Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now, 2nd Ed. [Paperback]

Because Hinton's is the first Joni Mitchell biography I've digested, I was hoping for something that didn't leave a cheap, plastic taste in my mouth. The known parts of her life that are inspiring to me were reduced to banal fodder mentioned in passing, while darker aspects became reasons for the author to step up to her vehement defense--these outbursts were nauseating and usually at the expense of someone else, leaving many questions largely unresolved. Hinton tends to shuffle back and forth between regurgitation of objective fact and jarring personal opinion. Incidentally, I like what one reviewer said about this book reading "like a last-minute book report". The fact that he completely destroys my favorite JM album in his woefully amaturish musical critiques doesn't help either. This book does not do justice to an artist such as Mitchell.

In starting this book I had such high hopes and expectations - especially given its billing as the "first" full length book to examine Joni's art and life. But almost immediately I was disappointed, confused, and even offended by what a disgraceful work this is.
There are many reasons to fault this book but chief among them are its virtually endless stream of gratuitous (and obnoxious) opinions, its numerous irrelevant passages, and its many erroneous or questionable "facts". What was often most difficult to read were the "critiques" of the selections on each of her albums. More often than not it seemed hard to believe that this man had any appreciation of, knowledge of, or feeling for her music; at times one wondered whether he was just making up these "analyses".
His sense of the historical background and cultural milieu was comparably incredulous. Either he hates most of what the epochs (from the sixties onward) represented and/or he managed to live through them basically clueless all the while.
He seems to have a rather jaded attitude toward Joni herself. A biography need not be favorable to be accurate or fair. Yet he seems to have managed to craft a rather jarring triumverate of failings: he's inaccurate, unfair, and unsympathetic!
The photos comprise one of the few positive aspects of the book. Despite all the negative aspects I've enunmerated, I've kept my personal copy. Maybe I'll eventually reread it.....at which time I will hope to find it less obnoxious, offensive, and uninformative.