Celebrating Joni Mitchell feat. Hattie Whitehead

Wednesday 21st December 2022

For the last gig of 2022, The Spin is putting on a celebratory concert of music by the unique, brilliant and inspirational artist, Joni Mitchell. Pete Oxley writes:

"I have long been a massive fan of Joni Mitchell’s music, ranging from the sparse, folky early albums (such as ‘Blue’) to the late, gorgeously lush albums arranged by the brilliant Vince Mendoza (Such as ‘Both Sides Now’ and ‘Travelogue’). Somewhere in the middle of her career was what some people describe as her ‘jazz period’ - and it is from this era that we will be creating the programme for this gig.

Many of you will be aware of the album called ‘Shadows And Light’. This is a 'Desert Island Disc’ for me - not just because her band comprises a whole load of my favourite musicians, but because as a live album, it fizzes with an incredible, electric atmosphere from the off! The songs on the album are beautiful, exciting and, as always with Joni, totally touching in the poignancy of the lyrics. There is a DVD of this concert and it is clear that Joni must have been totally living the dream, performing her masterpiece works with this band".



And so to our band for the 21st December: firstly, taking on the role of Joni Mitchell will be Hattie Whitehead - who not only pulls off the qualities of Mitchell’s singing…but also plays guitar like Joni! Hattie is a great singer/songwriter in her own right: she won the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition in 2016 and has had hundreds of thousands of streams of her original works listened to.

We are welcoming to The Spin for the first time, the superb (New Jazz Generation) keyboard player, Chris Eldred. Chris was winner of the Yamaha 'Award for Outstanding Jazz Musicians’ and was the keyboardist with the National Youth Jazz orchestra (NYJO) between 2008 and 2014.

The Spin also welcomes back the outstanding bass player, Phil Scragg. Phil’s career has seen him work with so many great players - from all walks of musical worlds - that range from the full-on contemporary jazz/funk outfit, Sax Appeal to rock royalty, Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin)!

Only for the purposes of not going on at length here - and because most of you will be aware of their work - we’ll just list the total personnel for this gig. For any readers new to the club, let us assure you that this line-up comprises only very, very fine players! The band will be:

Hattie Whitehead ~ vocals & guitar

Ollie Weston ~ tenor & soprano saxophones

Chris Eldred ~ keyboards

Pete Oxley ~ guitar

Phil Scragg ~ bass

Rick Finlay ~ drums

Keith Fairbairn ~ percussion