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Joni Mitchell, CC (born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943) is a noted Canadian musician, songwriter, and painter. Mitchell's musical career began in small nightclubs and busking on the streets of Toronto and in her native Western Canada. She subsequently became associated with the burgeoning folk music scene of the mid-1960s in New York City. Mitchell achieved fame in the late 1960s and was considered a key part of the Southern California folk rock scene. Throughout the 1970s, she explored and combined the pop and jazz genres. Mitchell has amassed a body of work that is highly respected, both by critics (in 2002, Rolling Stone magazine called her "one of the greatest songwriters ever")[1] and by fellow musicians. Retrospective appraisals of Mitchell's work have often labelled her the "female Bob Dylan."[2][3]
Early lifeJoni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, to Bill Anderson and Myrtle Anderson (nee McKee). Her mother was a teacher, and her father a Royal Canadian Air Force flyer. During the war years, she moved with her parents to a number of air force bases in western Canada. Following discharge from the RCAF, her father began working as a grocer, and his work took the family to Saskatchewan to the towns of Maidstone and North Battleford. When she was nine, the family settled in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which Mitchell considers her hometown. She began taking piano lessons at age seven, and immediately felt the creative instinct to write her own music. Meanwhile, she excelled at art in school. In grade 7 her English teacher, Mr Kratzman told her, "If you can paint with a brush, you can paint with words." At the age of nine, Joni contracted polio during a Canadian epidemic, but recovered after a stay in the hospital, during which she first became interested in singing. Mitchell was hospitalized in winter, and remembered, "They said I might no[t] walk again, and that I would not be able to go home for Christmas. I wouldn't go for it. So I started to sing Christmas carols and I used to sing them real loud....The boy in the bed next to me, you know, used to complain. And I discovered I was a ham."[4] Mitchell also took up cigarette smoking at the same age, which may explain the unique texture to her voice.
As Mitchell prepared to leave her home in Saskatoon to relocate to Toronto, she became pregnant. Seeing no other alternatives, she gave her daughter, Kelly Dale Anderson (born February 19, 1965), up for adoption. The experience remained a private part of her life during the ascendance of her career, but she made allusions to it in several songs, most notably the song "Little Green," (from "Blue") and, years later, the song "Chinese Cafe" from "Wild Things Run Fast" ("Your kids are coming up straight/My child's a stranger/I bore her/But I could not raise her"). Her daughter, renamed Kilauren Gibb, began a search for her as an adult, and the two were reunited in 1997.[5] Career1960s folk singerMitchell took her surname from a brief marriage to folksinger Chuck Mitchell in 1965. She performed frequently in coffeehouses and folk clubs and, by this time creating her own material, became well known for her unique songwriting and her innovative guitar style. Personal and often self-consciously poetic, her songs were strengthened by her extraordinarily wide-ranging voice (with a range in pitch at one time covering over four octaves) and her striking guitar technique, which makes extensive use of alternative tunings. While she was playing one night in "The Gaslight South" [1], a club in Florida, David Crosby walked in and was immediately struck by her ability and her appeal as an artist. He took her back to Los Angeles, where he set about introducing her and her music to his friends. Much of her initial acclaim was as a result of other artists covering her songs. Her first songwriting credit to hit the charts, "Urge for Going," was a success for country singer George Hamilton IV and for folk singer Tom Rush; it also appeared many years later as a B-side by the Scottish band Travis. Irish singer Luka Bloom also recorded the song to great effect, as has classical violinist Nigel Kennedy with a gentle, lilting instrumental version. Image:Joni Clouds.jpg Clouds (1969) Mitchell's own 1967 recording of the song was released on the flip side of the 1972 single "You Turn Me On I'm A Radio", but was not released on an album until the Hits compilation in 1996. In any version, "Urge for Going" was an audacious piece of songwriting, painting an extremely evocative picture of the oncoming of dread winter. Not surprisingly