PUTNEY — Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present Julie Ness, Dave Wysocki, and Tristan Bellerive performing Joni Mitchell's legendary album Blue at Next Stage on Saturday, June 29, at 7:30 p.m.
Recorded in Los Angeles in 1970 and released in 1971, Blue is considered by many to be a groundbreaking album, with a 10-song cycle that weaves a journey of hope, yearning, love, loss, and heartbreak.
After a year and a half of rehearsing, researching, and listening again and again to the breakthrough album, Ness (vocals, dulcimer, piano), Wysocki (bass) and Bellerive (guitar) first performed Blue in Hartland, Vermont, in November 2018, three days after Joni Mitchell's 75th birthday.
In addition to singing all 10 songs and playing piano on four, as Mitchell did, Oberlin-trained opera singer Ness learned to play an Appalachian dulcimer for All I Want, Carey, and California.
The trio begins their performances with videos of Joni Mitchell and a discussion of her musical language (open tunings, piano style), her poetry, her life, and the events that led to Blue.
Blue was rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone's list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” the highest entry by a female artist. In July 2017, Blue was chosen by NPR as the greatest album of all time made by a woman.