Joni Mitchell

One of the most respected singer/songwriters in music, Joni Mitchell is also one of rock's most daring and uncompromising innovators. Her career has ranged from late-'60s and early-'70s popularity with confessional folk-pop songs to her current exalted cult status via a series of jazz-inflected experiments that presaged the multicultural and world-music experiments of Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, and Sting by more than a decade. Through the '80s and '90s, Mitchell's influence could be seen in a range of artists beyond the legion of female—and male—singer/songwriters who claim her. Prince, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Janet Jackson, John Mellencamp, Donna Summer, Cassandra Wilson, and a host of jazz musicians acknowledge her. Several of Mitchell's early compositions became famous in versions recorded by others — Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Woodstock," for example — but her own ululating vocals and open-tuned guitar continue to inspire imitators. In more recent years, younger female jazz-influenced singers have attempted to emulate her smoke-burnished voice and distinctive delivery. Her sound and her style, however, remain uniquely her own.

An only child, Roberta Anderson grew up in Saskatoon, Canada. At age nine she was stricken with polio. Defying doctors' predictions that she would never walk again, she recovered after spending nights in the children's ward singing at the top of her lungs. Throughout her childhood, she was involved in art and music, and she taught herself to play guitar from a Pete Seeger instruction book. When she enrolled at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, she took a ukulele with her and began playing folk music.

She soon moved to Toronto, where she began performing on the local folk scene and gave birth to a baby girl. The social stigma of being an unwed mother was so intense that Mitchell did not even tell her parents. Without money, a job, or even a home, she entered into what she later termed "a marriage of convenience" to folksinger Chuck Mitchell in 1965. They moved together to Detroit, where Mitchell felt she had no option but to place her daughter, named Kelly Dale Anderson, up for adoption. She and Chuck Mitchell soon divorced.

Mitchell became a critical sensation on Detroit's folk scene, and her notices led to a series of successful engagements in New York. There, in 1967, she was signed by Reprise Records. In late 1968 Judy Collins had a smash hit with Mitchell's "Both Sides Now." (In 1991 Carly Simon turned the song's lyrics into a children's book.) Collins also recorded Mitchell's "Michael From the Mountains" on her Wildflowers album; the British folk-rock band Fairport Convention recorded Mitchell's "Eastern Rain"; and Tom Rush recorded "The Circle Game." Thanks to this indirect success, Mitchell's debut LP — coproduced by David Crosby — sold fairly well. Clouds (Number 31, 1969) sold better; Ladies of the Canyon (Number 27, 1970) went platinum and yielded a minor hit single: "Big Yellow Taxi" (Number 67, 1970) (which Janet Jackson sampled nearly 30 years later in her hit "Got 'Til It's Gone").

Mitchell's next platinum album was the critically acclaimed Blue (Number 15, 1971), which featured "Carey," "My Old Man," and "The Last Time I Saw Richard." That album included contributions from musician friends like James Taylor (purportedly the subject of "Blue" and, from For the Roses, "See You Sometime"). For the Roses (Number 11, 1972) went gold and contained another minor hit single, the countryish "You Turn Me On (I'm a Radio)" (Number 25, 1972). The highest-charting album of Mitchell's long career remains 1974's Court and Spark (Number Two), which yielded the hit single "Help Me" (Number Seven, 1974). By this time, Mitchell's sound had grown from simple, unadorned acoustic guitar and voice into a sophisticated continental-pop blend replete with horns, keyboards, and complex backing vocal arrangements performed by Mitchell herself. Court and Spark pointed to Mitchell's future direction with its version of Annie Ross' jazz-jive "Twisted," Mitchell's first recorded cover.

For the live Miles of Aisles (Number Two, 1974) album, Mitchell was accompanied by the jazz-fusion band L.A. Express (which included Tom Scott, who had figured prominently on Court). The Hissing of Summer Lawns (Number Four, 1975) was complex and sophisticated; it fared poorly critically. Yet that album is today cited as influential by jazz artists and singers (particularly such tracks as "Edith and the Kingpin" and "Shades of Scarlet Conquering"). In any case, Hissing was a commercial hit, and years later critical opinion has been revised to acknowledge its bold experiments ("The Jungle Line" was probably the first pop record to use Burundi drums). It also contained her cooler but no less cutting observations on the music industry's conflict between business and art ("The Boho Dance"), a theme that would become increasingly prominent in both Mitchell's art and interviews. Hejira (Number 13, 1976), though smoother and more spare instrumentally, was another commercial success that baffled many critics. To a greater degree than any of her previous works, this album tackled issues of commitment and freedom from a uniquely feminine perspective. In 1976 Mitchell appeared at the Band's San Francisco farewell concert and in the filmed documentary of that event, The Last Waltz.

