Joni Mitchell Counterbalances Love and Trust with Freedom and Confusion on Court and Spark: Ranked the 110th Greatest Album of All Time by Rolling Stone
Mobile Fidelity's Numbered-Edition Hybrid SACD Plays with Revealing Detail, Clarity, Presence, and Openness
Court and Spark, the most commercially successful album of Joni Mitchell's trailblazing career, arrived after a year in which she took some time to breathe and kept a low profile. The pause led to more breakthroughs for the singer-songwriter. Marking Mitchell's increasing drift toward jazz (and affinity for Miles Davis and John Coltrane), Court and Spark garnered four Grammy nominations, earned the Best Album of the Year vote in the prestigious Pazz & Jop poll, and ranks #110 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Sourced from the original analog master tapes and housed in mini-LP-style gatefold packaging, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition hybrid SACD presents the 1974 classic with definitive detail, tonality, and directness. Marking the first time the revered effort has received audiophile-quality treatment, it's one of six iconic 1970s Mitchell records Mobile Fidelity is reissuing on definitive-sounding vinyl and SACD sets.
Benefitting from incredible transparency and openness, this collectible edition reproduces without compromise the textures, details, and breathtaking craftsmanship that help make Court and Spark into what many fans believe is the Canadian native’s finest hour. Notes bloom and decay as they do amid an acoustic live environment. Soundstages extend far and deep, with black backgrounds and balanced tones adding to the uncanny realism.
The elevated presence and openness put in transparent view Mitchell’s incisive words and unique phrasing, as well as the contributions of her prized support musicians — including Tom Scott and the L.A. Express as well as guest turns by the likes of David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jose Feliciano, and Robbie Robertson. Mitchell, experimenting with the melodic parameters of guitar and piano, is rightly found at the center of it all. The jazz-rock rhythms of drummer John Guerin, slippery guitar lines of Larry Carlton, vibrant horns and reeds laid down by Scott — crucial to the songs’ shape-shifting arrangements — can now also be heard with fresh ears.
Tracks
Court and Spark
Help Me
Free Man in Paris
People's Parties
Same Situation
Car on a Hill
Down to You
Just Like This Train
Raised on Robbery
Trouble Child
Twisted
UPC: 821797227360