Big Yellow Podcast (Allison Rapp)

A conversation with writer and author Annie Zaleski (Salon, The Guardian, NPR)

A conversation with award-winning songwriter and recording artist Margo Price.

I’d never met David Wild when I asked him to be the first guest for Big Yellow Podcast — and I still haven’t “met” him, since we spoke over Zoom. But David was gracious enough to be my inaugural interview, and for that alone I’m supremely grateful to him.

You may recognize David’s name from a number of Rolling Stone bylines, where he worked for quite some time, including a handful of interviews with Joni Mitchell herself. But for the last many years he’s been one of the writers for the Grammys, which obviously I needed to know everything about since being left in tears over Joni’s captivating 2024 performance of “Both Sides, Now” at the ceremony in which she also took home the award for Best Folk Album.

If you’d like to hear more from David, he’s part of a fabulous podcast series with Phil Rosenthal called Naked Lunch, which you can check out here. (Available on Apple and Spotify)

And also, I highly recommend reading his interviews with Joni mentioned in this episode, some of the most illuminating of her career:

A Conversation With Joni Mitchell (1991)

Morrissey Interviews Joni Mitchell: Melancholy Meets Infinite Sadness (1997)

Q & A: Joni Mitchell (2002)

Thanks for listening!

* Allison

Like others who have been on this show so far, Paul Myers is someone I’ve never met in person, but somehow I felt a kinship with him when we spoke, perhaps because of his roots in Toronto, which I grew up right across the border from in Buffalo.

Throughout his career, Paul has done a little bit of everything: record making, writing, radio hosting, podcasting, etc. Which to me meant I needed to bring my A-game when interviewing him for this episode. Fortunately, another truth about Paul, like many Canadians I’ve known, is he is easy to get along with and felt like an old friend over Zoom despite us never meeting.

Given his musical and Canadian background, Paul was the perfect guest, and I’m still thinking about the sweet story he tells here about passing Joni-lyric love notes between himself and the woman who would ultimately become his wife.

That’s just a small snippet of our conversation. Thanks for listening x

* Allison

If you’re part of the online Bob Dylan community — yes, that’s very much a thing and it’s made up of many wonderful people — then you likely know Laura Tenschert’s name. She’s the host of the Definitely Dylan podcast series, which she started as a radio program several years ago. Laura is also, as it turns out, a fellow Joni fan, whose music she fell in love with before Dylan’s.

The history between Dylan and Joni stretches back decades and displays…the spectrum of artistic connection. Competition, camaraderie, complaining, compliments. Here, Laura and I dive into this history and attempt to make a bit of sense of the relationship between two of the most prolific and influential creators of all time.

You can also follow Laura on Twitter and Instagram!

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Back in 2019, my boyfriend at the time gifted me a copy of David Yaffe’s ‘Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell,’ the first book I’d ever read about her.

When I finished that book, a fascinating and much more up close look at Joni than I had previously encountered, I wrote to David to express my thoughts. We’ve been friends since, have eaten meals in the West Village with fellow writers, run into one another at Elvis Costello shows, etc. Now, I’m pleased to have him as a guest on Big Yellow Podcast.

David’s experience interviewing Joni over the course of several years – as you’ll hear him describe in this episode – was not always stress-free. There was bumpy road on both sides, but really, what would a book about an artist like Joni be without that?

I recommend David’s book because it sees Joni talking about periods of her life during a period of her life that was both an ending and a beginning — there was still miles of ground to cover as far as Joni looking backward on her own terms. It was around this time that Joni’s “legacy” really started to solidify.

But here are David’s words.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Hello! Welcome to this preview episode of Big Yellow Podcast, a show about Joni Mitchell. My name is Allison Rapp and I’ll be your host as we explore the life and work of one of music’s most fascinating innovators. 

It was Joni Mitchell who once wrote that "songs are like tattoos," indelible marks left not only on one's surface, but one's insides, too. Mitchell's music has made those kinds of marks on listeners since her recording debut in 1968. Her career, infiltrated at points by misogyny, misunderstanding and moments of deep, human pain, has become considered one of the purest creative endeavors ever made. From stalwart of the folk music movement to jazz composer, polio-survivor to painter, Mitchell has reinvented herself multiple times over, all while remaining true to her artistic cause. 

