication to dictate what you'll enjoy and not enjoy. You have to listen to it for yourself to get your own opinion on it. There's albums considered the greatest that did nothing for me and albums, like DJRD, that got negative reviews that I consider to be the greatest! Nowadays, it's a lot easier to listen to just about any album with ease through Spotify and such. Be your own music analyst.

Yes Indeed they gave someone like Dylan the Nobel prize -- what a joke!! Straight men with absolutely no insight into Art and Poetry. Joni is a true artist - composer, writer, poet, arranger and musician. as someone said once in a lifetime Artist. x

great art! like picasso God! great art.

Give me the old Joni Mitchell - don't care for this at all.

Joni’s voice Jaco’s bass , there’s nothing else to say

incredible...

Yes  - Bob Dylan indeed could barely write his own songs and was not a good musician  - as Joni always said she was isolated in a mans world!!

Re: Inuit (Nunavut) throat singing soul sister of Joni & Jaco's muse chasers circa Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. After harsh YouTube viewer Comments directed at Tanya Tagaq's failure to be true to any one particular tribal or regional throat singing tradition...here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dumvYzfuT0w

Reading all the disparaging (dissing) comments or those trying to force Tagaq's take and development of her own sound (like comparing a jazz riffer with a classical musical note machine or a folkie trying to be 'authentic' and traditional) into some social isolate's sealed off compartments, what floods my head like a soothing tonic anti-body are these Joni Mitchell lines from her and Jaco Pastorius's electric bass ballet.

From Joni & Jaco's paradigm shifting double album that lost her the mass Folk Rock audience she'd earned by the mid to late 1970's. Deep within these opening pieces "Overture\Cotton Avenue": "If ya got a place like that\You've jes gotta go there... And if ya got noooooo place special\Well, my dear ya jes go NO PLACE SPESH-AL\ Hey-ayy-ay-yay-hay-yay-ay..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTxSOJKzgl4

Mitchito Ritter\Paradigm Shifters
(tip of the kipah\keffiyeh to the Red Sea Pedestrians)
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa
Media Discussion List

Aquí se rodeó de una fenomenal banda y le saliò un gran albúm

After 22 years is still loves this album. Miraculous, I love you all.

When I first heard these deep sounds from Jaco, I was afraid of my music system ... incredible how one can conjure such deep sounds! And then the voice of Joni, so pure, so clean, so beautiful!!

A must for "Joni" lovers, this was a Sleeper of an Album when it hit the stands in 77' this intro and song blue me away. At that time one never knew what to expect from Joni, she was diverse and would explore many venues of music incorporating jazz and other musicians like Jaco P. on this gem. The sign of a true artist is not staying in the same place musically. Joni always did that. A woman/artist of her time that continues to give us music & memories that stay within us forever. Peace 2 ya

That's Joni dressed up like a black man. Having some theatrical fun.

Back in the day this album on vinyl and especially this cut was an audiophile favorite for it's sound quality.... depth perspective, dynamics, bass slam and multi-dubbed vocals. It was used by many stereo shops as demo material to showcase various HIFI systems which is how I got introduced to it.

Thank you for saying a rare good word for Old School neighborhood retail. "Attention must be paid" as the desolate survivors lament after DEATH OF A SALESMAN...

Mitch Ritter\Uncle Ralph's Telegraph Ave Paradigm Shifters
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa
Media Discussion List

I am amazed to find your comment! I completely forgot that I first learned of this album in the very same way!

I was 24 years old, and shopping for my very first quality sound system in the only father & sons-owned and operated electronics sales and service store where I lived.

I spent nearly $1,000 bucks for Yamaha equipment (receiver, turntable and speakers), which was a HELL of a lot of money at the time.

It was the first purchase I ever made on credit, and I had no credit history at the time, but the owners financed my purchase for me because they knew me and my family.

Anyway, they used the song "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" to demo 3 different systems for me in my price range. Not only did the Yamaha equipment win, but I discovered what became one of my favorite albums of all time.

What a great memory that I had completely forgotten about! Thanks for your post!

Thumbs-down mofos must have no place special.

6 YouTube listeners, don't know a good thing if it fell on them.

Joni and Jaco......what a perfect match!!!!!!!!!

And they gave Dylan a Nobel Prize....

They both deserve a Noble Prize ...both poets both dancing in and out of various worlds ...of word and music .

