Herbie Hancock & Norah Jones Cover One of the Best Joni Songs Ever (Yikes)
Since September I’ve been avoiding Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters. If you read this blog ever or know me personally you know that I don’t do Joni Mitchell covers. I just plain don’t. I’ve never liked one. Recently, someone sent me a link to a video of Court & Spark from this album and it took me a while to get up the nerve to go watch it. For one thing Court and Spark is one of the top five Joni songs ever in my opinion. I LOVE this song. Secondly, the vocals are by Norah Jones who I don’t hate, but I’m not a huge fan. She’s ok I guess.
Finally I got it together; I went, I listened and I have to say that they didn’t completely wreak this song. I am actually mildly impressed. My least favorite thing about Joni covers is that people just up and change the very basic sounds of her songs. They take sections and change them so that they aren’t even recognizable. This cover didn’t do that. It sounded sort of like miss Jones was singing along in her kitchen because Joni happened to come on the radio. Hancock’s added music was right in line with what I imagine Joni might like herself (based on later albums after Court and Spark).
Will I rush out and buy this album. That’s a long shot. I could handle this cover which for me on a scale of 1-10 rates about a 83 where Joni songs are concerned. Still, it was brave of me to give this one a go. The whole album might break me.
Give it a listen and see what you think. It’s a decent Joni cover. I guess hell has frozen over.
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POSTED IN: Covers, Joni Mitchell
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