Mitchell suffered a brain aneurysm in 2015, an event that forced her to relearn how to walk, talk and sing. But in 2022, Joni began her triumphant return to the public eye, appearing at the Newport Folk Festival for the first time since 1967. With the assistance and encouragement of singer-songwriters like Brandi Carlile, Annie Lennox, Allison Russell and many more, Joni performed live again in 2023 at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State (I was there!), and again at the 2024 Grammys, her first time ever performing at the prestigious ceremony. It was also Joni who wrote that we’re captive on the carousel of time, we can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came — now in her 80s, Joni is still proving that there is always a way to move forward. 

Let me tell you a little bit about myself, too. I’m a longtime Joni fan, since childhood, and a committed journalist based in New York City. I’m currently an assistant editor with Ultimate Classic Rock, and I’ve interviewed the likes of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Roger McGuinn, Judy Collins, and a lot more. You can read my writing at allisonrapp22.com or follow me on twitter @allisonrapp22.

On the coming episodes of Big Yellow Podcast, I’ll speak with guests from all walks of life — authors, musicians, and fans, some of whom have spent personal time with Joni — to speak to the power of her life, work and lasting legacy.

But before that, you can subscribe to Big Yellow Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

You can also follow the show on social media: @bigyellowpod on Twitter and Instagram, as well as under the title Big Yellow Podcast on Facebook.

I hope you’ll join me in getting back to the garden, there’s a lot of stardust and golden up ahead. Thanks for listening.

* Allison

Hello! Welcome to the first, non-guest episode of Big Yellow Podcast.

As previously mentioned, my general plan is to post some ancillary episodes in between guest interviews, to give listeners a bit of context and background information. These episodes aren’t meant to cover every last point of Joni’s life and career — there are excellent books, articles, videos, etc out there for that purpose — but hopefully these will provide just a little additional knowledge for those who might want it.

First up: Where Joni Came From…

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

In which Joni travels from Calgary to Toronto, writing one of her first original songs along the way, and finds herself pregnant and alone at 21 years old.

In which Joni also gets married, puts her daughter up for adoption and moves to Detroit, gets divorced and moves again to New York City, where her music starts to catch the attention of fellow folksingers.

And in which Joni meets a one David Crosby in Florida and travels with him to Los Angeles…

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

When I first started dabbling in music journalism, more or less all of the writers I was familiar with were men. It took several years of exploration, work, and research to learn of more women in my field, and one of those people was Ann Powers, whom I’ve admired and looked up to since.

Like some of my other guests, Ann and I have never met, but it seemed like fate that she happened to be releasing a book about Joni Mitchell the same year I was launching a podcast about her. That book, Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell, is of course the subject of this episode. It’s an illuminating read — insightful, honest, personal at points — and offers a different kind of “music biography” experience, in my opinion.

But I’ll let Ann and I’s chat fill you in on that…here’s a link to the book for those who are interested: Traveling.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Joni Mitchell released her debut album, Song to a Seagull, in March of 1968. Here are the basics about it…

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

On May 1, 1969, Joni Mitchell released her nearly entirely self-produced sophomore album, ‘Clouds.’ Here are the basics about it…

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Music was not Joni’s first love. Here’s what else she took up in her early days and mostly never let go of.

Thanks for listening x

Allison

If there’s one thing I love, it’s becoming friends with a Canadian.

I first got connected with singer-songwriter Emm Gryner when she sent me a copy of her book, The Healing Power of Singing: Raise Your Voice, Change Your Life. Over the next couple years, I got to know Emm a bit more — you might recognize her name from David Bowie’s band, which she was a part of in the 2000s, but she’s also got an incredible resume of solo material under her belt — and am so honored that she agreed to come on the show.

Here, Emm and I talk about the parallels between her own path to success in Canada and Joni’s, her singing techniques, and her experience bringing Joni’s music to the theatrical stage.

