Night Ride Home

JONI MITCHELL

Geffen

Although Mitchell's '70s albums Blue and Court and Spark are regarded as her classics, this lesser-known gem from the early '90s more than holds its own. Night Ride Home marked a move away from wanton experimentation into more succinct song orientation, with elegant melodies and literate lyrics, from kiss-offs ("The Windfall [Everything For Nothing]") to harrowing narratives ("Cherokee Louise"). Mitchell's voice takes on duskier hues here, which meshes nicely with her flanged acoustic guitar. All told, Night Ride Home is an effort that is at once intimate and epic.

This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2006.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...