Joni Mitchell

Canadian singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist

• Born: November 7, 1943
• Place of Birth: Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada

Critics and fans lauded Mitchell’s contributions to the folk-rock genre in the 1960s and 1970s, responding to her inventive, melodic songs and poetic lyrics. Self-taught but musically sophisticated, Mitchell developed into an increasingly experimental songwriter, expanding her horizons to include jazz and other musical forms.

The Life

The daughter of a teacher and a former Canadian airman who became a grocer after World War II, Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She first became interested in singing during her hospitalization for polio at the age of nine, and she briefly took piano lessons as a child. She taught herself the ukulele and guitar, and she was inspired by a teacher to develop her talent for poetry. Nevertheless, she saw herself as primarily a visual artist.

In 1964, Mitchell enrolled in the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary. However, she had already begun playing clubs and festivals around Canada, and a year later, she moved to Toronto to work as a folk music artist. That same year, she gave birth to a daughter by an ex-boyfriend. Soon after, she married folksinger Chuck Mitchell, and she began to perform with him as Joni Mitchell. Reluctantly giving up her child for adoption, Mitchell moved with her husband to Detroit, Michigan. After their divorce in 1966, Mitchell moved to New York City, becoming well-known in clubs for her poetic songs and her unique guitar style.

During this time, she became romantically involved with singer-songwriter David Crosby, who in 1967 brought her into the Southern California folk-rock music scene and who produced her first album. Later, she met Crosby’s friend, singer-songwriter Graham Nash, and in 1969 she moved in with him. The 1970s were the period of Mitchell’s greatest professional success; her songs were covered by established singers, and she enjoyed a string of hit records, awards, and critical praise. She also toured and traveled extensively. Always determined to follow her interests, Mitchell began to produce work that was less accessible and more experimental, retreating from the folk-rock world.

Mitchell began to divide her time between British Columbia and a new home in Bel Air, California. After living for a time in Bel Air with jazz-fusion drummer John Guerin, in 1982, she met and married bassist-sound engineer Larry Klein, who often collaborated on her increasingly avant-garde musical recordings. Klein and Mitchell divorced in 1994. In 1997, Mitchell was happily reunited with her daughter, Kilauren Gibb, at which time her identity as a mother and as a grandmother to her daughter’s two young children became an important part of her life. Having created much of the artwork for her albums, Mitchell began at that time to concentrate on her first love, painting.

Mitchell released a new studio album in 2007, Shine, but largely remained out of the public eye and dealt with a number of health issues. She was hospitalized for an extended period in March 2015, and it was confirmed later that year that Mitchell had suffered from an aneurysm. In January 2022, Mitchell made headlines when she joined fellow musician Neil Young's boycott of the audio streaming service Spotify, pulling her music from the platform to protest its support of controversial podcaster Joe Rogan and other sources of misinformation about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. She allowed her music to return to Spotify in 2024.

The Music

Mitchell’s songs are melodious, poetic, and personal, and her vocal range at one time could extend beyond three octaves. Her guitar style is innovative and intuitive, characterized by open or alternative tunings and complex harmonies.

Clouds (1969). Mitchell was originally a folksinger, but her second album, Clouds, secured her reputation as a major talent on the burgeoning folk-rock scene, gaining her wide recognition and a Grammy Award in 1969. This album, featuring her distinctive acoustic guitar and lilting vocals, contained her hit songs “Chelsea Morning” and “Both Sides Now,” the latter of which would be heavily covered by other artists and become a popular standard.

Ladies of the Canyon (1970). Ladies of the Canyon introduced two more of Mitchell’s most well-known works: the environmental protest song “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock,” about the legendary Woodstock music festival. “Woodstock” became an anthem for the 1960s era. Self-taught as a musician, Mitchell created songs that fit perfectly into the needs of her generation for voices and visions from outside the musical establishment. She became one of the major musical voices to speak to and to speak for the generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. In subsequent decades Mitchell continued to be a freethinking outsider, going her own way musically, even at the expense of commercial success.

