Feeling The Love

We’ve reached the end of The Road - the one that leads our host
Carmel back home and to the finale of our special 10 episode
series. It is also Joni Mitchell’s 81st birthday. From Newport Folk
Festival 2022 to the Hollywood Bowl on October 19, 2024, we’ve
watched the remarkable comeback of our SHERO, and in the past ten
weeks, we’ve heard from a group of artists who shared their roads
to Joni with so much love and reverence that it was rare to end a
conversation without tears. We set out on this journey not only to
celebrate Joni Mitchell, but also to explore the immense power of
music and community to heal, unite, inspire and crack us wide open…
which this experience certainly did. For this final episode, Carmel
talks to 7x Emmy award winning journalist and senior culture and
senior national correspondent for CBS News, Anthony Mason. He tells
us about his decision to get to Newport when he heard that Joni was
going to be there in 2022; and camping out in an Airbnb during the
festival, hoping that he’d get “the call.” When that call came and
he was summoned to rehearsals at an old church at Fort Adams State
Park, the site of the Newport Folk Festival, he knew that his
patience had paid off. Anthony got 15 minutes with Joni and with
that, he secured the first televised interview with her since her
aneurysm in 2015. Anthony says that the experience of seeing Joni
perform at Newport 2022 was “everything we’ve waited for and so
much more.” FInally, we hear from a listener that Carmel met on
night two of the Hollywood Bowl Joni Jam shows. Our new friend,
Cory Reeder, is an award-winning director, producer and
screenwriter. The heartfelt story of his road to Joni leaves us,
once again, in tears. He says that “Joni Mitchell is courage” and
that “she is the hero that we need.” Cory says that he is forever
grateful for living in this time of Joni. We can’t think of a
better sentiment to end on. It has been an honor and a privilege to
have you on this journey with us.