Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/3Z0qQc09rmk4JYtIaxEx2J
YouTube
1. Coyote http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMFQtnd0amc
2. Amelia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcTDoi9JQiY
3. Furry Sings The Blues
4. A Strange Boy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiP8H_B3dOk
5. Hejira http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sf_6Pqa2eE
6. Song For Sharon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG0kNny3WlY
7. Black Crow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV4D1hez-Lw
8. Blue Motel Room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-KbwLfAgbU
9. Refuge of the Roads http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5mZErvdXVM
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hejira_%28album%29
My second Album Club choice is one of my favourite records of all time. I got into Joni Mitchell's music after seeing a BBC 'in concert' broadcast on TV in 1983 (I still have the cassette recording I made off the radio simulcast, now transferred to CD) and began buying all her back catalogue.
By this, her eighth album, Joni Mitchell's music had lost much of the 'folkiness' of her earlier work. Experimentation with Jazz and World music forms became evident on 'Court and Spark' and 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns', and the jazz influence is obvious on 'Hejira' - though it is by no means a 'jazz album'.
The title 'Hejira' is a corruption of the Arabic 'hijra', meaning 'a journey', and the road-weariness of travelling alone is a recurrent theme. The basis for these songs came whilst Mitchell was driving alone (without a driver's licence) across America, returning to California after hanging around Bob Dylan's 'Rolling Thunder Revue' tour in 1975.
Joni's unique guitar sound is to the fore on this record. Weakness in her hands, a legacy of childhood polio, made conventional guitar fingering difficult for her, so she developed her technique of devising many alternative tunings (and her own 'Joni Notation' for writing them down).
Lyrically, the songs on this album are just about as far from her early "moon and June and ferris wheels" as it is possible to get. In my opinion, some of the lyrics here are the most poetic and sophisticated examples in popular music.
A mention should also be made of the stellar supporting musicians on the album, notably bassist Jaco Pastorius and guitarist Larry Carlton.
So please listen without prejudice - regardless of whether you think it's going to be your cup of tea or not - and I look forward to your votes and comments.