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pili
Aloha
USA
12 Posts |
 Posted - 01/19/2010 : 12:25:21 PM
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Aloha kākou,
It's been a long time since I posted here, and I hesitate to reappear with a negative post... but this really bothers me, and, aside from the fact that venting to people who will understand will make me feel better, it's probably good for lovers of kī hō‘alu to be aware that this kind of misinformation is out there.
(Warning - I'm afraid Joni Mitchell's music won't be quite the same for me after this, so watch out if she's one of your heroes.)
I've always been a great admirer of Joni's, so it really pains me to see her making ignorant, disrespectful, and self-aggrandizing claims about how she changed Hawaiian music, and became the "champion slack key player"... because before she went to Hawai‘i, slack key players only had one sound and one tuning!
The whole Vancouver Sun interview is available through this link: http://ō.ws/m (or the full link: http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Full+transcript+Joni+Mitchell+interview+with+John+Mackie/2447330/story.html)
But this is the relevant section:
"Sun: [Big Yellow Taxi] isn’t a happy song. What inspired that song, which is one of the first environmental songs?
Mitchell: I think it was in 1967, I went to visit some friends who were playing in Hawaii. I came in at night, went to a big hotel, woke up in the morning, pulled back the curtains and saw green mountains and white birds flying along with long tails. Then I looked down and as far as the eye could see there was a parking lot.
So I wrote it that morning. It’s like a nursery rhyme. When it was released, only in Hawaii was it an original hit. On its first release. It’s been a hit by a lot of people in different regions since, including Counting Crows, who had a big hit with it recently that was international. But initially my version of it was a big hit in Hawaii.
It changed Hawaiian music, because I am a slack key player. They have a slack music tradition...there’s only a couple of slack key traditions, the Hawaiians and the old black blues players. I’ve got 37 tunings, the black guys had banjo tunings, and the Hawaiians had an open major chord, I guess. So within that culture I became the champion slack key player. [Laughs] I did very different things with that method of playing the guitar.
So everything after 1967 in Hawaiian music sounds like Big Yellow Taxi to me. Because the chords, the tuning they used to use was the sound of paradise. It was a shiny, positive major chord. That’s why Hawaiian music was so paradise-y. But after that, these more dissonant chords that I use, of modern grief, began to appear in the Hawaiian slack key culture."
Well, there it is. Mahalo for letting me get this off my chest.
‘O wau nō me ka ha‘aha‘a,
Pili
(Edited to include full link to article, since the forum doesn't like my shortened link.)
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Edited by - pili on 01/19/2010 1:49:49 PM |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 12:54:12 PM
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I am utterly stunned that someone would say such a thing.
But your link did not work. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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sirduke58
`Olu`olu
USA
993 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 1:02:58 PM
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| Joni must've gotten ahold of some very good Kona Gold, Puna Buddahs, Maui Wowie, Kau'ai Electric or some other Hawaiian hash bud strain. Toke the herb for breakfast and it'll make you talk that sort of bubbles. You know she was buzzing big time because we don't have any long tailed white birds in Hawaii, maybe not even at the zoo.Looks like she's the one trying to "Pave Paradise" You're right Pili, I'll never look at her her music the same way. She just elevated her way to the very top of my "Kukae List" Maybe I should make a YouTube video exposing her for her blatant lies concerning ki ho'alu, it won't be "bashing" because it'll be the truth. One word for her "Pilau!!!" |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 1:12:20 PM
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I went to the Vancouver Sun's web site and read the interview.
Like Duke said, she must have had some messed up sense of reality, because she obviously then knows nothing of ki ho`alu.
I might have eto fight Paul to go throw out all her recordings and get that junk OUTTA MY HOUSE. Oooh, I cannot tell you how upset I am by what she said.
But then I tell myself, who the heck is she to you that you let her make you so angry and so I agree with myself that she ain't nobody to me, no one in my life would say something like that. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 1:21:22 PM
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Looks like her "understanding" of slack key didn't go beyond using open tunings. She's no Makana, that's for sure...  |
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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 1:22:53 PM
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| Try not to be too angry. Her comments are so ridiculous that it is comical. I am amazed that a person can be so ignorant and self-important. |
Andy |
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pili
Aloha
USA
12 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 2:18:24 PM
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Mahalo for your responses.