for someone from the Canadian prairies, Mitchell had a finely developed sense for the passings of seasons and comings of age, themes that would appear on her "The Circle Game", which Tom Rush recorded in 1968. Mitchell's songwriting reached its highest visibility when Judy Collins had a top-ten hit in early 1968 with "Both Sides Now". British folk rock group Fairport Convention included "Chelsea Morning" and "I Don't Know Where I Stand" on their debut album, recorded in late 1967, and the otherwise unreleased "Eastern Rain" on their second album the following year. The songs on Mitchell's first two solo albums, Joni Mitchell (Song to a Seagull) (1968) and Clouds (1969), were archetypes of the nascent singer-songwriter movement of the time. Early and mid-1970s chart successMitchell moved to California in late 1967. By the time of her third album, Ladies of the Canyon (1970), maturity brought a record infused with the spirit of California life (the canyon of the title refers to perhaps both Topanga Canyon and Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles) as well as containing her first major hit single, the environmental "Big Yellow Taxi", and "Woodstock", about the music festival, which was later a hit for both Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Matthews Southern Comfort. Mitchell wrote the song after missing and then hearing about Woodstock. She had cancelled her appearance at the festival on the advice of her manager for fear that she would miss a scheduled appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, and has since said the decision to miss the concert was one of the biggest regrets of her life. "For Free" is the first of Mitchell's many songs that underscore the dichotomy between the benefits of her stardom and its costs, both in terms of its pressure and of the loss of privacy and freedom it entails. Image:Bluealbumcover.jpg Blue (1971) Mitchell's confessional approach deepened on Blue (1971), widely considered the best of this period, as well as a template for confessional songwriting. Mitchell later said of the album, "At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong."[4] Exploring the various facets of relationships, from infatuation on "A Case of You" to insecurity on "This Flight Tonight", the songs featured an increasing use of Appalachian dulcimer on "Carey" , "California", "All I Want", and "A Case of You" and piano (due in part to her admiration for Laura Nyro's work). Some of the piano-led songs featured the rhythms associated with rock music. However, her Canadian past was not left behind: "River" found her in warm climes at Christmastime, only to say, "I wish I had a river / I could skate away on." In the 2000s "River" would be rediscovered by the plethora of all-Christmas-music holiday programming radio stations. Remakes of this song have been recorded by numerous artists including Aimee Mann, Indigo Girls, Robert Downey Jr., Allison Crowe, Sarah McLachlan, Dianne Reeves, Rachael Yamagata, James Taylor, and a duet by Madeleine Peyroux and k.d. lang. The more straightforward rock influence was still strong on her next two albums, recorded for new label Asylum. For the Roses (1972), whose title track continued her exploration of the themes of "For Free", sold well, supported by the country-influenced hit single "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio". However, it was Court and Spark (1974), a hybrid of pop, rock, and folk with a jazzy sheen, that proved to be a huge success, producing such classic songs as "Free Man in Paris" (inspired by stories told by her manager, label founder and then-friend David Geffen), "Car On A Hill" and, most notably, "Help Me", which, to this day, remains her best selling single (it reached the top ten). Court and Spark was also notable for the first echoes of the influence of jazz on Mitchell's work, and despite the commercial success of that album and the subsequent live record Miles of Aisles, backed by the 70s pop-jazz outfit L.A. Express, she would spend the rest of the decade following that muse and creating more free-form, jazz-inflected music. Mid to late 1970s jazz experimentationMitchell's 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns was the first album to stylistically depart from the folk/pop foundation Mitchell had developed. It was also a lyrical departure, with the confessional style replaced by a series of vignettes, from mobsters and nightclub dancers ("Edith and the Kingpin") to the bored wives of the wealthy ("The Hissing of Summer Lawns" and "Harry's House/Centerpiece"). Prince has mentioned this album as one his favorites. The album was stylistically diverse, with complex vocal harmonies set with African drumming (the Warrior Drums of Burundi making up the foundation of "The Jungle Line"). Although many fans and other artists often cite Hissing as their favourite Mitchell work, it was not well received at the time of its release. A common legend holds that Rolling Stone magazine accorded it the "Worst Album of The Year"; in actuality it was called only the year's worst album title.