An interviewer for the Los Angeles Times found Joni Mitchell in a mood to settle some old scores with fellow 60’s icons:
The Times interviewer referred to Old Nasal Voice in passing, citing his name-change from Robert Zimmerman to Bob Dylan. (Mitchell also abandoned her birth name, Roberta Joan Anderson.) Mitchell launched into an unprovoked assault. “We are like night and day, he and I,” she scoffed. “Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.”
Cowed, the interviewer moved on to safer topics — such as Prince (apparently a Mitchell fan) and sex appeal. Yet Mitchell still had time to slag off Grace Slick and Janis Joplin (allegedly they were “[sleeping with] their whole bands and falling down drunk”), and Madonna. Railing against the “stupid, destructive” era we live in, Mitchell took aim at the Material Girl. “Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980. Madonna is like Nero; she marks the turning point.”
It wasn’t all piss and vinegar. Mitchell fondly recalled Hendrix, “the sweetest guy”, and late-night listening sessions together. But even this memory is shaded in frustration. “He made his reputation by setting his guitar on fire, but that eventually became repugnant to him,” she recalled. “‘I can’t stand to do that anymore,’ he said, ‘but they’ve come to expect it. I’d like to just stand still like Miles.'”
