Joni Mitchell at Newport

Joni Mitchell at Newport is a live album by singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, released on July 28, 2023, by Rhino Records. The album contains her entire performance at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival on June 24, 2022. For the performance, Mitchell was joined by a group of musicians (credited as "the Joni Jam") including Brandi Carlile, Wynonna Judd, and Marcus Mumford. It was her first public performance since suffering an aneurysm in 2015.

Critical reception

Joni Mitchell at Newport received a score of 80 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic based on eleven critics' reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Uncut deemed it "fair to say that Mitchell rarely does the heavy lifting here. Her role onstage is a fluid one: muse-goddess, North Star, shredder, comic foil and sometimes singer. The playing by her fellow artists is stellar and the backing vocals, in particular, ooze class", while Classic Rock described it as an "album packed with absolute love and admiration that is moving and inspiring in the extreme".

Reviewing the album for Exclaim!, Sam Boer called the album "a reminder of the way Mitchell lives, and the way her music compels us to live", writing that "the sheer variety of musicians on stage for this festival performance is reason enough" to listen to the album, whose arrangements "carry a necessarily improvisational energy". Boer concluded it is Mitchell's "victory lap". Lee Zimmerman of American Songwriter found it "hard not to get caught up in the sentiment shared both on and off that festival stage" and summarized the album as "a remarkable recording" and one that "can easily be considered an album for the ages".

Grayson Haver Currin of Pitchfork likened the album to "a selfie snapped from some overwhelming vista, where the faces of the subjects accidentally crowd out the actual sight they're there to behold", and wrote that "Carlile's approach to the songs borders on suffocation" as she is "constantly reminding the audience that she's here, that she's partially responsible for this". Currin nevertheless felt that it "does get one thing exactly right, a sometimes-neglected aspect of Mitchell's career: her humor or, more exactly, her laughter", as her wit has been "frequently overlooked".

Track listing

Personnel
Adopted from jonimitchell.com.

Joni Mitchell – lead vocals, guitar 
Brandi Carlile – vocals
Phil Hanseroth – bass, backing vocals
Tim Hanseroth – guitar, dulcimer, backing vocals
Jess Wolfe – featured vocals , backing vocals
Holly Laessig – featured vocals , backing vocals
Taylor Goldsmith – guitar, featured vocals , backing vocals
Celisse – guitar, featured vocals , backing vocals
Ben Lusher – piano
Blake Mills – guitar, backing vocals
Marcus Mumford – percussion, featured vocals , backing vocals
Josh Neumann – cello
Allison Russell – clarinet, backing vocals
Rick Whitfield – guitar, backing vocals
Matt Chamberlain – additional percussion

Group vocalists
Wynonna Judd
Shooter Jennings
Kyleen King
SistaStrings
Monique Ross
Chauntee Ross
Jay Carlile
Marcy Gensic
Sauchuen Yu

Charts

References

Joni Mitchell live albums
2023 live albums
Rhino Entertainment live albums
Albums produced by Brandi Carlile