Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark Demos" Is A Catalog Essential Not a "Curiosity"

is it more compelling than the actual release?

Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell's best selling album, originally released 50 years ago yesterday (January 17th 1974) was preceded by a series of well-recorded by Henry Lewy demos that Rhino and the Joni Mitchell Archives say were "newly unearthed". The record was released on RSD Black Friday November 24th, 2023. Copies are easy to find on Discogs.

A friend told me it's a "must have" so I ordered one. He was correct. Hearing these songs in unadorned fashion is both instructive and thoroughly enjoyable. It's not really fair to say "unadorned" though because as you might expect from the late Mr. Lewy, these songs are both well-recorded and include vocal and other overdubs, giving it more of a produced quality rather than a coarse demo sound.

Of course Mitchell needed no studio help singing or playing piano or guitar and hearing her do all three in such an intimate way brings listeners closer to the songs and the emotional intent than you get from the finished album, great as that is too! Nothing here sounds "raw" or "unfinished". Quite the opposite.

Side one features a "Piano Suite" that includes "Down to You", "Court And Spark", "Car On a Hill" and "Down to You", followed by "People's Parties". Side two has more of a "demo" sound with Mitchell's dry guitar left track and singing "Help Me" bathed in reverb center-right. The song's not yet complete but it's mostly there.

"Raised on Robbery" follows (though the jacket says it's "Just Like This Train") and it includes a background chorus of Mitchell overdubs helping to give it a more complete sound. Next up is "Just Like This Train" Mitchell singing right, guitar left. Hearing these early, still emotionally raw performances, I don't know how Lewy contained himself on the other side of the glass. Decades later they are still moving.

Maybe you won't play this as often as the finished album or maybe you'll play them back to back, but I'm fairly certain if you buy it you'll get back to it often. I've played it a half dozen times since it arrived. Definitely recommended for fans of the finished album. Hearing the songs performed as folk minus the jazzy embellishments gives it a very different spin! TBH, Joel Bernstein's cover photo is almost worth the admission price.