Joni Mitchell

About Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell is one of the most highly regarded and influential
songwriters of the 20th century. Her melodious tunes support her poetic
and often very personal lyrics to make her one of the most authentic
artists of her time. As a performer she is widely hailed for her unique
style of playing guitar. Mitchell's unflinching struggle for her own
artistic independence has made her a role model for many other
musicians, and somewhat of a bane to music industry executives. She is
critical of the industry and of the shallowness that she sees in much
of today's popular music. Mitchell is also a noted painter and has
created the beautiful artwork that appears on the packaging of her
music albums.Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, to Myrtle Marguerite (McKee), a teacher, and William Andrew Anderson, a RCAF flight lieutenant and grocer. Her father was of Norwegian descent, and her mother had Irish and Scottish ancestry. Mitchell first became famous for penning "Both Sides Now", a song
that helped launch the career of pop/folk singer Judy Collins. When
Mitchell began as a songwriter many of her lyrics displayed a wisdom
that was precocious for someone who was in her early twenties. Mitchell
was first noticed as a performer in New York City's music scene. Her
first album appeared in 1968, which featured her voice and her acoustic
guitar with virtually no other accompaniment on most songs.She became romantically involved with David Crosby and later Graham Nash, both of the majorly successful West Coast rock group Crosy,
Stills and Nash. Mitchell literally wrote the theme song for the
historic mega-concert Woodstock. Arguably her most popular song from
this era may be "Big Yellow Taxi" with its well-known lyrics: "Don't it
always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone,
they paved paradise and put up a parking lot".Mitchell's music was originally considered to be folk, but after her
initial success she began to grow in a jazz direction. Her
collaboration with saxophonist and band leader Tom Scott produced the
album "Court and Spark", one of the most popular and influential albums
of all time. As her music style veered increasingly towards jazz,
Mitchell sadly observed that her pop/folk fans did not follow her to
the new musical place she was going to. The sales of her later albums
declined. Nonetheless her work was still followed by many within the
music industry.Mitchell worked closely with jazz great Charles Mingus on his last
project. She did several albums with jazz bass player Jaco Pastorius,
and several more with her second husband, musician and sound engineer
Larry Klein. The most popular songs in her career include Big Yellow
Taxi, Both Sides Now, Help Me, River, and A Case of You. Her most
popular albums include Court and Spark, Hejira, Turbulent Indigo, and
Blue.Joni Mitchell's influence on other musicians has been so broad that it
is difficult to summarize. She has been a notable influence on Prince,
Elvis Costello, George Michael, Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Morissey, Marillion, Seal,
Beck, Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall and a great many of other women
songwriters that are too numerous to mention. Led Zeppelin's "Going to
California" is an homa...

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