Joni Mitchell is 90% Virgin


Village Voice
February 6, 1969

This was an advertisement placed by Reprise Records in a number of periodicals. Joni was not pleased.

Joni Mitchell is 90% Virgin

We refuse to worry about it.

All things good come to she who waits. And though Joni's still waiting, it's not like she's 100% waiting. We figure about one in ten of her potential fans has bought her album. The other nine - forgive them - they have still to learn that there's more to a woman than Janis Joplin. Janis is dandy. Joni just feels better.

Still, if Joni's not #1 on your list, we're not surprised. We have trouble even in our own backyard:

Mr. Casady, Reprise's national promotion manager, believes in our product. I mean, he can believe a Guy Lombardo single will be next week's stone smash. But even our Mr. Casady shakes his head over Joni Mitchell's album. "Too thin a sound" he'll say. Or, "no balls."

But, in our business, you don't pay promotion men to know it all. And Joni, we admit, sounds like she looks.

Divine.

In fact, despite the fact that Joni is no Kate Smith, she has done respectably well. Her first (and so far only) album - the one she dedicated to her high school English teacher up in Saskatoon, the one she spent four months recording with producer and ex-Byrd David Crosby, the one that you keep hearing on stations where you don't hear The Ventures a lot, that album - has done remarkably well.

Ten percent of you know why.

For the rest of you, not much more we can say to get you to get Joni. So we'll stop talking about that and tell you next about

SOMETHING ELSE WE'VE COME UP WITH

namely, a very stunning poster of Joni. This poster, big as other posters, will never be sold in stores. We're just printing up a limited edition for our friends, the ad readers. The poster is offered strictly by mail. It costs you total one quarter.

Once again, Reprise loses money! The mailing tube alone costs us more than a quarter. Then there's postage and printing, and paying off Tim Considine, Joni's neighbor up in Laurel Canyon who snapped the picture. Already Reprise is in for a bundle.

But that's okay, because as you might've guessed, Reprise isn't exactly 100% virgin.

You won't go wrong to send your quarter to:

Doris Day Fan Club
Room 206
Reprise Records
Burbank, California, 91503

Hi, Reprise! Yes, you've got my quarter so now you have to send me your big sensitive poster of Joni Mitchell. And bless your hearts.

(This offer expires pretty soon so hurry)

We're hoping this generous offer will help Joni cure her 90% virginity. We have a hunch that record buyers've been passing Joni by because she lacks the flash and wallop of a Hendrix or a Cream. Not much we can do about that.

Except remind you other 90% that, when you were younger, you too may have once passed up something nice, because it was a little too subtle for you at that stage of your life.

Something like the opposite sex.

Some things grow on you. Joni's one.

And Joni records, of course, for Reprise. Where she belongs.


Printed from the official Joni Mitchell website. Permanent link: https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=3810

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