If you’d like to learn more about what Emm is up to these days, check out her website. (She’s currently working in yacht rock music!!)

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Just a few months after winning her first Grammy, Joni Mitchell released 1970’s Ladies of the Canyon, which illustrated both her enchantment with her new, glamorous life in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, and her mild disillusionment with her growing fame. Oh, and she’s got a new boyfriend in the mix, a one Graham Nash…

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

I first got to know Tyrell Lisson when he invited me on his own podcast, the excellently informed The Band: A History. It should go without saying that if you’re a fan of Canadian musicians — which you likely are since you’re subscribed to a program about Joni Mitchell — Tyrell’s show is definitely one you’ll want to check out.

Besides being an expert on the Band, whom Joni worked with a couple of times over the course of their respective careers, Tyrell is also a musician himself based in Toronto, making him something of a double expert.

Here’s our conversation about Joni and the Band…

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

I am by no means a professional guitarist — I’ve dabbled since I was a kid, but my skills don’t really stretch much beyond basic chords.

However, to speak about Joni Mitchell’s music and not acknowledge her approach to guitar playing, and more specifically her famous way of utilizing unique tunings, would be an oversight.

In today’s brief episode, I explore this topic as a novice guitarist, one who has struggled to play many of Joni’s songs thanks to their eccentric tunings.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

My guest today is someone I’ve spent time in court with several months ago.

I was with David Browne and fortunately neither one of us was in legal trouble. We were both there in a stuffy NYC criminal courtroom covering the then-ongoing trial involving Don Henley and some allegedly stolen Eagles lyrics, he for Rolling Stone and I for Ultimate Classic Rock. That case ended up being dropped…

But I digress! I actually met David in person for the first time before that at the Bitter End, one of the West Village’s few remaining music venues left over from its folk scene days. (Here is a picture of Joni playing at it in 1968.) We spoke a little bit at the time about a new book he was writing, and now here we are, discussing said book: Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital (out September 17).

David did warn me that Joni herself doesn’t play a large role in the book, but I would argue that she was still an integral figure in the Greenwich Village folk scene, even if she was only a part of it for a short time.

If you’re into music history pretty much of any kind, this will be a book you’ll want to get your hands on — excellently researched and chock full of detail.

Here’s David and I…

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

.

To begin, my apologies for the lesser-quality audio in this episode — I was forced to use my backup recording on account of only traveling with one laptop, the one that did not have the better audio on it…

But if you can hopefully look past that, you’ll find a lovely conversation I had with David Hajdu, the acclaimed author, writer, and self-proclaimed Joni fanatic. Here we talk about Joni’s place in the West Village, his own run-in with her at a jazz club in NYC and more.

If you haven’t read David’s excellent book, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña, I’d highly recommend. Here’s a link to it.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

The first time I met writer and author Seth Rogovoy was in the spring of 2022 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we were both attending the grand opening weekend of the Bob Dylan Center. As luck would have it, we both separately had decided it was perfectly okay to walk to Leon Russell’s Church Studios on the outskirts of town for an event. No big deal for North-easterners like ourselves, but as it turns out, Tulsa is not the kind place in which you can walk to everything…long story short: we made the trek back together and saw some parts of Tulsa I’m not sure many others have.

Flash forward to 2024 and Seth has released a brand new book about a different musical icon, Within You, Without You: Listening to George Harrison. And guess what? There’s a Joni connection in the form of Tom Scott’s LA Express, the story of which Seth explains both in his book and in this episode of Big Yellow Podcast.

So here’s Seth and I, not wandering the streets of Tulsa but instead perusing the paths of George and Joni, who have more in common than you may think.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

In which I trace Joni’s style evolution from Mod It Girl to Hippie Queen to Sophisticated Lounge Singer.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

For those of you who haven’t spent hours upon hours of your life on the official Joni Mitchell website like I have, you may not know that there is an entire section dedicated to various Joni song tabs transcribed for guitar, piano, bass and more — even dulcimer.

