Joni Mitchell - Blue

This album has a legendary status among music lovers and audio philes for a reason.
The beautiful voice of that sweet looking young woman has a certain magic. It is very bright and reaches unusual heights, whilst holding the tone pure and strong. Her normal singing voice is charming and even the few times she sings the deeper ranges it has a certain ring. What sets her further apart from the average Singer are her song writing abilities . She wrote many remarkable Songs in her career, such as 'Woodstock' or 'Big Yellow Taxi', that are better known in the versions of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and respectively Bob Dylan.
My favourites on Blue are "Carey" and "A Case Of You". What is striking about Blue is the very reduced musical company. Joni plays either acoustic Guitar or Piano. Russ Kunkel plays some remarkable drums and James Taylor or Sneaky Pete play electric or Steel Guitar. So you would expect a nice and mellow album.
You couldn't be more wrong. This is bordering on Free Jazz sometimes. This is an extremely demanding album. If you listen to it at low volume and not really concentrate on the music it will most probably annoy you and you wonder why there is so much fuzz around it.
But when you play this really loud the magic and power shines bright ! The long time acoustic instruments still sound after the last note has been played, the punch these basic instruments are able to develop must be heard to believed. On top of all is Joni's voice. Strong and clear she sems to be everywhere. This is surely remarkable. Agood album to test a Sound system; if it can reproduce all that's recorded it should sound nice on a wide area of styles.