"Help Me" by Joni Mitchell (1974)

Dance song of the day - August 14, 2024

This is our third day focused on women singer-songwriters of the sixties and seventies.

We’ve already covered Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” and Judy Collins’ “Both Sides Now.”

There is so much that could be shared about Joni Mitchell’s rise to fame and universal acclaim, but today I’m only going to share one small piece of it that involves three of our singer-songwriters this week (Joni, Judy, and Joan). The first part of the story comes from Al Kooper’s very entertaining autobiography Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards, and the second part from Sheila Weller’s book about Carole, Joni, and Carly called Girls Like Us.

Song of the day

As we learned yesterday, in the summer of 1967 Al Kooper was staying with the generous Judy Collins in between apartments, and one night he happened to find himself hanging out at his favorite bar in Greenwich Village, The Dugout, with the new girl in town, a Canadian folksinger named Joni Mitchell. She had recently divorced the other half of her performing duet, Chuck Mitchell, gotten her green card for U.S. residency, and moved to New York to establish a home base for booking herself into clubs around the U.S.

Al was trying to provide her with whatever comfort he could as she sobbed into her drink. Al was the lead singer, keyboardist, and composer for The Blues Project, and Joni had spent the summer with the band’s drummer, Roy Blumenfeld, only to find herself dropped when Roy’s girlfriend returned from France. Joni and Roy had been crazy in love, but Roy was cowed by the intensity of his feelings and wanted to do right by his girlfriend. Joni was devastated.

When the bar closed down, the newly single Al offered to walk Joni home, mighty pleased when she invited him in to hear her new songs. As he recalls, “She, being real pretty, had me bounding up the stairs like a hound dog, figuring if the songs were lousy, maybe I could salvage the evening some other way. In a few minutes that became the furthest thing from my mind. Her songs were incredible, and totally original… She would finish one, and I would say more, more. And she had enough to keep going for hours, most of them brilliant.”

One of the songs, “Michael from Mountains,” slayed him, and it also struck him that it would be perfect for Judy — and a nice way to pay her back for being so kind to him. On an impulse, he called her on the spot, at 5:30am, waking her up on the very morning she was due to drive to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. Judy protested that she could hear it when she got back, but, hepped up by the possibilities, Al suggested that Judy take Joni to the festival with her and listen to the songs in the car on the way up, and also, Judy being on the board of directors, use her clout to get Joni a slot in the festival. Judy agreed and Al made sure they had each other’s numbers to hook up.

On his way back to Judy’s apartment, Al fell asleep on a bench in Washington Square Park, sleeping through the unfolding drama as Joni waited for Judy, packed and ready to go, and got stood up. As Joni tells it, Judy called her the next day, sheepish over the situation but convinced that Joni had to be in the festival after hearing someone do a terrible rendition of “Both Sides Now.” Judy had known instantly that this song would be a classic and that she wanted to cover it, and that Joni needed to be at the festival. She sent a car to pick Joni up and get her there post-haste.

Judy was now determined to get Joni on the festival stage, but who stepped in to bar Joni from the schedule but “Big” Joan Baez, the influential mother of Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña. Judy, however, was not having it. She threatened to pull herself and her friend Leonard Cohen from the schedule if Joni didn’t perform.

Of course, Joni did perform and took the festival by storm. She also fell for Leonard Cohen and had a short-lived love affair with him, which would have a profound influence on her lyrics. She would spend time with Judy, who would cover her songs “Both Sides Now” and “Michael from Mountains” in her Wildflowers album, taking “Both Sides Now” to the top of the chart and in the process giving Joni greater credibility in the music industry beyond the small and confining folk circuit. Joni also met rock promoter Joe Boyd at the festival, who got her her first overseas gig in London, opening for the Incredible String Band.

All because she sat next to Al Kooper in a bar.

Of course Joni would go on to sign with a major label, make nineteen albums of original songs, win ten Grammy awards between 1969 and 2024 and be given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, receive the Kennedy Center Honor and the Gershwin Prize, and be considered one of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time.

Here’s her biggest hit single, “Help Me,” which reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Easy Listening chart. One of the gems in her absolutely genius album Court and Spark, there is nothing like this song. It’s a one-off piece of heaven. Enjoy.

Song credits

Songwriter - Joni Mitchell

Producer - Joni Mitchell

Musicians:

• Joni Mitchell – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano

• Tom Scott – woodwinds, reeds

• Joe Sample – electric piano

• Larry Carlton – electric guitar

• Max Bennett – bass guitar

• John Guerin – drums, percussion

• Henry Lewy and Ellis Sorkin – engineers