Those transcriptions are there thanks to the (volunteer!) work of people like Sue Tierney, who have been figuring out Joni’s songs for years and helping them to end up on the internet for all to learn from.

I recently caught up with Sue, a lifelong Joni fan naturally, to talk about how and why she got involved in this work.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Well, if you know you know. In which I discuss the 1971 album that changed a lot of women’s lives, a lot of songwriter’s lives and probably drove a bunch of people to the bottle.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

If you know me, you know that a significant chunk of my musical DNA involves the Tragically Hip, one of the single most successful acts to come out of Canada.

Being from Buffalo, their music was on constant rotation — not just in my dad’s car and our stereo but at bars and sporting games around town. I have one of their album covers tattooed on my left thigh. I’ve stopped by some of the venues they played in their early days in Toronto. And I was fortunate enough to see them on their very last tour in 2016, about a year before lead singer and lyricist Gord Downie died of brain cancer. Our family dog, Gordon, is named for him.

The Hip never really broke all that big in the U.S., which was both happenstance and purposeful. They were, in essence, Canada’s band, though anyone who lives or grew up close to the border is more likely to know their songs. Long story short: you simply can’t have a conversation about Canadian musicians without talking about the Tragically Hip.

After Downie died, whoever was running his social media account started a casual mini series in which they’d pull an album out of Downie’s personal record collection. Albums by Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Joy Division, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash popped up from time to time. And recently I saw one that didn’t surprise me in the slightest: Joni Mitchell’s ‘For the Roses.’

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The exceptionally humble Gord Sinclair, bassist for the Tragically Hip since day one, was kind enough to speak with me about Joni and her influence on the band over the years. This is an interview I’ve been dreaming about for years, a real full circle moment for a music fan from Buffalo like me.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Becca Stevens has been a musician pretty much her entire life. She grew up in a musical family — her mom was a singer and her dad a composer — and not only did she play in bands growing up, but she went on to study music at the professional level.

Joni has been, in Becca’s words, a songwriting mom, someone she’s looked up to from various angles and at various points in her life. Things really came full circle when she started working with one of Joni’s longest and biggest champions, David Crosby.

Becca’s most recent album, Maple to Paper, came out a few months ago. It brought me to tears last night. Vulnerable, determined, charismatic, tender…this is an album made by someone who is feeling in every sense of the word.

In this episode, Becca and I chat about, well, all of the above.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

In which I briefly walk through Joni’s experience becoming a mother at a young age, giving her daughter up for adoption and eventually reuniting with her decades later.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

This is a historic moment for Big Yellow Podcast. This week’s episode marks the very first to have been recorded between myself and the subject in person, and it’s with none other than legendary jazz guitarist Bill Frisell.

I first learned of Bill through my high school boyfriend (shoutout to Will who ended up an incredibly talented jazz guitarist of his own), and have interviewed him a handful of times over the years. (If you’d like to read those, here they are: Gentle Guitar Giant: Bill Frisell Is Still Learning and Bob Dylan's Town Hall History Honored With NYC Tribute ...)

I’ve also seen Bill perform live a few times — always a treat — and have never really stopped keeping tabs on him. Aside from being arguably one of the most accomplished jazz guitarists alive today, he’s also undeniably one of the kindest, most humble people I’ve spoken with in this industry. (A few weeks ago, while on tour in Europe, he wrote me an email in which he misspelled my name by one letter, then followed it up with another email three hours later apologizing profusely and correcting himself.) So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when he offered to meet with me in person to talk about Joni. Yes, you’ll hearing a lot of ancillary noise in this recording, but just picture two people sitting at a sandwich shop talking about Joni, since that’s what’s happening here.

As you’ll also hear in this episode, Bill insists he’s no Joni scholar. But really, who among us is? He’s a longtime fan, a fellow guitarist and — to make this episode even more historical — the first person on Big Yellow Podcast to have played with Joni herself.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Here you’ll find a brief history and exploration of Joni Mitchell’s 1972 release For the Roses, an album that speaks to both the fragility of humans and their resilience.

