ZIGZAG YEOMAN COTTAGE .... NORTH MARSTON ,0 Ul BUCKINGHAM MK18 3PH OJ :I 0. editorial board (!) (j) PETE FRAME OJ JOHN TOBLER £ ANDY CHILDS ;o The Famous MAC GARRY PAUL KEND\ll KRIS NEEDS advertising JOHN TOBLER r Brookwood 0 (048 67) 5840 c iii' (!) photographers ~ CHALKIE DAVIES ,OJ (/1 TOM CHEYENNE 0 :I layout PETE FRAME SAYINGS OF THE MONTH MAGENTA DE VINE "I got the feeling in the courtroom that there was absoJutely no understanding of the kind of life we lead. To them the things we come in contact with would be shocking, but they're as 11 subscriptions common to us in everyday life as the milkman coming to the door ... Keith Richard. and back-issues "I'm out to see Sir John Reid, and puke all over his face" ••• Malcolm McLaren. SUE ANDREWS 11 1 wouldn't let Grace Slick blow me" ••• Marty Balin. r------1111 spend most of my time laughing my ass off" ••• Le~ Kottke. Those having the good sense and per- 11 ception to desire advertising space "They (Led Zeppelin) thought it was my fault Robert Plant had such a big cock ••• Joe in this publication should contact Massot (Director of 'The Song Remains The Same•). Richard Howell on 01-352-4239 or, liThe safety-pin kid in the bar is taking his attitudes straight out of the Sunday People, in his absence, John Tobler on 048- rather than thinking them up for himself" ••• Mick Farren. 67-5840 - either of whom will be 11 11 happy to furnish all the requisite fax. James Brown sucks ••• David Hancock. 11 This periodical is neither registered "Fairport Convention will go on until my knees go ••• Dave Swarbrick. 11 at the GPO as a newspaper, nor has 11 Kevin Coyne's lyrics make Bernie Taupin' look I ike a graffiti artist • •• Giovanni Dadomo. it the slightest connection, living or "I am not, 1 fear, a television person" ••• John Peel. dead, with the Melody Maker. Any heinous reference to said journal is 11 John Lodge has chosen 'Natural Avenue• as the title for his debut solo album- he feels that 11 total I y without mal ice, and is intended his whole I ife ha~ been one natural avenue towards it ••• Decca Records advertising hype.
to be taken in the spirit of friendly "Nobody plays the blues any more -not unless they're black and old11 ••• Mick Brown. rivalry ••• except where otherwise stated. 11 Crosby Sti lis & Nash are back together. All the problems are over; we've patched every- r------1 thing up and we're staring all over again" ••• Graham Nash. Theoretically, Zigzag "indisputably 11 Get sniffing kids. And don't stop till you hit the ceil ing11 ••• The Raver. the most splendid and informative monthly rock music magazine publi II lid rather be on Southend seafront than Sunset Strip; there's much more going on" ••• Wilko shed in Britain" hits the shops on the Johnson. second Friday of each month, which "If I had one leg, I'd be staggering11 ••• John Otway. is about a week after we manage to deliver it to the warehouse of Spot- 11 Hey, I know more than three chords nowl I know four and a halfl Jim practising all the time 1 ight Publications, Ltd., our princip ••• the Blue Oyster Cui t have shown me that rocklnlroll is hard work, it's harder than being al distributors. On occasion, due in the army11 ••• Patti Smith. · to circumstances entirely beyond the "When there's a tidal wave coming, you don't just sit and sip your coke and pretend every control of man, it comes out a week thing's cool, you jump in your boat and go, dad" ••• Ted Nugent. late.
Contents copyright Prestagate Ltd. 1977. All rights reserved. Reprod-· CONTENTS uction in whole or part is forbidden STEVE HILLAGE: Gong nomad finds fame and worship as psychedelic solo star ••• page 7 unless you are a bonafide certified JONI MITCHELL: Interview-shy songstress overcomes phobia and ruminates ••• page 11 grade A1 goodbloke. Even so, you must first have sought and obtained RY COODER: Cult figure folkie sticks by his guns to leave the dark end of the street ••• page 16 the written consent of the publisher KEITH RICHARD: The wheels of jurisprudence grind into action ••• page 22 (which is not unreasonably withheld). Any rip-off artists who fail to satisfy· JACKSON BROWNE: Four men ride out and only three ride back. Chinese restaurants in these conditions can expect a vis it Winslow, Arizona ••• page 28. from Tobler and the boys. JOHN WALTERS: Intrepid explorer