I actually think I'll be able to enjoy her music again eventually. While one of the things I love about Hawaiian music is how beautiful many of the musicians are as people, I know that I can not realistically expect that everyone I admire as an artist will also be admirable as a person. To move away from music for a moment, I've heard that Cézanne was not exactly a sweetheart, and Caravaggio was actually a violent thug who had to flee from Rome after killing someone in a fight!
Joni's comments struck a little too close to home, but hopefully, with time and a little perspective I will again be able to appreciate her undeniable mastery, and chalk this bit of nonsense up to the same quirks of her personality that gave us all those beautiful songs about messed-up relationships!
Mālama pono ā hui hou,
Pili |
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kihoalukid
Lokahi
USA
289 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 2:42:17 PM
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W. T. F. !!!
Scuze me... |
Lee |
Edited by - kihoalukid on 01/19/2010 2:43:06 PM |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 3:13:55 PM
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Well, she wouldn't be the first person to confuse playing in open tunings and playing slack key.
Now would she be the first artist to claim an invention that she had nothing to do with.
Jelly Roll Morton leaps to mind. No, he did not invent jazz. But he sure made some great music.
Ditto Elvis, ditto Led Zeppelin (ask Willie Dixon), and many, many others.
If y'all want to do a Dixie Chicks thing and ban an artist for saying something you don't agree with, go ahead. As for me, I'll take her statement for what it is, ignorance.
Last time I looked, ignorance was curable.
Unlike stupidity... which I was born with, dag nabbit!  |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 3:20:55 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark
Jelly Roll Morton leaps to mind. No, he did not invent jazz.
Yeah - everyone who knows what there is to know about music knows it was the Williamson Playboys what did. Look 'em up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeLpkv3MFo8
And one of 'em even plays a Fluke. |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 7:14:15 PM
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From her comments, I would guess she doesn't grasp the difference between "open/alternate" tunings and "slack key." I made the same mistake myself, before learning more about slack key. I played open G & D a long time before I heard of slack key, mostly playing blues and experimenting with the tunings. She doesn't play in standard tuning at all, to my knowledge. And, also from her comments, it seems she never bothered to listen to enough slack key to grasp what it is. That's her loss. Talk first, think later? I've done that, too.
Unko Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 7:26:47 PM
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Reading the interview, she sounds very full of herself. No one can understand her music, her prescence made the oil companies withdraw their support,she single-handedly changed all Hawaiian music so it sounds like her music, etc. Takes more than reefer to do that kind of mind-alteration. Too many years hanging with the coke and angel dust crowd, I would guess.Tragic. She could have done well, she had a good voice, and really used it well.
Unko Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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sirduke58
`Olu`olu
USA
993 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 8:17:08 PM
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Acid/LSD that would explain her hallucination of non-existent white birds with long tails in Hawaii. LSD makes you see trails/tracks when objects go by thus the long tails the drugged out flower child saw LOL.Nobody would or will ever associate Joni Mitchell with Hawaiian music of any kind,shape or form particularly ki ho'alu.....Let me get this straight now: According to Joni...About 1967 is when she claims to have forever change slack key & Hawaiian music just by her musical influence? OMG all this time I thought it was those no name guys like Gabby Pahinui, Sonny Chillingworth, Dennis Kamakahi, The Sunday Manoa, Eddie Kamae & the Sons of Hawaii, Aunty Genoa etc etc etc during the Hawaiian music renaissance. I guess we gotta go rewrite Hawaiian history. I wonder how much influence Joni had on Queen Liliu'okalani and her compositions?
Sad part about all this is that Joni Mitchell is much more well known than ki ho'alu so a whole lot of people will believe the poppycock she spewed. That's all we need....more people who are clueless as to what real ki ho'alu is. |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 8:37:19 PM
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| Watch for Joni to win the Hawaiian Grammy in 2011. |
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noeau
Ha`aha`a
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2010 : 10:54:28 PM
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| Eh what her email we go inundate (you like dat word?) her wit any kine messages so she can be edumacated to dareal ting li'dat. |
No'eau, eia au he mea pa'ani wale nō. |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2010 : 01:42:38 AM
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| No can find her real e-mail. I looked already. The one "official" web site is jus a fan site, perhaps. There is a disclaimer somewhere that says she has nothing to do with the web site, but I was so upset, I wrote and e-mail there before I noticed the disclaimer. But if I could find her, I would. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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Joni Mitchell's outrageous ideas about slack key
Topic Locked