[6] (Mitchell and Rolling Stone have had a contentious relationship, initiated years earlier when RS featured a "tree" illustrating all of Mitchell's alleged romantic partners, primarily other musicians, which the singer said "hurt my feelings terribly at the time.")[1] Image:Hejira.jpg Hejira (1976) During 1975 Mitchell also participated in several concerts in the Rolling Thunder Revue tours featuring Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and in 1976, she performed as part of "The Last Waltz" by The Band. Hejira (1976) continued Mitchell's trend toward jazz. The instrumentation is very intimate, consisting only of Mitchell's acoustic guitar, the electric guitar of Larry Carlton, and Jaco Pastorius's fretless bass guitar (on one track, Mitchell and Carlton reverse roles.) The songs themselves, however, featured densely metaphorical lyrics and swooping vocal melodies providing contrast and counterpoint to the jazz rhythms of the arrangements. This album also highlighted as never before the unusual "open" guitar tunings that Mitchell used. While Hejira "did not sell as briskly as [Mitchell's earlier] more accessible albums," its stature in her catalogue has grown over the years.[7] Joni herself believes the album to be unique; in 2006, she said, "I suppose a lot of people could have written a lot of my other songs, but I feel the songs on Hejira could only have come from me."[7] Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977) was a further move towards the freedom and abstraction of jazz, a double album dominated by the lengthy part-improvised "Paprika Plains". The album received mixed reviews - its experimentation and originality were not generally expected of such a celebrated music star. The cover of the album created its own controversy; Mitchell was featured in several photographs on the cover, including one where she was disguised as a black man. Mitchell's next work was to be a collaboration with legendary bassist Charles Mingus, who died before the project was completed in 1979. Mitchell finished the tracks with a band featuring Pastorius, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock and the resulting free-form, sometimes arhythmic music was daring and eclectic. Mingus was poorly received; rock audiences were not receptive, and jazz purists were unimpressed. However, appreciation for this work has grown considerably over the years. Mitchell released Shadows and Light, a second live album that documented her recent tours, in 1980. The album contained some earlier hits, but focused on the late 1970s catalogue of songs. 1980s: the "Geffen era"Image:Joni Wild.jpg Wild Things Run Fast (1982) The 1980s saw a reduced output of recordings compared to the previous decades. Only three albums of new material appeared on her new label (Geffen Records). 1982's Wild Things Run Fast marked a return to pop songwriting, including "Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody" which incorporated the chorus and parts of the melody the famous Righteous Brothers hit, and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" - which charted higher than any Mitchell single since her 70s sales peak. Though it was influenced largely by Mitchell's marriage to producer Larry Klein, Mitchell complained that critics reduced the new music to a batch of "I love Larry" songs.[citation needed] For Dog Eat Dog (1985), British synth-pop performer and producer Thomas Dolby was brought on board. Largely an indictment of consumerism and the political landscape of the time, Mitchell employed a host of modern sounds, courtesy of the Fairlight CMI synthesizer. Of Dolby's role, Mitchell later commented, "I was reluctant when Thomas was suggested because he had been asked to produce the record (by Geffen), and would he consider coming in as just a programmer and a player? So on that level we did have some problems...He may be able to do it faster. He may be able to do it better, but the fact is that it then wouldn't really be my music."