Joni Mitchell
Unknown Venue, supposedly (West) Germany (?) 1968 (?)

I noticed that this amazingly high-quality recording of an absolutely stunning solo performance had dropped off the tracker, so I decided to put it back -- this is DEFINITELY one that everyone should have. Its origins are completely mysterious, though -- it circulates as "Germany 1968", but Joni didn't play in Germany in 1968. During the intro to "Dr. Junk" she talks about her visit to Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, and since she first played Fayetteville on January 3rd, 1967 and again in May of that year, her remark that the visit was "about 2 years ago" suggests that this performance took place in 1969. I think the presence of "Dr Junk" in the setlist would argue against the show being far into that year, since it's a throwaway song that didn't stay in her repertoire for very long. The best guess, then, would be very early 1969, but where is more of problem -- although perhaps it COULD be Germany (did she play there in 1969? the jonimitchell.com chronology has no record of any European dates between London Sep 1968 & London Jan 1970 -- which can't be right, surely?) -- her phrase "my country's capitol" in the "Roses Blue" preamble seems to refer to Washington DC rather than Ottawa, which places the performance outside of North America (and that song itself, though not an easy one to decipher, was probably written after the darker events of 1968 -- the King & RFK assassinations, Chicago and the election of Nixon).

I was going to seed the show exactly as received via the JMDL hub -- the same version upped here previously -- but when I took a close look at the wav files I found SBEs -- tiny ones, but they were there (as the lineage claims alignment was done, I imagine they're historical). I went through and got rid of these manually, then decided to up the levels and shift the tracking just a little whilst I was in there. I also fixed a nasty little glitch right at the beginning and faked a less abrupt fade at the very end. There was no temptation to use any nr or eq as the sound quality is great. It's an exercise in gilding the lily, but this particular lily was worth it.

lineage: SBD > ? > acousticharmonies Vine CDR > Wav (EAC secure mode) > Flac frontend (level 8, aligned & verified)
remaster: > WAV (SBEs manually fixed, tracking & levels adjusted, flaws at start & end fixed with ACL10) > WAV (fixed SBEs with TLH) > FLAC level 8

01 - Marcie 4:44
02 - Nathan La Freneer 3:15
03 - Preamble to Dr Junk 2:54
04 - Dr Junk The Dentist Man 2:39
05 - Roses Blue 4:03
06 - The Circle Game / Little Green 10:08
07 - I Don't Know Where I Stand 4:04
08 - Go Tell The Drummer Man 3:32
09 - Michael From Mountains 3:39

total time 38:58