In light of her previous two albums, the double-album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (Number 25, 1977) was a logical if mysterious next step. Some critics felt that her lyrics had grown more convoluted and vague; indeed, Mitchell was using song structures far more ambitious and rich than the straight singer/songwriter confessional mode. Still, contrary to the then-prevailing view, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter was not all wild experimentation; in fact, half of its tracks (for example, "Talk to Me," "Off Night Backstreet," "Jericho") might have worked on any previous Mitchell album. But with jazz musicians Larry Carlton and Wayne Shorter, augmented by a group of Latin percussionists (including Airto), Mitchell scouted new musical territory in "The Tenth World" and the side-long "Paprika Plains." Perhaps indirectly, Don Juan led to Mitchell's most daring and most controversial project, her work with jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus. Then dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), Mingus invited Mitchell to collaborate with him. She set lyrics to some of the last melodies Mingus wrote, composed the rest of the material herself, and released Mingus not long after the bassist's death. It received mixed reviews but went to Number 17, an incredibly high chart position for a jazz album and a testament to Mitchell's fans' enduring interest in her work. The live album Shadows and Light (Number 38, 1980), which featured a band including Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report, jazz-rock guitarist Pat Metheny, and the a cappella vocal group the Persuasions, also met mixed reviews.

Years later, Mitchell repeatedly and adamantly expressed no regrets about the rocky course she set. "I would do it all over again in a minute for the musical education," she told Rolling Stone. In 1982 Mitchell released her first album for Geffen, Wild Things Run Fast (Number 25, 1982), a more pop-oriented album that featured a cover of Elvis Presley's "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" (Number 47, 1982). That year she married her bassist, Larry Klein. (They divorced in 1992.)

With Dog Eat Dog (Number 63, 1985), Mitchell's work showed a new emphasis on social commentary. Coproduced by Thomas Dolby, the album featured appearances by Michael McDonald ("Good Friends") and actor Rod Steiger (as a money-grubbing evangelist on "Tax Free"). Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm (Number 45, 1988) — with a guest roster that included Peter Gabriel ("My Secret Place"), Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, and Billy Idol ("Dancin' Clown") — was hailed by some critics as a return to form. Others, however, found it bland. Throughout the '80s Mitchell all but abandoned the concert stage. Her hastily arranged acoustic set at the 1986 Amnesty International benefit (she was a last-minute substitute for Pete Townshend) was cut short when the crowd, obviously unfamiliar with her work, booed her.

Mitchell experienced a resurgence of sorts with the '90s, due to a confluence of events: a trio of albums generally considered among her best, her finding and reestablishing a relationship with the daughter she had given up for adoption, and a flurry of industry accolades and honors. Fans and critics swooned over Night Ride Home (Number 41, 1991), an album of readily accessible albeit sophisticated jazz-tinged pop. Three years later, Turbulent Indigo (Number 47, 1994) was released to glowing critical response and a Best Pop Album Grammy. While promoting that album, Mitchell disclosed that she was suffering from post-polio syndrome, a neurological condition related to her childhood bout with the disease that made it difficult for her to perform. Because her repertoire includes more than 50 different tunings, Mitchell was considering quitting the stage until she obtained a Roland VG-8 computerized guitar that eliminates the need for retuning.

In 1995 Mitchell became the fourth artist to receive Billboard's Century Award (previous recipients were George Harrison, Billy Joel, and Buddy Guy). It would seem that the award was made for Mitchell, since it recognizes artists who have not been accorded the acknowledgement they deserve. Two years later, Mitchell was reunited with her daughter, Kilauren Gibb, and a grandson. Though Mitchell had been quietly seeking her daughter and had written, however obliquely, of the matter in several songs (Blue's "Little Green" and Wild Things' "Chinese Café"), Kilauren began to suspect the connection when she received some basic information about her biological parents that seemed to match information posted on a Joni Mitchell fan Web page. Mitchell skipped her 1997 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because she wanted to spend more time with her newly discovered family on her first Mother's Day.

Taming the Tiger (Number 75, 1998) was another critical triumph, followed in 2000 by a concept collection of standards concerning romance, Both Sides Now (Number 66, 2000). Using orchestral and big-band backing, Mitchell tackled such classics as "At Last," "Stormy Weather," "You're My Thrill," and "You've Changed," with two of her older songs, "Both Sides Now" and "A Case of You." Both Sides Now received the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album Grammy.

In the late '90s, Mitchell began appearing on television occasionally and performing in concert. In 1998 she undertook a limited tour with Bob Dylan, and in 2000 she toured to promote Both Sides Now. That spring, TNT presented "An All Star Tribute to Joni Mitchell," on which k.d. lang, Cassandra Wilson, Elton John, Richard Thompson, James Taylor, Wynonna, and others performed her music.

Mitchell has produced or coproduced each of her albums since her debut and has maintained control of her master recordings and her publishing from the beginning of her career. An accomplished painter and photographer, she created the art for each of her album covers, and her artwork has been exhibited throughout the world. Her first major career retrospective, Voices — The Work of Joni Mitchell, opened at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon in June 2000.