[citation needed] Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm (1988) saw Mitchell collaborating with multiple artists, including Willie Nelson, Billy Idol, Wendy and Lisa, Tom Petty and Don Henley. The songs spanned several genres, including a duet with Peter Gabriel on "My Secret Place". To some critics of Dog Eat Dog the multi-layered synthesized sounds on "My Secret Place", "Beat of Black Wings" and "The Tea Leaf Prophecy" were a better marriage of Mitchell's voice to electronic arrangements. After the release of Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm, Mitchell participated in Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin. Turbulence and resurgence in the 1990sImage:Joni Turbulent.jpg Turbulent Indigo (1994) For her final Geffen album, 1991's Night Ride Home, Mitchell presented what she described as a batch of "middle-aged love songs." Critically, it was better received than her 80s work and seemed to signal a move closer to her acoustic beginnings. But to many, the real return to form came with the Grammy winning Turbulent Indigo (1994). "Indigo" was Mitchell's most simple, straightforward set of songs in years, mixing politics ("Sex Kills") with romance ("Sunny Sunday") and "a startling comeback"[8] that won two Grammy awards, including Best Pop Album. Mitchell released her most recent set of 'original' new work with Taming the Tiger (1998). She promoted "Tiger" with a return to regular concert appearances, most notably a co-headlining tour with Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. It was around this time that critics began to notice a change in Mitchell's voice; the singer later admitted to feeling the same way, explaining that "I'd go to hit a note and there was nothing there."[9] While her more limited range and huskier vocals have sometimes been attributed to her smoking (she has been described as "one of the world's last great smokers"), Mitchell believes the changes in her voice that became noticeable in the nineties were due to other problems, including vocal nodules, a compressed larynx, and the lingering effects of having had polio.[9] "I hate music": the early 2000sThe singer's next two albums featured no new songs and, Mitchell has said, were recorded to "fulfill contractual obligations."[8] Both Sides Now (2000) was an album composed mostly of covers of jazz standards, performed with an orchestra. It received mostly strong reviews and featured orchestral arrangements by Vince Mendoza, who would collaborate with her again on Travelogue) and remains a strong seller. The album contained reappraisals of "A Case of You" and the title track "Both Sides Now", two early hits transposed down to Mitchell's now-dusky, soulful alto range. Its success led to 2002's Travelogue, a collection of re-workings of her previous songs with lush orchestral accompaniments. Mitchell had stated that this would be her final album. Image:Joni-Mitchell Dreamland.png Dreamland (2004) In a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone, Mitchell voiced her discontent with the current state of the music industry, describing it as a "cesspool."[1] She expressed her dislike of the record industry's dominance and her desire to control her own destiny, possibly through releasing her own music over the Internet. Around that time, Mitchell also said that she "hates music" and "would like to remember what [she] ever liked about it."[citation needed] During the next few years, the only albums Mitchell released were compilations of her earlier work. In 2003, Mitchell's Geffen recordings were collected in a four-disc box set, The Complete Geffen Recordings. Included were remastered versions of all four albums, personal notes by Mitchell herself and three bonus tracks: a wordless vocal demo of what would become "Two Grey Rooms" (from Night Ride Home) the basic piano demo for "Good Friends" (from Dog Eat Dog), and an unreleased cover of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." A series of themed compilations of songs from earlier albums were also released: The Beginning of Survival (2004), Dreamland (2004), and Songs of a Prairie Girl (2005), the last of which collected the threads of her Canadian upbringing and which she released after accepting an invitation to be a featured performer at a Saskatchewan Centennial concert in Saskatoon before Queen Elizabeth II. In Prairie Girl liner notes, she writes that the collection is "my contribution to Saskatchewan's Centennial celebrations." Although Mitchell stated that she would no longer tour or give concerts, she has made occasional public appearances to speak (for example) on environmental issues.[2] Mitchell divided her time between her long-time home in Los Angeles and a cabin in Sechelt, British Columbia, focusing mainly on her visual art, which she does not sell and which she displays only on rare occasions.