Morning Glory on the Vine. Early Songs and Drawings by Joni Mitchell

Originally handcrafted in 1971 as a gift for friends, this edition of Joni Mitchell’s best-loved poems, illustrations, watercolours and hand-lettered song lyrics is now publicly available for the first time. The perfect present for any Joni Mitchell fan.

Joni Mitchell is a Canadian singer-songwriter whose songs have helped define an era and a generation. She has received many accolades, including nine Grammy Awards, and has released 19 studio albums, including Blue in 1971. Mitchell, with roots in visual art, has designed most of her own album covers. Among her numerous honours, she was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002 and was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007.

The result was a handmade book, with only one hundred copies produced, filled with Joni’s hand-written lyrics and reproductions of many of her stunning drawings — portraits, abstracts, random concertgoers, and more.

Each was given to a friend and, until now, the edition has remained private. Today, with Morning Glory on the Vine, Joni’s long-ago personal Christmas present is a present to us all.

A gorgeous compendium of Joni Mitchell’s handwritten lyrics and watercolor paintings, originally handcrafted as a gift for a select group of friends in 1971 and now available to the public for the first time.

In 1971, as her album Blue topped charts around the world, Joni Mitchell crafted one hundred copies of Morning Glory on the Vine as a holiday gift for her closest friends. For this stunningly beautiful book, Joni hand-wrote an exquisite selection of her own lyrics and poems and illustrated them with more than thirty of her original paintings and watercolors. Hand-crafted, signed, and numbered in Los Angeles, the existing copies of this labor of love have rarely been seen in the past half-century.

Now, as Joni celebrates her seventy-fifth birthday, Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings is available widely for the first time. In this faithfully reproduced facsimile edition, Joni’s best-loved lyrics and poems spill across the pages in her own elegant script. The lively, full-color watercolor paintings depict a superb array of landscapes, still-lifes, portraits of friends, self portraits, innovative abstractions, and more.

All the paintings from the original book are included, along with several additional works that Joni had intended to include for her friends in 1971. Finally, the refreshed volume features an original introduction written by Joni herself. Morning Glory on the Vine is a gorgeous and intimate keepsake and an invitation to explore anew the dazzling, visionary world of Joni Mitchell.

JONI MITCHELL is widely regarded as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of her generation. Her album Blue (1971) is often cited as one of the best albums of all time. Mitchell has won nine Grammys in various categories, including traditional pop, pop music and lifetime achievement. Born in Canada, she now lives in her longtime home of Los Angeles.

From the Publisher:

joni mitchell morning glory on the vine
“I sing my sorrow, and I paint my joy.” – Joni Mitchell

In the early 1970s I used to carry a sketchbook around with me everywhere I went. I drew with colored pens. Once when I was sketching my audience in Central Park, they had to drag me onto the stage. After a while I had quite a collection of drawings. The drawings were becoming more important to me than the music at that time.
I had put the drawings into a ring binder accompanied by hand-written lyrics. Elliot Roberts, my manager, and David Geffen, my agent, took my binder of drawings and lyrics and had a limited edition of books made up.
It’s been a long time coming in making this book public, but we’re publishing it now. Work is meant to be seen, or heard, as the case may be.

–Joni Mitchell, 2019

Morning Glory on the Vine
Early Songs and Drawings
by Joni Mitchell
Hardcover: 136 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(October 22, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0358181720
ISBN-13: 978-0358181729
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 1.2 x 11 inches
£30.00

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

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