I’d like to dedicate this episode, the last one I’ll publish in 2024, to David Yaffe, whom we recently lost. He was the author of the 2015 biography of Joni, Reckless Daughter, but he was also a friend and one of the first people in this industry to look at my writing and encourage me to keep digging, to tell me that what I was aiming for was true and mattered. I can’t ever thank him enough for supporting this show and my career as a whole, as well as for aiding all us Joni fans in understanding the role her music plays in our lives.

Thanks for listening, see you in 2025 x

* Allison

It turns out Joni Mitchell’s influence literally runs in the Carlile family.

Some of you, I’m sure, are already familiar with Brandi Carlile, the very talented singer-songwriter who befriended Joni in recent years and is one of the living, breathing reasons Joni has returned to performing. Brandi has spoken at length over the years about how much Joni’s life and career has impacted her own — Carlile’s family is from Washington state, not all that far from the Canadian border, and like Joni, Brandi grew up in a rural setting that was never going to be big enough for her dreams.

Now, years after being introduced to Joni’s music herself, Brandi is evidently instilling some of that influence into the next generation of her own family. In this episode of Big Yellow Pod, I speak with Caroline and JayJ Carlile, Brandi’s niece and nephew. The two teenagers, along with their dad, record and perform their own original music under the name – you guessed it — the Carlile Family Band.

Not to get too sentimental here, but this episode is one of my favorites so far — it’s comforting to see a couple of bright and inquisitive young artists pursue their dreams in spite of it all, as Joni once did and Brandi too. Every so often it lifts the spirits to see that the kids are alright.

If you’d like to learn more about the Carlile Family Band, check out their website. They’ve got an EP release show coming up on Jan. 11 for those of you in the Nashville area, and as you’ll hear in this episode: there’s something in it for you if you go.

Happy New Year and thanks for listening x

* Allison

A look at Joni’s 1974 album Court and Spark…

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Joan Wasser, aka Joan as Police Woman, is an all around badass, in my opinion. A real force of talent who has played in bands, made solo records, toured the world and done it all with the kind of can-do attitude that doesn’t always come easily.

She’s also a disciple of Joni Mitchell and someone who recognizes the hurdles that seem to have a persistent way of telling women in creative fields: you and your identity as a woman don’t belong here.

You’ll learn more about Joan in this episode, in which we chat about that very thing.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

A brief overview of Joni Mitchell’s 1975 album ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns.’

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

You may recognize Ian Grant’s name — he’s co-host of the Jokermen podcast series, which started out being about Bob Dylan and has since evolved into conversations about Lou Reed, Brian Wilson and more.

Ian was kind and brave enough to personally volunteer himself to come on Big Yellow Pod to talk about a Joni Mitchell album he said he’d recently gone down a rabbit hole with, 1976’s Hejira. What I did not know before we hopped on Zoom was that Ian’s familiarity with Joni’s music apart from Hejira is limited. This excited me! Contrary to what some may think when they listen to these guest episodes, no one needs to be an expert on Joni to join. This is a show designed for listeners of all fan levels.

So here, Ian and I discuss Hejira.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

It really has been an excellent few years for books about Joni Mitchell. I say keep them coming. In this episode, I chat with writer and educator, Paul Lisicky, author of the new book Song So Wild and Blue: A Life With the Music of Joni Mitchell.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

For those of you into Joni Mitchell books, this is a good moment in time. Here’s an interview I did with Henry Alford, author of the new book I Dream of Joni: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell in 53 Snapshots. In involves stories of Prince, potential tours of the Soviet Union and many other incredible anecdotes from Joni’s life.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

A brief look at Joni’s 1976 album Hejira.

For more on this release, check out my interview with Ian Grant of Jokermen fame.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison

Last fall, I traveled back to my hometown of Buffalo for the Thanksgiving holiday and what should I be greeted with? A Joni Mitchell tribute concert by Lauren and the Good Souls.

Led by Lauren Faggiano, this group has it all — horns, harp, mandolin, etc. — and some great versions of Joni classics, deep cuts and fan favorites.

Here’s my conversation with Lauren. You can check out the band’s website here.

Thanks for listening x

* Allison