Joni Mitchell accepts the Person of the Year award at the 31st annual MusiCares benefit gala on Friday, April 1, 2022, at the MGM Grand Convention Center in Las Vegas.
Chris Pizzello / Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP
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Chris Pizzello / Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP
Joni Mitchell accepts the Person of the Year award at the 31st annual MusiCares benefit gala on Friday, April 1, 2022, at the MGM Grand Convention Center in Las Vegas.
Chris Pizzello / Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP
LAS VEGAS – An 81-year-old jazz giant and a 15-year-old rock singer were the first to perform in tribute to Joni Mitchell on Friday night.
It’s a diversity of artists that celebrates the most diverse, Mitchell, a Canadian-Canadian turned folk, rock and jazz discovery, who was honored by the Recording Academy was the MusiCares Person of the Year 2022 two days before the Grammy Awards.
Herbie Hancock played a jazz piano rendition from Mitchell’s 1976 album “Hejira”, followed by a 1974 rock version of “Help Me” by Violet Grohl, the teenage daughter of Dave Grohl, the frontman of the Foo Fighters, to opened a tribute concert in a ballroom at the MGM Grand Las Vegas.
Mitchell, sitting at the front desk, highlighted the teenager among many older artists.
“The first time I heard Joni Mitchell was 1968 and I was 15 years old,” says Cyndi Lauper, now 68. “I’ve never heard anyone sing so intimately about what it feels like to be a young woman navigating this world.”
Lauper recited some of Mitchell’s lines that touched her most, before stepping into “Magdalene Laundry” while playing mountain climber.
“I don’t know how you do what you do, I just know I need it like food,” Meryl Streep said in a video message broadcast to Mitchell and the crowd. “Ever since we were both young girls. We didn’t know each other, but you sang me to shape. You sang my life.”
Seven years after a brain aneurysm left her temporarily unable to walk or talk, Mitchell, 78, was delighted to be in Las Vegas and attend a public event for the first time since the pandemic. begin.
“I had the best margarita I’ve ever had at our hotel,” she told The Associated Press as she entered the gala.
Mitchell was the presenter and was nominated for Best Historical Album at the Sunday Grammys. She says she always finds herself in the genres and genres that don’t make the Grammy TV show.
“I often win backstage awards,” she says with a laugh.
Inside, sitting at a table with Hancock and director Cameron Crowe, Mitchell was often near to tears as the troupe praised her before they took on her songs.
Brandi Carlile, who sang a version of “Woodstock” that begins as a quiet ballad, said: “Like those who lived in Shakespeare and Beethoven, we are living in Joni Mitchell’s time, and it will be. performed tonight” before the hit band started, and Stephen Stills – who played on the most famous version of the 1970 song with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – joined her for the show. electric guitar solo.
In a new approach to this year’s MusiCares tribute, organizers have appointed Carlile, who won five Grammys on Sunday, and Jon Batiste, just 11, as music directors to coordinate. artists and their approach to the difficult genre, bending songs over Mitchell’s five-decade career.
“We’ve helped shepherd artists with their Joni songs, songs that connect their souls,” Carlile told the AP. “This isn’t easy music. It’s complicated, brilliant, and really hard to interpret.”
Before singing one of those esoteric songs, “The Jungle Line” from 1975’s “The Hissing of the Summer Lawns,” Beck said “preparing for this event, I felt like I was at Joni’s school.”
John Legend gave a surprise performance, singing and playing piano solo on the stage of Mitchell’s “River” on a rotating stage in the middle of the room as a crowd of 2,400 people were finishing up their rotating dessert, a trophy The Grammy is edible on the turntable.
“Everybody is great, it just keeps getting better and better,” Mitchell said in his short acceptance speech near the end of the concert. “I could retire now and just let someone else do it.”
But she shows she’s not done yet.
Carlile and Batiste brought most of the night’s performers back to the stage to sing “The Circle Game” and “Big Yellow Taxi.”
Mitchell finally made his way to the mic to join them, delivering the second track’s famous baritone ending.
“Place a parking lot,” she sings, making the crowd laugh and squeal.
MusiCares Person of the Year is a career achievement award given to a combination of inspirational artistic achievement and philanthropy. The gala awarding it raised funds for the programs of MusiCares, the Recording Academy charity that provides wellness and welfare services to musicians in need.
Past honorees include Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton and Aerosmith.