So what...Donald Trump is president...but I don't hate old Bob D.

joni's career has been so long and stella that opinions vary wildly about what is her best album/s. For me the trio of Hejira. Hissing of Summer Lawns and Don Juan's reckless daughter are Joni at her fiery talented best. What a consummate artiste she is and always has been. A once in a lifetime talent.

agree agree

agree agree (i add Mingus)

I love those albums, but I think she was at her best as a folk and folk rock musician. I think she created some of the greatest music in history during that era.

I also love the albums you chose. But like her "compadre", Neil Young, she was, during the mid-70s, starting to really challenge her "folky-pop" audience with non-mainstream music. Kudos for taking risks (esp with her Mingus album), even when not totally "successful".

This is an amazing song of an amazing album.

A beautiful song with a beautiful message that unfortunately chose as an analogy a particularly horrible story in the bible depicting genocide and savage brutality.

+Lioness Fierce My bad, I seem to have made an error. I commented on the wrong song. I meant to address her song 'Jericho' which analogizes the biblical story of Joshua which depicts and celebrates Joshua and his army's invasion Jericho where they butcher every last man, woman and child.
The song is a musical masterpiece but the Jericho analogy is rather disturbing if you actually know the story.

But don't you think she was mainly referencing and focusing on the walls falling down. Walls that seem impenetrable and huge that we and others put up as protection - that they would miraculously fall down, as depicted in the Jericho account.

Joni's guitar playing at its best.

+nohaylamujer Jaco is sublime...
Larry Klein's is up there to...but later
(Bass playing...)

Joni and Jaco shining.His tight funky grooves bass orchestrartion.What a stunning production..that bass sound phew 1

Brilliant track. How damn good is Jonie Mitchell? She's an American legend.
Herbie Hancock devoted a whole album to her music - and Herbie Hancock knows about music.

+molondascat
Joni is Canadian actually....

+X 2ycap ,,,true but America made her rich and gave her the freedom to be a recluse,,,,

+John Reynolds She's actually, known and admired, all over the World...and they all buy her Music.

@John Reynolds Perhaps, but she's Canadian nevertheless, like Leonard Cohen, kd lang and one or two other major talents - and I'm not Canadian incidentally, but credit where credit is due.

This album is truly a masterpiece. One of Joni's most brilliant compositions...there are many. Purely magical line up of musicians featured on this incredible album. Thank you Joni for all that you've shared with your fans throughout the years...you shine. Thank you Christian for all that you share on your channel.

On bass, the one and only great Jaco...

Never get tired of listening to Joni ! Awsome! ☺👍

works far ahead of their times. Remember, this was the age of Disco, for god's sake.

...... and, don't forget, the age of Punk. I'm in the UK. I used to go and see p*nk bands all the time, like the Buzzcocks, The Clash, Slits, Banshees etc. And then come home and listen to Don Juans...... on the headphones at 1.00 AM, just a brilliant 'comedown', especially Paprika Plains. Took me a coupla years before I could 'come out' as a Joni fan to my P*nk pals ........... and then found out that most of them were too!!!!! Such a long lost classic album.

I am still amazed at this album, all these years. Match made in heaven.

no one can play bass like pastorius, no one has and ever will. 

I just noticed the nude woman and the man kneeling in worship on Joni's long dress. Never looked that closely before.

+Noe Berengena that is also her dressed up like a black man

that was one of the advantages of vinyl. tiny cd boxes never did justice to joni's cover art :-(

there's also joni as a little girl dressed up as cowboy

A masterpiece: Joni, the great Jaco Pastorius on bass, Don Alias on drums and percussion & Wayne Shorter on sax. Awesome! Beautiful!

John Guerin played drums on the entire album.

+Ricardo Sosa I believe that was the 'live' line-up..which also included Pat Metheny...

I put this on for the first time, and literally got chills. I feel it's Joni's best work, establishing her as one of the great geniuses of modern music. (And how long did it take me to realize that almost everyone on the cover is Joni in drag??)

Thumbs up for me.

Such amazing work by Jaco, truly the all time best.

Listening to this when bringing my girlfriend to the hospital to deliver my lovely daughter, I'll never forget it, or this song.  

Nice job transferring audio quality.
This song is a bit of a miracle.

This album goes to show that when two souls with strong personalities meet to make music, the result is more than the sum of the two. I do believe that the music Joni and Jaco made together is the musical yin-yang lovechild