LONG POST ALERT! 💖 For those who don’t wanna read, Swipe to see pics of last night with @jonimitchell 🤯🫠and to hear voice memos of me practicing my version of her song 9 months ago, and the voice memo I recorded for friends and family after my first Joni Jam. 🥹🥹 When I met @brandicarlile at Newport Folk Fest last year, she told me of the “Joni Jams” and said “We have to get you at one, Joni will LOVE you!” I very distinctly remember responding to her by saying “If you are just saying shit, but for real don’t mean it, my ancestors will surely come back to haunt you!” 😂😂😂 Brandi, a woman of her word, did indeed invite me to my first Joni Jam in October of 2021. A couple days before she texted me and asked if I was in town, and as soon as I VERY quickly confirmed, I got a crazy idea. I thought to myself “OK. When else will I get the chance to be in a room with this woman who has meant so much to me? I HAVE to work on a version of my favorite song of hers, to present as a sort of offering to one of my greatest musical influences and heroes. I showed up at the Joni Jams that night, terrified as hell, with a version I felt good about and when it came time for me to share with the group, I played my version of HELP ME straight to her. To my absolute delight, she effusively approved and gave me the kind of compliments that changes an artist on a molecular level. Never in a million years did I think that night could or would be topped. But being invited to not only be a part of celebrating Joni Mitchell’s incredible return to the stage, BUT to be asked to do my version of HELP ME because “Joni just loves it” (said Brandi), is a bigger dream than I could have ever even imagined for myself. There is not a single person that witnessed what happened last night, on stage or off, that was not moved on a soul shaking level. There is no one like Joni Mitchell. There is no one with her sensibility, her perspective, her way of making you feel seen and fully understood inside of her music. She carries a special bit of magic so few that roam the earth will ever have. What a true and utter gift it is to be alive in the time of Joni. (Continued in comments.)