Wed 11/7 @ 7:30PM
When Joni Mitchell’s debut album Song for a Seagull was released in 1968, the 24-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist appeared to fit neatly into one of the very few slots available to women in popular music: that of the long-haired, bohemian, acoustic guitar-playing sensitive folkie, singing songs about the men who broke her heart.
But by the time she released her fourth album Blue in 1971 (albums came much more quickly in those days!), she was showing signs of being an artist of more depth and quirkiness than just someone who wrote achingly pretty songs and sang them in an achingly pretty soprano. And by the time she released her seventh, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, in 1975, she was delving into jazz, and after that, there really was no containing this adventurous and famously cantankerous musician who, to paraphrase the song, “did it her way.”
Her 19th and final album came out in 2007; she’s now 74 and not in good health. But Akron singer/songwriter Gretchen Pleuss and her five-piece rock band will be marking the occasion of Mitchell’s 75th birthday November 7 with a show at the Music Box Supper Club. There they’ll play material they’ve re-arranged and re-interpreted that spans Mitchell’s 40-year career: not, they promise exactly as she performed the tunes. They’ll be joined by special guests, Lorain County singer/songwriter/guitarist Emily Keener and Cleveland reggae kingpin Carlos Jones.
Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Doors open at 5:30pm for dinner.