Joni Mitchell’s fascinating treasure trove of lost interviews with the BBC

Tom Hagler works at the BBC with access to every TV and radio programme involving Joni Mitchell for 50 years, all full of revelations about her songs and the times she spent in London. So he transcribed the interviews – even the bits off-camera - and talked to the people who’d watched them being recorded, now published as ‘River Of Words: Joni Mitchell At the BBC’. It’s full of fresh angles and good stories, like this podcast which touches on …

… Joni living on cigarettes, coffee and chocolate in a Bayswater flat in 1968

… early exposure by John Peel and on Stanley Dorfman’s pioneering ‘In Concert’ (she was the first guest!)

… her complete transparency in interviews – “I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes”

… the night she met Graham Nash

… the BBC failing to exploit their 1990 ‘scoop’ about her giving away her daughter for adoption, and the moment she thinks she met her (aged 3)

… how she held her own in the ‘70s rock Boys’ Club

… “save something of yourself”: when Kris Kristofferson heard Blue

… the Tracey MacLeod interview where she claims to be a reincarnated Arab rug dealer

… and the value of Big Yellow Taxi in the climate crisis.

Order copies of ‘River Of Words: Joni Mitchell at the BBC’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/River-Words-Joni-Mitchell-interviews/dp/1035435780

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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