BLUE : THE SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL @ THE HAYES

Over last weekend I saw Queenie Van De Zandt’s cabaret tribute show, BLUE – THE SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL.

This was a touching low key, small scale tribute show to one of the most respected figures in popular music. Hopefully one day a fully fledged tribute show/musical will be mounted along the lines of  the current Broadway musical Beautiful : The Carole King Musical,  currently playing around Australia. Mitchell is certainly deserving of it.

All her main songs were performed. The concert started with on a sublime note with Queenie’s incisive version of the title song from Mitchell’s most personal, compelling album.

‘Big Yellow Taxi’ was given a bouncy, vibrant, spirited rendition. A gentle, wistful version of ‘The Circle Game’ saw Queenie ask the audience to sing along, which they were only too happy to do.

My concert high point was Queenie’s rendition of ‘Real Good For Free’, arguably the most poignant song ever written about a busker. The lyric is  just so genuine and poetic, the very qualities that drew so many of us to Joni.

“Now me I play for fortune/and those velvet curtain calls/ I have have got a black limousine and an entourage escorting me to these halls/ but this one man band playing by the Brooklyn stand/ He’s playing real good for free.” Queenie went off mike to sing the song and it worked like a treat.

Through the hour long show Queenie shared Joni quotes and anecdotes giving us insights into the woman and the artist. Like the song LITTLE GREEN which was about her baby daughter who she had to give up for adoption as she didn’t have the financial means to raise her.

We find out that to begin with Joni played music because she was able to make money from it. Joni first love was painting.

Her love for poetry was inspired by a high school teacher who told her that in writing poetry she had the chance to paint with words. What prescient advice  it proved to be with Joni going on to being one of the best painter with words in the history of popular music.

There is the sad  story about Joni’s rushed marriage to fellow folk singer Chuck Mitchell. It was love at first sight when they met at a folk venue. Within a few weeks Joni had accepted Chuck’s proposal. Very early on into the marriage Chuck told Joni that he wasn’t interested in helping raise another man’s child, leaving her stranded.

Another sad story was about her elderly mum talking to her one day about not knowing why she spent so much money on piano lessons for her when she was a child. Joni couldn’t believe it. Her mum had just seen her play Carnegie Hall! She told her mum, ‘I think that you have got good money for your bucks!’

With Queenie playing Joni, the other main players in her life were portrayed in voiceovers that came over the theatre’s speakers.

Queenie was accompanied by lyrical playing on the piano by Max Lyndvart, supported by two other musicians, Hugh Monroe on  double bass and Gary Vickery swapping between  a variety of guitars.

The stage setting  was perfectly in keeping with a Joni show; candles all around the set and a portrait of the beautiful Joni sitting on an easel, centre stage.

Queenie Van De Zandt’s BLUE – THE SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL played the Hayes Theatre between the 2nd and 6th August, 2017.