Blue (1971). Mitchell’s fourth album, Blue, represented a break from her earlier work associated with the folk-rock movement. Composed while Mitchell was fleeing the pressures of stardom through travel in Europe, this poetic suite of songs featured darker emotional colors, with lyrical confessions of deep sorrow and regret. With vocals that were more nuanced and complex than in her earlier work, this cycle of songs has been praised for its haunting melodies and the extraordinary intimacy of its introspective, confessional lyrics. The songs on Blue had simple accompaniments on piano, guitar, and Appalachian dulcimer, but they also introduced a percussive guitar style and rock-oriented piano rhythms that suggested a move away from Mitchell’s folk origins. Two torchy songs from that album, “A Case of You” and “River,” have become much-recorded popular standards. This album is considered the best work of Mitchell’s early period, and it is considered among the great popular albums of all time. In 1999, Blue was given a Grammy Hall of Fame award for recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have proved their artistic merit or historical significance. It was also listed by Time in 2006 as among the All-Time 100 Albums of the last half-century, and in 2003 it was on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest albums of all time.

Court and Spark (1974). Her most commercially successful collection of songs, this album was a breakthrough in terms of expanding Mitchell’s musical horizons. With its quirky and adventurous melody, the ambivalent love song “Help Me,” one of her best-selling singles, pointed the way to Mitchell’s free, jazz-inflected, and experimental work. Court and Spark was, significantly, backed by the jazz-fusion band L.A. Express; Mitchell went on to include in her subsequent recordings other well-known jazz musicians, such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Tom Scott, Jaco Pastorius, and Charles Mingus, with whom she collaborated on an entire album. During this period, her melodies and instrumental settings became more complex and unusual, and while praised as revolutionary by her admirers, her work after the best-selling Court and Spark became increasingly less accessible to a popular audience.

Turbulent Indigo (1994). Mitchell’s recordings during the 1980s continued her explorations of jazz with the addition of electronic synthesizers. Her 1994 album Turbulent Indigo, however, returned to some extent to her simple and direct folk-rock roots. One of her most critically acclaimed recordings, this album also definitely marked a change in Mitchell’s voice, which, while losing much of its airy upper register, became deeper, huskier, and more expressive in its lower range. Her subject matter was also dark and serious, with commentary on the damage done to contemporary society by violence, greed, global warming, and consumerism, troubling themes interestingly counterpointed by attractive melody lines. Considered something of a comeback album, Turbulent Indigo won two Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Album in 1995.

Shine (2007). In albums such as Turbulent Indigo and her later album Shine, Mitchell continued to explore a contrapuntal dynamic between pleasing music and lyrics that often concentrated on disillusionment and disappointment, especially with regard to social and political issues. It made perfect sense, in this context, for Mitchell to record a new version of her early environmentalist song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” for her album Shine. Although her later work included more protest lyrics, there is also an element in Mitchell’s mature music of what she called romantic classicism, acting as a counterweight to her hard-edged social commentary. In addition, Mitchell’s writing has always contained both humor and hope, which are still in evidence in her later music.

Musical Legacy

Mitchell is widely considered one of the most important figures in popular music of the late twentieth century. She achieved international fame and popularity, especially for her more accessible early work, and is regarded as a key artist of the highly influential 1960s–70s period when rock and pop evolved in new directions with influences from folk, jazz, and other styles. To many, she is a foundational example of the singer-songwriter trend and also a pioneer of more experimental fusion styles.

