JONI MITCHELL: Ladies of the Canyon. RUTH BROWN: Black Is Brown and Joni Mitchell, vocals, guitar, keyboards, J Brown Is Beautiful: Ruth Brown, vocals; and arr. (Willy; Blue Boy; Conversation; rhythm accompaniment. (Yesterday; nine more.) Reprise 6376, $4.98. Tape: Looking Back; My Prayer; This Bitter ® 4RA 6376, $5.98. Earth; four more). Skye SK 13, $4.98. Tape: t® 813, $6.95; RV 513, $6.95. It is a peculiar fact of today's music that ARETHA FRANKLIN: This Girl's in Love those who perform best also tend to with You. Aretha Franklin, vocals; in- write the best songs. Witness the Beatles, strumental accompaniment. (Son of a Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby /Stills/ Preacher Man; Let It Be; It Ain't Fair; Nash /Young, Laura Nyro. Today's prod- The Weight; Call Me; five more). At- the uct is intensely personal, wedded to it- lantic SD 8248, $4.98. Tape: 01 8248. self. Of the many remarkable self -con- 33/4 ips, $5.95; ® 48248, $5.95; IM tained talents. Miss Joni Mitchell soars 88248, $6.95; ® 58248, $6.95. lighter While all of her gifts are superb, highest. I suspect that no one part would work The new albums by Aretha Franklin and without the others. Ruth Brown provide a study in contrasts. side There is no producer listed on the al- Franklin, of course, is the reigning queen bum because Miss Mitchell has produced of soul; but back in the 'SOs Ruth Brown it herself. I once wandered into one of was one of the most important and one her recording sessions by mistake. No one of the best female r & b vocalists. Yet it reviewed by was there but Miss Mitchell and her sym- is "This Girl's in Love With You" that pathetic engineer -adviser, Henry Lewy. sounds tired and old- fashioned and "Black MORGAN AMES She even painted the album cover, which Is Brown and Brown Is Beautiful" that is FRED BINKLEY includes a simple, accurate, line -drawn fresh and immediate. self- portrait. Franklin's thing is gospel power, and R. D. DARRELL The music is also all Joni Mitchell- she often can bring a new dimension to melodies, lyrics, voice, guitar, keyboard, a song just by the application of her by JOHN GARREE arrangements. A few tracks include a now familiar formula. For example, a JOIN S. WILSON touch of the outside world -a clarinet tune as emotionally neutral and musically here (and I wish he'd listen to the lyr- vapid as This Girl's in Love with You ics instead of jazzing up his moment), comes alive here. And with material a cello there, and one tune that uses a that is easily adapted to a gospel context few friends as a background chorus. -like the Beatles' Let It Be, she is a This is Miss Mitchell's third album, powerful and expressive performer, and the first on which she plays piano. though it is surprising how little she adds By some mysterious process, she makes to Son of a Preacher Man which should it sound like a guitar. Her playing is be a natural for her. Conversely, she can equally dramatic, strange, and uniquely be appallingly insensitive to material - harmonic on both instruments. especially lyrics -that doesn't suit her: In the interest of balance, a few in- she all but destroys the subtle, romantic * symbol denotes consequential imperfections may be Dark End Of the Street here. the an exceptional recording noted. Miss Mitchell's otherwise crystal Ruth Brown made her name in voice wobbles a bit on high notes, and a harsh scrambling world of 'SOs' r & b. couple of songs- Morning Morgantown Known then as Miss Rhythm, she dem- and Circle Game-must have been writ- onstrates on her new album that she has ten some time ago, before full flower. lost none of her rhythmic skill in the in- But then, early Mitchell suffers only tervening decade. With her original for- when compared to prime Mitchell. mat mercifully forgotten -'SOs' r & b This young lady has never been more was pretty stark -she is able to choose in her prime than when she wrote the the setting that she wants: Herbie Lovelle, incredible Woodstock, in which she plays drums; Eric Gayle and Billy Butler, gui- a Fender -Rhodes electric piano. The song tars; Chuck Rainey, Fender bass; Richard captures all the dreamlike beauty one Tee, organ; with arrangements by Gary likes to think must have existed in that McFarland. And she has chosen a wide quite real weekend in the country last variety of the songs she likes: This Bitter summer. Another song, unmistakably au- Earth, Please Send Me Someone to Love, tobiographical, tells of Miss Mitchell as the Platters' My Prayer, a blues of her she comes upon a street- corner musician own based on Hey Schoolgirl and Going playing his clarinet, ignored by passers- Down Slow, and on up to the Beatles' by. "Now me I play for fortune and Yesterday. Her approach puts her some- those velvet curtain calls.... And I play where between Billie Holiday's sardonic if you have the money or if you're a bitterness and LaVern Baker's exuber- friend to me. But the one -man band by ance-in spirit she reminds me most of the quick lunch stand, he was playing Dinah Washington, but almost any com- real good, for free." Other gems: The parison is unfair because her approach is Arrangement, Big Yellow Taxi, The really her own. More than any other Priest. soul- oriented vocalist I have heard lately, Miss Mitchell is available, unfettered, she pays careful attention to every nuance is heavy in on Reprise. 1 can't recommend anyone of the lyrics. The program more highly. M.A. blues and blues -ballads, but a rousing.

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