Joni Mitchell at Merriweather Post Pavilion 5/25

by Alan Greenblatt

Last year, when she was touring with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell would slow her sets down to sing a sashaying version of "Comes Love." Now, she's released a full CD of such old standards and will sing some of them locally tonight at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

And so we must continue to wonder whether contemporary pop stars can successfully sing the so-called Great American Songbook -- Broadway and Tin Pan Alley tunes of the twenties into the fifties. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence that they can't, from Linda Ronstadt to George Michael, and some evidence that they can, from Willie Nelson to Rickie Lee Jones (have you all heard her superb "Pop Pop"?).

Mitchell, I think, can. The trick, I guess, is to bring a new aesthetic sensibility to the old tunes, not just do them as they originally were sung, all innocence about love and moons and June and so forth. On her CD, "Both Sides Now," Mitchell sings songs such a "I Wish I Were in Love Again" and "You've Changed" with a great insouciance.

Unfortunately, the arrangements are very much a case of her playing grown-up. They are as string-heavy as anything that ever backed Eydie Gorme, and this greatly undermines the intimacy of Mitchell's vocals. The CD is arranged as a song cycle, following the path of a relationship from ecstatic meeting through heartache and disappointment.

Not surprisingly, there are more of the latter than the former; even on the song of meeting, "You're My Thrill," Mitchell doesn't sound all that thrilled. Mitchell's voice has certainly mellowed with the years of whiskey, or whatever she drinks, and whatever other controlled or uncontrolled substances. The most interesting cuts are probably the ones of her own that she's re-recording, the title track and "A Case of You."

How her voice used to soar in those "Blue" days!

I've listened to this new album several times with pleasure, but it's not the revelation that, say, the rock and rap Cole Porter album, "Red Hot + Blue," was a decade ago. Break out the Sinatra, yet again.