#Archives Volume 3: The Asylum Years (1972 1975)

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

Joni Mitchell "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio" accompanied by Neil Young & The Stray Gators—Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975).

[krispyweiss]

Sound Bites Presents: His Favorite Archival Releases of 2023

Music vaults are apparently overflowing with unreleased gold, some of which was finally freed in 2023. And for other artists looking back, the year brought repackaging and remixing.

The following are Sound Bites’ favorite new/old releases of the year almost ended, presented in alphabetical order:

The Beatles - 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 (2023 Editions) - Though the Blue Album contains the meat of the Beatles’ recorded output, the expanded and remixed Red Album is most improved. Review here.

Bob Dylan - Fragments - Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series Vol. 17 - Seventeen volumes in to the Bootleg Series, and it’s almost frightening to ponder how much different Dylan’s 60-year string of studio albums could have been. Review here.

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours Live - Rumours Live may be the quintessential in-concert capture from this lineup in that the players aren’t as cocaine sloppy as on 1980’s Live nor as polished on the Dance from 1997, on which a cadre of backing musicians sterilized the music. Review here.

Jerry Garcia - Might As Well: A Round Records Retrospective - Looking at the tracklist, one might think Might As Well is a Grateful Dead compilation. But this is a Garcia best-of album, albeit one where 12 of the 16 studio tracks went on to become bonafide live-Dead classics. Review here.

Little Feat - Sailin’ Shoes (Deluxe Edition) and Live in Boston 1975 - Everyone will start to cheer when you put on the new deluxe edition of Sailin’ Shoes. Same goes for Live in Boston 1975, a formidable rival to Waiting for Columbus. Reviews here and here.

Joni Mitchell - Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975) - The glorious sound of Mitchell morphing from a folkie from the 1960s to a jazzer of the 1970s. Review here.

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon - Live at Wembley Empire Pool, London, 1974 - At this point, Dark Side is an album that needs to be revisited only sporadically. But this high-fidelity recording offers a fresh take - one that fares better in both sound and performance quality that the many bootlegs of various Dark Side performances floating around out there. Review here.

Carly Simon - Live at Grand Central - As a soft-rock artist associated with the 1970s, Simon’s songs have been relegated mostly to oldies radio stations and memories. Live at Grand Central should be sufficient to put them back in the forefront for a while. Review here.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - The Darkness Tour ’78 - Still young, still hungry and already one of rock’s great on-stage conglomerates, Springsteen and the E Street Band in 1978 were doing something unique to them. Review here.

Various Artists - Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958–1971 - Next time someone says, “Thank a taper,” mention Mack McCormick by name. Review here.

12/28/23

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Underneath The Christmas Tree 2023:

Joni Mitchell Archives Volume 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975) Joni Mitchell (Rhino) (released October 2023)

The third installment of this series in now out. I have the other two volumes and shamefully I must admit, I've yet to open either. Here's my take on why regarding the first volume. For reasons unknown to me I didn't post Christmas music in 2021 when I would have received the second installment. I'm not opening this up either at the moment. When shall I listen to these boxes? Who knows, but when I'm ready for them, I'll know.

Above are the front and the back of the box. Below is a close up of the hype sticker on the front of the box.

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

Joni Mitchell "Woman of Heart and Mind" Wembley Stadium, September 14, 1974—Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years, 2023.

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

Joni Mitchell "Car On A Hill" (Early Alternate Take) [Court & Spark Sessions]—Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975).

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

Announcing "Archives—Volume 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975)

Come 1972, Joni Mitchell’s singular songwriting talent and poetic gifts were undeniable. Fresh off the back-to-back Platinum-certified releases of 1970’s Ladies of the Canyon and 1971’s Blue — totemic albums whose artfulness and ubiquity would influence generations of songwriters — Mitchell had grown wary of mounting media scrutiny. Everything from her style choices to romantic partners became the subject of far more gossip column inches than were ever dedicated to the lifestyle minutiae of her male counterparts.

In response, she had pulled back, announcing an early retirement from the stage in 1970 and moving to the quiet expanses of British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. It was a fruitful change of scenery. Inspired by her proximity to nature and refreshed by the peaceful seclusion, she began constructing the songs that would become For The Roses. This respite thrust Mitchell into a remarkably fertile creative period, yielding a run of albums — 1972’s For The Roses, 1974’s Court And Spark, and 1975’s The Hissing Of Summer Lawns — that would simultaneously expand and refine the scope of her music. Her adventurous, intricate arrangements and growing formidability as a bandleader injected these songs with a clarity of purpose, a potent muscularity, and a sense of possibility — it is among the most exciting eras of a near peerless career.

This era comes into even greater focus on Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975), out October 6, 2023 on Rhino Records. It’s the latest entry in Rhino’s ongoing, GRAMMY-winning series exploring the vast untapped archives of rare Joni Mitchell recordings — a project guided intimately by Mitchell’s own vision and personal touch. Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975) will be available both in a 5CD / digital version and a 4LP cut-down version, both with an accompanying book featuring photos and a conversation about this period between Joni Mitchell and longtime friend Cameron Crowe.