Laura Marling has narrated a new audio documentary about Joni Mitchell for BBC Radio 4.
The singer voiced Blue: Pain And Pleasure to mark the 50th anniversary of Mitchell’s seminal album ‘Blue’.
The documentary, which aired earlier today (June 17) and you can listen to here, sees Marling telling the story behind the writing and recording of the 1971 LP.
The record is also due to be reissued as part of a new box set – ‘The Reprise Albums (1968-1971)’ – on June 25 to mark ‘Blue”s 50th anniversary.
Narrated a documentary about the one of the greatest songwriters of all time (no gender qualifier necessary) @jonimitchell on the 50th anniversary of Blue. @BBCRadio4 this morning at 11.30. #femaleisnotagenre
— Laura Marling (@lauramarlinghq) June 17, 2021
That release includes an essay from Brandi Carlile on ‘Blue’, which she calls “the greatest album ever made”.
“‘Blue’ didn’t make me a better songwriter. ‘Blue’ made me a better woman,” she wrote. “No matter what we are dealing with in these times, we can rejoice and know that of all the ages we could have lived through, we lived in the time of Joni Mitchell.”
Mitchell recently spoke about the impact of her songwriting and her legacy in a rare interview.
“My early work is kind of fantasy, which is why I sort of rejected it,” she said. “I started scraping my own soul more and more and got more humanity in it.
“It scared the singer-songwriters around me; the men seemed to be nervous about it, almost like Dylan plugging in and going electric. Like, ‘Does this mean we have to do this now?’ But over time, I think it did make an influence. It encouraged people to write more from their own experience.”
Marling, meanwhile, recently reunited with Mike Lindsay to revive their LUMP project, with the duo set to release a new album, ‘Animal’, in July.
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