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Welcome to the site of writer and radio producer Michelle Mercer. Look around to learn more about Michelle's book and audio projects. |
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"Hey, remember rock criticism? No, not record reviewing, which is what passes for criticism these days. I'm talking about taking an artist, looking over the artist's work, connecting the work and the artist to the larger culture, and drawing conclusions which illuminate the work, the artist, and the culture. Michelle Mercer has created the best piece of rock criticism I've seen in ages with Will You Take Me As I Am. You don't even have to be a Joni Mitchell fan to get excited by it. All that's required is intellectual curiosity and a willingness to entertain some thought-provoking ideas. Neither rockademic nor fan-girl, Mercer shows how it should be done".
-- Ed Ward, Rock and roll historian for Fresh Air with Terry Gross (NPR)
"Mercer, an accomplished music journalist, wisely places her focus on Blue's almost perfect marriage of lyric, melody, mood, and explored experience at the center of the book, surrounded by a careful yet conversational look at how Mitchell got to that point in her life and where she went in the years that followed. Mercer was fortunate to spend extensive time talking directly with the media-shy Mitchell. The author's own thoughts and experiences play a subtle yet pivotal role as the enduring power of Blue is reflected in her personal narrative as one who was, and remains, inspired by this landmark recording."
-- Library Journal
"What distinguishes this work from standard celebrity profiles is that it reads like a collection of cultural essays.... Mercer uses her subject's own words (she conducted a trove of interviews with Mitchell) to illustrate her thesis that Mitchell helped make the personal songwriters of the late '60s and early '70s the literary successors to the Beats.... She addresses nuances of Mitchell's art that have not been adequately recognized but does not lionize her. Rather, Mitchell is revealed as a complicated woman for whom being widely liked is both anathema and a great need."
-- Los Angeles Times
"Knowledgeable, scrupulously researched, insightfully written, sympathetic to its subject yet without a scintilla of fanzine gush, this book is the very model of what pop cultural criticism could and should be."
-- Phillip Lopate, author of Notes on Sontag
"Michelle Mercer has gone beyond the lurid, tell-all biography to investigate the elements and events that combine to create an innovative artist. Like Joni's work has always done, her book transcends the norm, and delves into the universal."
-- Larry Klein, bassist, songwriter, and producer of the Grammy Award-winning album, The Joni Letters
"Michelle Mercer has a quick instinct for the dynamics of musical creativity, how experience feeds the lyric imagination, and how private insights go public. Her smart and deeply felt portrait gives us Mitchell's life, its defining intensities—everything that went into the making of Blue — but avoids going in for the explanatory kill. The sweet vibration of the work remains."
-- Sven Birkerts, author of My Sky Blue Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time
"Michelle Mercer's writing on music and musicians always manages to fuse intense subjectivity with cool wit and sharp analysis. Will You Take Me As I Am offers a unique perspective on a complex and elusive contemporary master. Anyone interested in Joni Mitchell's work, or the larger topic of songwriting and performance in our time, will find this book a fascinating read."
- Tom Piazza, author of City of Refuge
-- Ed Ward, Rock and roll historian for Fresh Air with Terry Gross (NPR)
"Mercer, an accomplished music journalist, wisely places her focus on Blue's almost perfect marriage of lyric, melody, mood, and explored experience at the center of the book, surrounded by a careful yet conversational look at how Mitchell got to that point in her life and where she went in the years that followed. Mercer was fortunate to spend extensive time talking directly with the media-shy Mitchell. The author's own thoughts and experiences play a subtle yet pivotal role as the enduring power of Blue is reflected in her personal narrative as one who was, and remains, inspired by this landmark recording."
-- Library Journal
"What distinguishes this work from standard celebrity profiles is that it reads like a collection of cultural essays.... Mercer uses her subject's own words (she conducted a trove of interviews with Mitchell) to illustrate her thesis that Mitchell helped make the personal songwriters of the late '60s and early '70s the literary successors to the Beats.... She addresses nuances of Mitchell's art that have not been adequately recognized but does not lionize her. Rather, Mitchell is revealed as a complicated woman for whom being widely liked is both anathema and a great need."
-- Los Angeles Times
"Knowledgeable, scrupulously researched, insightfully written, sympathetic to its subject yet without a scintilla of fanzine gush, this book is the very model of what pop cultural criticism could and should be."
-- Phillip Lopate, author of Notes on Sontag
"Michelle Mercer has gone beyond the lurid, tell-all biography to investigate the elements and events that combine to create an innovative artist. Like Joni's work has always done, her book transcends the norm, and delves into the universal."
-- Larry Klein, bassist, songwriter, and producer of the Grammy Award-winning album, The Joni Letters
"Michelle Mercer has a quick instinct for the dynamics of musical creativity, how experience feeds the lyric imagination, and how private insights go public. Her smart and deeply felt portrait gives us Mitchell's life, its defining intensities—everything that went into the making of Blue — but avoids going in for the explanatory kill. The sweet vibration of the work remains."
-- Sven Birkerts, author of My Sky Blue Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time
"Michelle Mercer's writing on music and musicians always manages to fuse intense subjectivity with cool wit and sharp analysis. Will You Take Me As I Am offers a unique perspective on a complex and elusive contemporary master. Anyone interested in Joni Mitchell's work, or the larger topic of songwriting and performance in our time, will find this book a fascinating read."
- Tom Piazza, author of City of Refuge
Photo of Michelle by John Hazlehurst, Colorado Springs Business Journal