In the filthy, hype bogus world of rock is there anybody to match a personality both as pristine and magnetic as Katherine Hepburn?

The answer is yes, and the star is Joni Mitchell. Surprise you? Don’t let first impressions linger… yes, the girl penned “Woodstock,” For Free” and “Big Yellow Taxi” … but the woman is a Star. If not from a pink hotel, she leaves a hotel suite with pink flamingos on the wall, taking a black limousine on a strip of paved paradise wearing a boutique made dress to swinging hot spots.

Luckily for her fans, Monday night (conveniently the night after the first Seder) Joni Mitchell was driven to Miami Beach Auditorium. Waiting for her were a sold out house, a huge basket of red roses (de rigeur at all her concerts) and her back up group, the L.A. Express.

The last concert I had seen at Miami Beach Auditorium was Bette Midler, and the difference was like night and day. Monday night, the stars were in the heavens, no longer on people’s shirts, shoes and even faces. The heels of most people’s feet were down to earth, and in many cases half an inch lower than the front of their feet.

Joni came on with “The Flight Tonight” wearing a satin pants outfit. The crowd was surprised at how attractive she was, wearing foxy clothes and walking with such a wiggle and deliberation.

In “Rainy Night House” she did not play any instrument, but stood up straight to the microphone like an operatic diva to just sing her song. She was no longer the composer, lyricist, arranger, musician, singer. For this one song she graced us by concentrating on the most beautiful instrument, her voice. Had Joni Mitchell not been cursed with such a prodigious musical gift, she might now be in Barbra Streisand’s place.

During intermission she changed into a loose, sheer dress with big flowers accented with glitter. She did “For Free” which was well staged and lighted. The clarinet player was a strong asset to Joni in this number as in many other I felt that he was very supportive.

Later she told us about “getting back to the land” and living the Hollywood-star existence of being cooked for and picked up after. She said she went out to live in an uncomfortable cabin in Canada, theoretically to punish her body and bring out the spiritual side of her. This was no hype to introduce a song, but an expression of the conflict in her: a conflict alive in so many of us. (Do you really want to go and work for your father? Wouldn’t you rather be a photographer or a musician or an anthropologist?)

Joni was brought back for an encore, ending with “Twisted,” a song sung a few years back by Annie Ross and recently twisted by Bette Midler. Joni Mitchell had never recorded a song not written by herself until this song, and I’m sure that she did so just to musically tell us what she thinks of the “divine” Miss M.

On Joni’s version of the song, first you hear a cool, easy-paced jazz tempo, and suddenly Joni lets you know, “My analyst told me…” she continues calmly in primo style, “I knew what was happening. I knew I was a genius. This is no broad screaming to you, “I’m a star!” – Joni is just realizing it fully, muttering it to herself, smiling and wondering what to do with it. In doing so she tells Miss M what to do with it.