HE to Facebook‘s Patricia Sullivan Webb about Joni Mitchell’s big show last night at the Hollywood Bowl, and more particularly the torrent of soft, gushing comments which didn’t address the reality of Mitchell’s situation:

“Why hasn’t at least one person tactfully acknowledged the plain, inescapable truth about Joni Mitchell’s singing at last night’s Hollywood Bowl?,” I wrote.

“Don’t get me wrong — I think It’s glorious that Joni performed live as best she could before an adoring throng. She obviously has the phrasing and the conviction and classic authority, and can get past some of her diminished abilities by ‘selling it’ like a pro performer. Your heart goes out.

“But her voice is gone…be honest. I’ve been listening over and over to those Asylum years tracks recently….c’mon. No comparison.

“I saw Frank Sinatra perform in Long Beach in the early ‘80s. His voice wasn’t what it had been, but he at least sounded like the Sinatra of legend.

“We all want to express love and compassion and gratitude to dear Joni, but Mitchell herself said several years ago that she can’t sing like she used to. Plus her voice is so much deeper now. I’m no professional singer but in the car or the shower I can sing just as clearly and whole-heartedly as I sang in my 20s. Mitchell can’t do that.”

Sullivan-Webb to HE: “Well, Mr. Wells, did you have a brain aneurysm which stole all your physical abilities from you? ‘Cause Joni did. And I will not judge any singer at nearly 81 to when they were in their 20s and 30s. Ny the time of Hejira, Joni’s voice after decades of smoking had deepened and she didn’t have the top notes she had in her first few albums. So what?

“Frank Sinatra performed with early dementia. That was painful to watch as he lost his place, started to re-sing songs he had just sung and struggled. He did not have his top notes but it was still by and large a Sinatra concert. Finally, his son convinced his money-grubbing stepmother to stop him from touring. She retaliated by making it very difficult for his children and grandchildren to visit him. There had to be a lawyer present. Horrific.

“Similar crap was pulled on Glen Campbell, whose 4th wife forced him to perform with full Alzheimer’s until he did not know his name and was pushed on stage to stand there as an exhausted, completely confused man who didn’t know where he was or why. He not only didn’t have his voice, he hardly had words.

“In Joni, we have a nearly 81 year old legend who is in full control of her mind and her art. Most of her show was singing jazzy songs which reflect the music she prefers and was writing and recording for 20 years prior to her massive brain injury. People can be merciless to artists as they age, gain weight, change directions. However, the 34,000 people who showed up over two nights [at the Bowl] and spent beaucoup money to see Joni, hear her, buy her merch…they were entranced.

“We are generally a mean society about stars. We dissect them, we raise them up only to discard them. Troll comments are common. Tell it to Joni Mitchell’s face. She’d look at you and laugh. Joni has a powerful intellect. Last year, she performed at The Gorge. I couldn’t get there. She played to a sold out crowd of 20,000. I first saw Joni play at The Troubadour when I was 12 or so. Perhaps there were 250 people there. I did not meet her until I was 14 — a very long time ago.

“Comparing an elderly woman’s voice to her youthful one is like comparing a beautiful 30 year old woman to what natural factors make her look like 50 years later. I see Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and other artists in their 80s and don’t expect them to look or sound as they did 40 years ago. To expect otherwise would make me foolish, wouldn’t it? And those guys haven’t defied death by a horrific illness as Joni has. I don’t believe any artist even in their 60s can reach the same notes they could in their 20s.

“You may be deluding yourself that your vocal proficiency is the same as it was in your youth. I will assume so having been around top artists my entire life and never hearing even one of them perform with the same ease and technical proficiency as they did at the height of their success.

“Joni’s show was a masterful interpretation of her music. Her lyrics are deep and her phrasing was perfect. We are friends but even if we weren’t, I feel honored to have seen her perform as a youth, in middle age and at this juncture of her life. So much of what she wrote as a youth was written with her being a vessel, as yet, not having had many of the experiences she has now lived. ‘Both Sides Now’ sung as a woman who truly has lived life on both ends of life is far more powerful than when sung by a young woman who is imagining what life will throw at them, rather than actually experiencing the highs and lows every one of us have if we are fortunate enough to live long having gone through many kinds of hellish experiences and not coming out of it bitter and angry.”

HE to Sullivan-Webb: “Patricia — Thanks for the straight, honest and very specific response. No one had offered anything close to this when I tapped out my original comment.”