After Joni Mitchell's near-fatal brain aneurysm in 2015, it was unlikely she would ever sing and play guitar again. Fast forward to her surprise appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022, and, on the brink of turning 80 – and after years of hard work to strengthen her voice and relearn guitar – Mitchell was well and truly back.
However, that performance was far from a last-minute affair. In 2017, Brandi Carlile took the initiative to organize “Joni Jams” at Mitchell’s home – monthly jam sessions that assisted her recovery and encouraged her to entertain the possibility of playing on stage again.
It all culminated in a three-hour “Joni Jam” in 2023, at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington State – billed as Mitchell’s first ticketed concert in 20 years. It was as miraculous a comeback as there ever was.
Despite Carlile's years-long efforts to get Joni back on stage, she admits she received her fair share of critique for her involvement.
“I took a lot of shit for my time with Joni in a way that just made me feel so beat down,” she tells Howard Stern. “And I don't know why, because most people were beautiful about it, and in some ways, I got too much credit. But any criticism at all just felt so unjust, because I knew people didn't understand what was happening.”
When asked by Stern what the backlash was exactly, Carlile replies, “People that didn't understand the situation wanted me to get out of the way and hear more of Joni or see more of Joni, and just didn't understand the dynamic that we had established.
“And I remember talking to Joni about it, and she was like, ‘Brandy. Those people [have] always been there. They'll always be there.”
“That was probably the hardest thing I've ever seen in terms of criticism about myself, which makes me lucky, because I think people can be brutal. That one set me back a little bit. I had to rethink some shit.”
Following her momentous return to the stage, Mitchell opened up about how she relearned guitar by watching videos online to “see where I put my fingers.”
