Joni Mitchell slams Bob Dylan

Joni Mitchell, the Canadian singer-songwriter, has lambasted Bob Dylan as a “plagiarist” and a “fake”.

In a rare interview, Mitchell, 66, attacked her fellow folk musician after an interviewer for the Los Angeles Times casually noted that both had changed their names, in Dylan’s case from Bobby Zimmerman.

“Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake,” she said.

“Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.”

Her plagiarism accusation may be linked to the controversy in 2006 over Dylan’s album Modern Times. Critics have claimed his lyrics borrowed heavily from the writing of the Confederacy poet Henry Timrod.

Dylan, an American Civil War buff, made no acknowledgment to Timrod in the album’s sleeve notes.

Mitchell also said of her contemporaries Grace Slick and Janice Joplin, that both were “[sleeping with] their whole bands and falling down drunk”.

She criticised Madonna’s cultural influence, saying: “Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980.

“Madonna is like Nero; she marks the turning point.”

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/