The SHERO of Her Own Story

The penultimate episode of the Road To Joni series packs in more
conversations than any episode so far. As host Carmel Holt heads
east toward home and the finale of the series on Joni’s 81st
birthday, the throughline of “Both Sides Now” continues on with
four artists whose creative path would have been very different if
not for Joni Mitchell. Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath was introduced to
Joni’s music at the age of 12 by her dad. They listened in the car
on cassette until she knew the songs by heart. Amelia cites Joni’s
freedom with her voice and her ability to talk openly about the
challenges of living inside the music industry as core inspiration
for her own creative journey. She tells Carmel that she thinks that
the celebration of Joni should go on forever. Multi-grammy award
winning and nominated singer, songwriter and Tony award winning
playwright and author Anäis Mitchell says that Joni is in the DNA
of what she does as an artist. She talks about the impact of Hejira
and the powerful example it set for her to witness a woman genius
(Joni) doing it on her own terms. Anäis shares that she can relate
deeply to the duality of “Both Sides Now” - how revisiting
something in her 40s that was written in her 20s can mean something
totally different. Next we hear from Allison Russell about how her
“Once & Future Sounds” set at the reemergence of Newport in
2021 came about, and how it led her to being on stage with Joni
Mitchell the following year, as well as The Gorge in 2023, and most
recently, at the Hollywood Bowl. She pinpoints hearing the clarinet
in “For Free” for the first time as a pivotal moment that led her
to playing clarinet with Joni as part of the Joni Jam. Our final
conversation in Episode 9 is with Grammy nominated Irish singer,
songwriter, multi- instrumentalist Andrew Hozier Byrne, aka Hozier.
He talks about how Joni’s music cracks open the hearts of anyone
who listens to it… and we can attest that in this episode, even
stories about Joni’s music will crack some hearts open. Andrew
tells Carmel about a meeting with Brandi Carlile in LA that led him
to Joni’s living room as part of an early Joni Jam. He emotionally
tells the story of how Herbie Hancock started playing “Summertime”
and Joni started singing along. He says about Joni, “It’s like
being in the presence of something mythical.”