Big Yellow Taxi

Description: Although hardly my favorite Joni Mitchell song, it still resonates perhaps better than any other in her catalog of great work when I perform it, which even without a full rhythm section, is always great fun for patrons and attendees. So my dad decided to produce a full arrangement to take the song to the next level; an arrangement of full instrumentation that she had never recorded which includes piano, bass guitar and a horn section.

The Story Behind the Song: As recording sessions can typically take longer than anticipated and while this production was no exception, the arrangement and actual audio recording came together at the speed of sound. Since the concept for this arrangement was only to build on the existing one, less time was required for its completion and although still tedious, reduced considerably the labor of love.

If one had the time to compare the original to this version; for example, the triangle heard several times in this rendition has identical articulation [resonance and muting] to the original; the same attention to detail was applied to the congas that were pitched to the original and the acoustic guitar and its open tuning et cetera. Forgive me when I say that I believe this is the very best variation on the theme of 'Big Yellow Taxi...'


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