journeys north to Panto in Palmers Green. Shock horror drama probe ••• page 33. Established in April 1969, and motiv ated by the music, not the money. REVIEWS: Latest platters subjected to scrutiny by our panel of non-experts ••• page 37. Los Angeles, California: because my father played in bands when to the Carolinas, and found out ~hat South Sankey Phillips and Dave Wilson report. I was small - you know, marching bands Carol ina was too far south; I refused to and things I ike that. He played the trumpet. work there any more. North Carol ina was Joni Mitchell rarely gives interviews these I was always more interested in painting very nice: we met a lot of interesting days - on the grounds that she doesn't see than anything else, though, and I went off people.:.. very nice service people- which any point in them: 11 1 don't have anything to art coli ege ••• and every summer, my gave me a whole new point of view on the to say that would explain any of my wor!guitar comment on some of her songs, m.aybe weld One summer 1 decided ••• Oh! I remember. before me wanted to give it to me, because be spared some of the preposterous inter I went to a coffeehouse to hear some jazz, he thought I was better than Peter, Paul pretations and observations by critics. What I find more interesting at this point because my friends were interested in jazz and Mary. He used to come in every night 11 in time, however, is not her output so much and I was kind of curious to find out what and get drunk and say 0h, you're better 11 as her route to the stars ••• how she start it was all about- 1 was still a rock and than Peter, Paul and Mary • So I bought ed out on that road which led her to that roller, teenybop go-to-the-dances-on the guitar from him at a very, very, very stratum of untouchable fantasyland where Saturday-night type. Any way, that night good price. Love it dearly. there was no jazz, there was this terrible she no longer has to mix with mere mortals. ZZ: When did you start working as a solo? The stories behind the songs are her folk singer. I didn't enjoy it at all, but own business - and at this stage in the 1 kept going down there ••• And I found JM: Around the end of 166. there were some things I I iked. I I iked game, one can understand her desire to ZZ: And when did you start to write your a group that was very Kingston Trio-ish; "keep her goldfish bowl as translucent as own songs? possible 11 ••• but she was quite prepared to they were local, and they were very amus discuss those early days in fair I y specific ing- it was really funny to hear comedy in JM: Well, I wrote one song in Calgary; terms - though her effusiveness faded music. 1 wanted the leader to teach me I don't remember what it was about, but rather swiftly when the coversation app how to play the guitar, but he wouldn't, so I wrote· it for Peter. I don't remember how roached Mr. Crosby and Mr. Sti lis, those I went out and bought myself a ukelele, it went, and lim sure he doesn't either. refugees from famous LA bands, who grew because my mother thought that guitar••• The next one I wrote was 'Day After Day•. so much closer in her presence during she thought that guitar music was sort of I wrote that when I went fo the Mariposa 1968. associated with country and western, which folk festival in August 1964. Then I wrote was sort of hill bill yish- so she said 'What Will He Give Mel in November of Since your editor is so obsessed with 11 No guitar11 ! 1964, and didn't write anything else until the need to supply as much background the following April when I wrote a s::>ng ZZ: So you got a ukelele instead? trivia as possible, let me just jot down called 'Here Today And Gone Tomorrow' some biographical details before the inter JM: Thatts right ••• and I plunked my way ••• an'd maybe one or two more; I ike I had view starts: Joni Mitchell was born Rob through most of that summer. Then, back one called 'The Student Songt. I guess · erta Joan Anderson on November 7th 1943, at college, I started playing in a club with I had written about five songs when I met which makes her 33 years old now. Her Peter AI bl ing - he and I became the house Chuck. original intention was to become a success acts. That was in Calgary, Alberta, and ZZ: Was there any common theme? ful commercial artist, but her studies at it