Opinion: How Brandi Carlile Lifts Us Beyond Joni Mitchell’s Two-sided Clouds

Fifty years ago, Joni Mitchell inspired us to look at clouds from both sides. Now Brandi Carlile is teaching us how to look at all sides.

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The first time I saw Brandi perform was in 2012, long before she became a three-time Grammy winner and well known folk singer-songwriter. I’d flown into Seattle for a work trip. At the time, I was employed with an international Christian nonprofit when a colleague and friend raved about Brandi and invited me to see her perform in a small town called Enumclaw. Then, it was Brandi’s charisma that first captivated me. She was performing outside a local mercantile in her hometown and fans had packed the store and street out front. While I was in awe of her enthusiasm and unique sound, what impressed me most was her contagious spirit as she exuded generosity and selflessness in her willingness to simply perform for friends and family for the store’s grand opening. 

Fast forward to 2014, when I convinced my husband to go on a Caribbean cruise where Brandi was a week-long headliner. I’d thought the singer/songwriter cruise, Cayamo, had sounded like a more relaxing vacation option than traditional cruises, plus I’d wanted my husband to have an opportunity to fall in love with Brandi’s music too. And he did. She even expanded our musical interests, introducing us to songwriter favorites such as Buddy Miller, Steve Earle, and Emmylou Harris. It was clear from their many cruise collaborations that it wasn’t just Brandi’s audience who were her fans. Her peers and mentors were too. Consistently, performers raved of Brandi’s generosity and collaborative spirit.

Brandi was also the first time I’d been exposed to a lesbian lifestyle up close. Initially, it was a fact about her that I overlooked. Though Brandi would share stories about her wife and later her children, my familiarity with the LGBTQ community had been limited to how my own Christian community addressed the topic. At the time, my faith-based workplace had flip-flopped on its stance, abruptly reversing its decision to allow same sex employees after overwhelming criticism from donors. But being a fan of Brandi’s provided a face for those whom such decisions would affect, and I found myself growing increasingly empathetic and open-minded.

By the time Brandi’s most recent album, ‘By the Way, I Forgive You’, came out last year, I was admittedly a full blown fan, as she would say, part of the Bramily. I’d seen her perform more than a dozen times and followed her and her bandmates, Tim and Phil Hanseroth, regularly on social media. The album’s theme of forgiveness came during a season when I personally found forgiveness particularly challenging. My father had left our mother after 44 years of marriage to pursue a relationship with a woman he’d been in an affair with and who was nearly four decades younger. Still, Brandi’s personal journey offered a fresh angle on forgiveness. On Instagram, she’d shared the story of having been wronged as a teenager when the pastor who’d agreed to baptize her before friends and family at church, changed his mind because of her sexuality only moments before. Brandi’s heart break poured through her story, but her lyrics also encouraged forgiveness starting with acceptance of ourselves.

Most recently, Brandi’s collaboration with the new country supergroup, The Highwomen, combined with her women headlining festivals in Mexico, only further highlight her commitment to friendship and loyalty while elevating women and providing children, like her two daughters, with inspiring female role models. Plus, Brandi’s integral role in Tanya Tucker’s comeback (or relaunch) this year revealed two stars' mutual compassion, strength and respect as we witnessed a country music legend of our past lifted up by a woman who never knew the same world stage would someday become her own future. And as evidenced at Brandi’s recent Madison Square Garden debut, featuring the Highwomen and more, Brandi isn’t just leveling us up as people, but she's raising the bar in our entertainment world too!

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This Monday, when Brandi performs Joni Mitchell’s Blue album in its entirety with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, I’ll surely be looking at both sides of clouds as I fly in from the East coast. But when Brandi is on stage, I have no doubt her performance will also offer us another angle of our humanity and how to appreciate one another for our multi-faceted differences too.