Joni Mitchell subject of former Seattleite Ann Powers’ new book

Writer Ann Powers’ new book on Joni Mitchell, “Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell” (published June 11), is a bit different from the usual biography of a musician.

It’s a story of the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s life, but also mixes in memoir and deep analysis from Seattle-born and raised Powers, one of the nation’s best-known music critics. Powers, who now works for NPR and is based in Nashville, Tenn., goes soul-deep into Mitchell’s creative work, as well as her conflicted feelings about the level of worship Mitchell engenders in her fan base.

Powers picked the title “Traveling” to both refer to a common theme of Mitchell’s introspective lyrics, and to set up the idea of the author moving through the story. “I want to bring as wide a perspective as I can manage to her world, and I can only do that by maintaining some distance,” she writes in the introduction.

We sat down with Powers to talk about Joni Mitchell, writing a biography and the outsider culture of Seattle.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

This book is unique in that you state up front you wanted to avoid a typical biography, and instead write about Joni without using the third-person narrative associated with most big bios.

I have nothing but admiration for the biographers I know who write these expansive books, but I knew that my skills are more associative, and I like to use writing to not only make intuitive leaps but also think about the ways in which an artist works.

Joni Mitchell has a particular aura about her and stimulates an intensity among her fans. I felt like if I were to try to pin down the story in one way, it would be an insurmountable challenge.

Still, some people have said this has elements of a conventional biography, in that it tells the story of her life, and I did a lot of research. But I fill in many details by including aspects of memoir and interruptive elements.

I’ve heard it said that biographers start off in love with their subject, but after a several-year deep dive into researching every foible, they come away often feeling the opposite.

Ha. I feel like my process was somewhat inverted. I started off feeling somewhat skeptical and hostile, not to Joni as a human being, but to Joni as an edifice.

Joni is like a continent that many people claim ownership over. I felt mixed-up emotions about that. Also the surface she’s presented as unimpeachable, with a womanly allure and elegance. I’ve always favored messier pop and rock stars, but as I spent all this time away from the aura and into the details, I found so many different elements of her life that I identified with. I found her story to be one that resonated with mine, as someone who always wants to be the outsider, and yet longs for success.

In a way, that also feels like that sums up what it means to grow up in Seattle as well, a city of outsider culture.

Yes, I felt my own awkwardness as an element in this book, and my resistance to acting chummy with my subject. I never want to assume a kind of intimacy, and that comes in part from growing up in Seattle, but also being part of that ’90s moment when there was this underlying oppositional relationship assumed between artists and writers. Plus, I knew that Joni Mitchell herself had been hostile to some journalists and her biographers.

One of the most moving stories in the book comes when you are in the room at an event with Joni, and you are unable to make yourself go over to speak with her.

There was the torture of that. That story gave me a gift too, beyond the specific part about interacting with Joni Mitchell, but it also allowed me to talk about storytelling itself, and how memory works. We create these histories we need, and that constantly happens with these major icons and legends.

It does feel to me that even among music icons, Joni is held in a special reverence, at least she was for me when I was growing up with her romantic lyrics and feminist archetype.

She was certainly not the only songwriter to emerge who was writing in a personal mode, but because she is a woman, there was that mantle that women are assumed to be more emotionally open and to be out of control in a way. David Crosby had some of that same vulnerability on his album after the death of his partner.

With Joni though, it was perfect timing, with a generational talent meeting a moment of inevitable cultural change. The desire for home, and to keep moving, remained very fraught for women still, but Joni’s work spoke that. It was one of those moments, like Shakespeare, where the right genius came around at the right time.

Every fan has a personal relationship with Joni’s work. What’s your theory for why it has endured?

There is a fundamental quality in her songs, this unstable position that is so human. There is this feeling of great confidence and power, which shifts into an insecurity and anxiety. I get that, and I think everyone does, and I think that’s why her music resonates so much.