Mitchell exerted a powerful influence on many other musicians. She is credited especially with blazing a trail for female artists such as Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, Courtney Love, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Annie Lennox, Björk, and Sheryl Crow. Her unique musicianship and her poetic song lyrics also made a deep impression on countless male musicians, including Elvis Costello, Prince, Morrissey, Seal, and Beck. Mitchell's determination to preserve her artistic integrity also made her a role model to many. Her songs have been covered by numerous artists of her own and succeeding generations; a number of her compositions, such as “Both Sides Now,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Woodstock,” “River,” “The Circle Game,” “A Case of You,” and “Chelsea Morning” have become contemporary standards. Tellingly, Mitchell has also been the subject of lyrics by many other songwriters, confirming her iconic status.

In 1997, Mitchell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She has received numerous honors, among them five Grammy Awards, and she was given a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. Her native country of Canada has also given her many awards. She has been featured on a Canadian postage stamp, and she was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, that country’s highest civilian honor. In 2003, Rolling Stone named Mitchell among the hundred greatest guitarists of all time, the highest-ranking woman on the list. In 2004, Rolling Stone included her in its list of the hundred Greatest Artists of All Time.

After taking a break from public appearances and performing for several years following a 2015 brain aneurysm, Mitchell appeared at the 2022 Grammy Awards to accept the award for best historical album, for Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967). She astounded fans in July 2022 by performing in the Joni Jam, her unannounced Newport Folk Festival set hosted by Brandi Carlisle. Mitchell next performed in March 2023 on Public Broadcasting Station’s special program, Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, which saw her perform live and also honored her life and achievements. That July, Mitchell released Joni Mitchell at Newport (Live), the live recording of the 2022 Joni Jam. The album went on to win the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.

Principal Recordings

ALBUMS: Song of the Seagull, 1968; Clouds, 1969; Ladies of the Canyon, 1970; Blue, 1971; For the Roses, 1972; Court and Spark, 1974; The Hissing of Summer Lawns, 1975; Hejira, 1976; Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, 1977; Mingus, 1979; Wild Things Run Fast, 1982; Dog Eat Dog, 1985; Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, 1988; Night Ride Home, 1991; Turbulent Indigo, 1994; Taming the Tiger, 1998; Both Sides Now, 2000; Travelogue, 2002; Shine, 2007; Joni Mitchell at Newport (Live), 2023

Bibliography

Bego, Mark. Joni Mitchell. Boulder, Colo.: Taylor, 2005.

Cills, Hazel. "Joni Mitchell Joins Neil Young in Protest Against Spotify." NPR, 29 Jan. 2022, www.npr.org/2022/01/29/1076670679/joni-mitchell-neil-young-protest-spotify-rogan-misinformation. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Hoskyns, Barney. Hotel California. Hoboken: Wiley, 2007.

Hussey, Allison. "Joni Mitchell Wins Best Folk Album at 2024 Grammys." Pitchfork, 4 Feb. 2024, pitchfork.com/news/joni-mitchell-wins-best-folk-album-at-2024-grammys/. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Luftig, Stacy, ed. The Joni Mitchell Companion: Four Decades of Commentary. New York: Music Sales, 2000.

Mitchell, Joni. Anthology. Van Nuys: Alfred, 1999.

Nelson, Sean. Court and Spark. New York: Continuum, 2007.

Richards, Chris. “Joni Mitchell's Gershwin Prize Performance was Utterly Profound.” The Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/music/2023/03/31/joni-mitchell-gershwin-prize-summertime/. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Rodgers, Jeffrey Pepper. Rock Troubadours: Conversations on the Art and Craft of Songwriting with Jerry Garcia, Ani DiFranco, Dave Matthews, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and More. San Rafael: String Letter, 2000.

Smith, Larry David. Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, and the Torch Song Tradition. Westport: Praeger, 2004.

Unterberger, Richie. Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock’s Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock. San Francisco: Backbeat, 2003.

Weller, Sheila. Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation. New York: Simon, 2008.

Whiteley, Sheila. “The Lonely Road: Blue and Female Subjectivity.” In Women and Popular Music: Sexuality, Identity and Subjectivity. New York: Routledge, 2000.