was the first professional gig either of Alberta College of Art in Calgary were us played. Peter went off and became JM: In the early ones. Love Lost. I met distracted by the pi inking and pi unk ing of Mycroft of the Times Square Two, and I a wandering Australian who really did me guitar strings. Folk music. She learned began to struggle around the clubs, and in. As a matter of fact he continued to be to play with the aid of a Pete Seeger 'How I also moved to Toronto, where I got a the theme for a lot of songs that I wrote. to play guitar' record, and her paintbox part-time job. And it was at that time I used to find it really difficult to write began to gather dust. Her first gig was when I met my husband, Chuck. Love Found songsl My earliest 1 real true at a coffee house called the Depression. ZZ: Do you remember when this was? love found' song was 'Dawn Treader• ••• Now read on: but Love Found songs were difficult to ZZ: flm primarily interested in the early JM: That was in May of 1965. Well, Chuck write, primarily because they really take and I moved to Detroit and worked as a duo days -how you got started. How do you a lot of confidence, not on I y that you are for a while, and we stayed around there feel about a potted autobiography? in love, but that the other person is in love until Tom Rush came along and sort of with you. Otherwise youlre afraid to say JM: Well, 1 was born in Fort McCloud, encouraged us to get out of Michigan. So all the things that you want to say. Jtls Alberta. I moved from there to a small we W€'"'• · .> New York and played the Gas- a standard thing. You don't want to look town in Saskatchewan called Maidstone, 1ight; we didnlt do all that well. We drew fool ish and commit yourself to all these then on to North Battleford and on to Sas a few interesting people, but nothing things. So I didn't, at that time, have very katoon. I was always pressured by my really start I ing. much ••• the way my head was working I mother to be involved in music; possibly So we got out of Michigan and went down didn't have very much to write about. I was sort of relatively contented. excite her enough to do. So he didn't know any melody of his. It repeats itself. Like, what to do, and he learned it in the mean Donovan got hung up and used a really time. And I got a letter from him one day strange thing. It wasn't really a symbol, ZZ: It was Tom Rush who eventually drew saying I'm going to do 'The Urge For Going' . just a word. He used "silver bicycles" in the fol kaudiences to your songs when he I don't think it's my kind of song, but Jim two songs. That's a very strange image recorded 'The Circle Gamel and 'The Urge going to try it anyway. And he had beaut to use in two songs, and I think when you For Going' ••• can you tell us about those? iful success with it. put it in, you're.not really aware ••• maybe .JM: I wrote 'The Circle Gamel about Neil So then, Tommy really started it. He he was • Young, who was a friend of mine at the opened doors. The Philadelphia circuit ••• There's a friend of mine who uses doves time. He was lamenting lost youth at 21t I probably never would have ••• I was runn a lot, Mark Spoelstra, he uses doves and He had dP.:ided that all the groovy things ing out of clubs to play, and there wasn't gun images a lot, negative gun images. to do were behind him now, he was too old very much money where I was pi aying and I use dreams a lot; I thought I could say to do them; suddenly he was an adult with everything. And the only way I did work certain things in dream images that I all the responsibilities. He had been told was through Tom. He'd go into a club and couldn't say in factual things ••• but now all his I ife that all the things he wanted to he'd stand up there and sing my song, and Jim writing more as a narrator, more do, they said 11 V\Iait 'til you're older". build me up and people would get curious, matter-of-fact I y. you see. So he real I y opened up a who I e Now he was older, and he didn't want to ZZ: When did you make that transition? circuit for me. Thatls where I grew and do those things any more. So that was the After the first album? idea for one song. through experience got some other ideas, 'The Urge For Going' I wrote after the I ived some other things. J.A: Well, 'Both Sides Now' was probably the first