Cat Power’s favourite Joni Mitchell album

Posted On July 3, 2024July 3, 2024

No artist is ever an island. Instead, artistry becomes a circular economy of inspiration as musicians are influenced by the work of others, moved to make their own and then become that seed of inspiration for someone else. For Cat Power, one of the most important gardeners planting seeds in her imagination is Joni Mitchell.

That’s not a unique fact. In the worlds of indie, rock, and folk, it’s especially tough to find an artist who wouldn’t celebrate the limitless impact of Joni Mitchell. Even back in the 1960s, when she first broke out, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan were already worshipping at the altar of her music. “Joni was some kind of musical monster, that her gift somehow put her in another category from the other folksingers,” Cohen said. “There was a certain ferocity associated with her gift. She was like a storm. She was a beautiful young woman who had a remarkable talent,” he added.

Decades later, with generations removed, Cat Power still agrees that Cohen was right. Mitchell’s gift for music was ferocious, creating a discography that evolved and developed with her, filling it with timeless and enduring efforts. 

However, it took Power a little while to fully appreciate Mitchell. Upon her first listen, she brushed her off. “I was in my dad’s record den; I think I was thirteen? And I was getting turned on by all these records, all this blues and jazz stuff. I put the needle down on Blue and I was like ‘Oh, gosh, I hate that hippy shit’, and I turned it off,” she recalled to The Quietus. 

“I didn’t listen to it properly; I didn’t realise what was going on there,” but even as a teenager, she knew Mitchell’s reputation proceeded her, and she would eventually come back around. She said: “I rejected Joni instantly, but I thought, you know what, I’ll get to it; I know she’s important, and put it in my little pile.”

It took her until she was 18 to drop the needle again and finally sit with the album. “One day, I went through my records, and found it, and was like ‘Oh, fuck, I’m gunna play this’, and that’s when I discovered Blue,” she said, “I played that album probably 258 times that year.”

It’s easy to see the impact of the album in Power’s work. It’s full of Mitchell’s unique guitar playing, from the open tuning chords of ‘A Case Of You’, to the stylistic finger picking of ‘Little Green’. Power’s famed cover of ‘Sea Of Love’ could sit on the album with the same cinematic style, or ‘The Greatest’ feels like a nod to Mitchell’s piano numbers like ‘River’ or ‘My Old Man’. Lyrically, too, Power clearly went to the Mitchell school of honesty, using her work to introspect on a deeper artistic level.

Power is among the many artists whose love for Blue needs no explanation. Not only is it Joni Mitchell’s most renowned and beloved album, but it is also the pinnacle of confessional songwriting. The record’s lyrics merge poetry with brutal vulnerability, inspiring writers ever since, with Power proudly counting herself among them.

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