Joni Mitchell, with a stylish beret, might as well have been sitting in the corner booth at the Dakota Tuesday night. Because every time Graham Nash mentioned Joni, sang a song inspired by Joni (Joan, as he called her) or performed a tune written by Joni, something came over him.
A new intensity, a profound emotionalism, a heartfelt something — be it a loving warmth or an unrequited ache — surfaced in his singing.
It happened when Nash explained how after they broke up, he wrote “I Used to Be a King,” it happened when he told the tale about going to breakfast with her on a cold California day and buying an antique vase and writing “Our House,” and it happened when he poured himself into her “A Case of You.”
A sold-out Dakota crowd had to be thankful that Joni was in the house and in Nash’s life. And thankful, too, for his other famous collaborators, namely David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young. When Nash told a story about one of them, he similarly seemed more invested in his singing.
It happened as a recorded version of Crosby’s “Critical Mass” led into Nash’s own “Wind on the Water,” it happened on a spirited reading of Stills’ “Love the One You’re With” and on Young’s heart-aching “Only Love Can Break Your Heart.”
By Jon Bream Star Tribune
?: Jeff Wheeler Star Tribune