song of that new phase ••• and then second Mariposa I ever went to ••• ZZ: And then the ball started rolling ••• all I went through a period when I got into sorts of people began to record your songs ZZ: What exactly was 'The Mariposa'? stories - I ike I remember I wrote a song - all before your first album ••• .JM: A folk festival which was held in Ont called 'The Gift Of The Magit, which was ario every summer. The first one I went .JM: Right. Buffy Sainte Marie did 'Circle just one of O'Henryts short stories done to, I went solei y to watch ••• but the second Gamel and 'Song To A Seagull'; Jan & as a poem and set to music ••• and 'The time I went, I was a performer. That·was Sylvia did 'Circle Gamel; Judy Coli ins did Pirate OF Penance' was just a story. 'Michael From Mountains' and 'Both Sides the first year I was married, and that was ;zz: Well, are they just stories, or are Now' - and they were also being done in a very bad year ••• it seemed to be full of they personal? drunks and people looking for action rather England by people like Fairport Convention than music - so I was pretty unprepared. and Julie Fe I ix. She was doing quite a Jl'v\: Which? few of my songs, not very common ones, I wanted to do all my own material; I ZZ: The songs you're talking about ••• the but peculiar ones Jld forgotten ••• she got didn't have mu.ch variety. I wasn't very ones on your first album. good, and I had a lot of trouble with the them off old lead sheets and tapes. Well, IJ Had A King In A Tenement audience booing and hissing and saying ZZ: What, to you, is the trademark of your Jl'v\: 11 Cast I et was a very true story from my own Take your clothes off, sweetheart". growth? What is the change in your writing Things like that really shook me up because that indicates to you that you're writing I ife, but I did it in the form of a fai.rytale. I didn't know how to counter or how to act. better songs now than you were before? I guess you could say that my songs from I thought Jld bombed; I wanted to quit and that period were usually personal if they I was really desperate. On the way back, JM: Now, better is a point of view. My were in the first person. in the car I wrote a line that said "It's like mother and a lot of relatives will think Jim ZZ: What about 'Nathan La Freneert - that running for a train that left the station more ambiguous. I think lim a better poet is a song which always intrigued me. hours ago/Jive got the urge for going but now, and my melodies are much more com there's no place left to go". ·what I really plex. The music is, and this is a dirty ..M: He was a New York cab driver; he meant was that the folk movement had died word to use, much more intellectual. It's really existed. He drove me to the airport at that point, and that the music I loved more complicated, it has more meat to it.. one day. (NY cabbies have to display their had no audience left ••• it was futile and it So things I ike 'Carnival In Kenorat, which name and photgraph prominently on the cab) was silly, and I may as well quit. is just a pretty I ittle courtship song that I wrote most of that song on the plane. It So then I forgot about the I ine, and then people I ike - Jim not writing any more I ike relates to my feelings that day ••• just one day I was cleaning out my guitar case, that. I get halfway through them and I exactly my trip from the door to the airport. which is usually full of scrap songs, lyrics realize they're not saying anything, and I've started - and I came across that piece I throw them aside. I have more philosophy ZZ: Do you find it easier to write about of paper. I used to c I ean the case out in my songs; it's not rea II y protest, itt s rei ationships from a distance; I ike a guy every so often, and read all the notes over more contemporary. If a historian read becomes inspiration for a song only after - and I would sometimes find something into it, he would see more of our time in he's gone? where I couldn't even remember what the my music now. JM: That depends. original thought was ••• but the I ine would Before it could have been anything. stir up a whole fresh idea, completely new. While I was married to Chuck, what topics ZZ: On what? That's what happened with 'Urge For did I have to write about? I was I imited in JM: (Silence) You spend any time