This bizarre two-disc recording finds the loftiest of singer-songwriters collaborating with a seventy-piece orchestra, revisiting her past work. The arrangements treat Mitchell's tunes as precious artifacts, making little attempt to seduce the listener; only on "The Circle Game," for example, do the strings provide the kind of romantic sonic brocades associated with great orchestral rock. Mitchell — in strong, ultraconfident voice — proceeds with her famous jazz inflections, delineating characters such as "Cherokee Louise," who lives under a tunnel. But, the occasional sax flourish notwithstanding, the music does not swing or get loose. Sometimes the album sounds wrongly monumental, as on "Woodstock"; other times, it misses the boat, as on "The Last Time I Saw Richard," which ignores the song's thrilling harmonics. Travelogue translates Joni Mitchell as a scrupulously constructed puzzle.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."