with a Going'. I wrote that in August, and the writing short stories, character sketches person and you soak up some of them - but next thing I knew it was September, and of people in love, for fear that people genera II y it doesn't come out unt i I after then October. I was really cold, and I was would say "Listen to that song, there must you've left them ••• itls just a sort of delay saying 11 1 hate winter and I rea:ly have the be something wrong between them" ••• you ed reaction. Often I don't feel their pres urge for going someplace warm", and I know what I mean. You have to be very ence or what they've given me until a long remembered that I ine. So I wrote 'Urge careful not to give the opinion that you're while later ••• until all the confusion of For Goingl from that. running around. At least, I always did, leavin'J them is gone. and now I have no- one to answer to, no -one ZZ: And Tom Rush happened to pick up on to be afraid of offending. ZZ: Were you always a Dylan fan? it? My songs are very honest, they are very JM: I was what was known as a "late Dylan Jl'v\: Actually, Oave van Ronk was the first. personal, ~xtremely personal. Some fan". At one time I was almost anti -Dylan, I met Dave and Patrick Sky in Winnepeg in times they really hurt to sing. Some nights and I made a lot of enemies going around September or October - I had just written you really get into them, and they really saying ••• I thought he was putting me on, it, so it must have been October. They take a lot out of me, which is something I couldn't accept him. It's a trait of mine. were doing a Canadian television show music never did before. I used to more outspoken; now I'm more called 'Sing Out', and I thought that once ZZ: You do seem to make heavy use of noncommital until I really figure out what again ••• it was sort of following Mariposa, "symbolism" in your music. t•ve noticed they are saying. The thing was I shared I was shaky and thought I was awful and that ever.y once in a while a symbol will no experience with Dylan at that time, so amateurish and I wasn't growing fast enough. the thing was, I thought that a lot of his And I could feel how good my peers were; r~cur. stuff••• the things ! thought were ambig I could feel how amateurish I was, and I ...M: What? uous and were not written honestly, I find really needed encouragement. They didn't Z~: Dreams, for instance. out now were just the things I had no idea give me any as far as I could see. Van of at the time. So as I experience some Ronk was saying things like 11 Joni, you've ...M: Are you talking about early stuff or of his experiences, or bring some of my really got groovy taste in clothes, why later stuff? experiences to his music ••• it's I ike I don't you become a fashion model? 11 And ZZ: Earlier stuff••• and wasn't there a bird always thought Shakespeare was really Patrick Sky was saying 11 1t sucks". But symbol that recurs? wordy and weird, right until I went to Dave did I ike IUrge For Going' and he Stratford and saw a man who recited asked me for it, I remember. I wondered JM: Seagull. The first album was called Shakespeare I ike it was rea II y 20th cent what ulterior motive he had in mind after 'Song To A Seagull' and I used that as a ury. It lost all that super-drama stuff that saying all those dreadful things to me. continuity. I found that 'Song To A Sea really turned me off, and it flowed I ike 20th 11 He must just want to laugh at it or some gull' was a summary of all the songs Jld century Engl i;;h, and I understood it. So thing". I was that insecure about my ever written. itls the same thing with Dylan; now every writing. I really thought it was awful. ZZ: Do you work consciously with symbols, time I listen to him, the things that I thought ZZ: (As far as I know, Van Ronk didn't or do you become aware of them afterwards? were just words for word's sake make record it until his Pol ydor album in 1972) sense to me. J.A: I think you do afterwards, I think it is But Tom Rush recorded it first, didn't he? subconscious. Just as a songwriter steals .JM: Well, w '1en Tommy took it, he had Judy from his own melody. Like, if you want Coli ins in mind. He took it to her and she to get technical, Kurt WeliJis stuff••• you apparently didn't I ike it, it just didn't can pull 'Mack The Knife' out of almost