[3] Recent News and Dance WorkIn an October 2006 interview with The Ottawa Citizen, Mitchell "revealed she's recording her first collection of new songs in nearly a decade," but gave few other details.[7] Four months later, in an interview with The New York Times, Joni said that the forthcoming album, Shine, was inspired by the war in Iraq and "something her grandson had said while listening to family fighting: 'Bad dreams are good--in the great plan.'"[10] Early media reports characterized the album as having "a minimal feel....that harks back to [Mitchell's] early work," and a focus on political and environmental issues.[9] The album will be released in Fall 2007.[11] Along with working on her new album, in February 2007, Mitchell returned to Calgary and served as an advisor for the Alberta Ballet Company premiere of "The Fiddle and the Drum," a dance choreographed to both new and old songs of Joni's. Mitchell also filmed portions of the rehearsals for a documentary she's working on, and quipped, "I've never worked so hard in my life."[10] Musical legacyUnique guitar styleAlmost every song she composed on the guitar uses an open, or non-standard, tuning; she has written songs in some 50 different tunings, which she has referred to as "Joni's weird chords". The use of alternative tunings allows more varied and complex harmonies to be produced on the guitar, without the need for difficult chord shapes. Indeed, many of Joni's guitar songs use very simple chord shapes, but her use of alternative tunings and a highly rhythmic picking/strumming style creates a rich and unique guitar sound. Her right-hand picking/strumming technique has evolved over the years from an initially intricate picking style, typified by the guitar songs on her first album, to a looser and more rhythmic style, sometimes incorporating percussive "slaps", that have been featured on later albums. In 2003 Rolling Stone named her the 72nd greatest guitarist of all time; she was the highest-ranked woman on the list. [4] Influence on other artistsMitchell could be labelled a "musician's musician"; her work has had an enormous influence on artists as disparate as Annie Lennox, Elvis Costello, Maynard James Keenan, Clannad, Madonna, Prince, George Michael and KT Tunstall. For instance, Prince's song "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" off the album Sign 'O' the Times, pays tribute to Mitchell, both through his evocative Mitchell-like harmonies and through the use of one of Mitchell's own techniques: as in Mitchell's song "This Flight Tonight", Prince references a song in his lyrics (Joni's own "Help Me") as the music begins to emulate the chords and melody of that song. Mandy Moore also expressed a huge admiration for Mitchell upon the release of her 2003 album Coverage on which she covered Mitchell's classic "Help Me". A number of artists have had hits covering Mitchell's songs; most recently Sarah McLachlan, who included her version of "River" on her 2006 Christmas album, Wintersong (a year after Aimee Mann covered the same song on her own 2005 Christmas EP). McLachlan also did a version of "Blue" years before. Amy Grant scored a hit in 1995 with a cover of "Big Yellow Taxi", as did The Counting Crows in 2002. Further to this, Janet Jackson used a sample of "Big Yellow Taxi" as the centerpiece of her 1997 single "Got 'Til It's Gone". In 2004 singer George Michael covered her song "Edith And The Kingpin" for a radio show. Annie Lennox has covered "Ladies Of The Canyon" for the B-side of her 1995 hit "No More I Love You's". Other famous Mitchell covers include "Woodstock" by both Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Matthews Southern Comfort, "This Flight Tonight" by Nazareth, "A Case of You" by Tori Amos and "Both Sides Now" by Judy Collins, Clannad and Paul Young. Although Mitchell usually refrains from commenting on other artists, particularly ones that she influences, she has expressed satisfaction with the work with two jazz-based artists who have interpreted her songs, Cassandra Wilson and Diana Krall. Although most listeners tend to remember Mitchell's earlier, more commercially popular work, many musicians have found inspiration in her more experimental work, particularly The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira. Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" was said to be written about Robert Plant and Jimmy Page's infatuation with Mitchell, a claim that seems to be born out by the fact that, in live performances, Plant often says "Joni" after the line "To find a queen without a king, they say she plays guitar and cries and sings". Jimmy Page uses a double drop D guitar tuning similar to the alternative tunings Mitchell uses. Madonna has even cited Mitchell as the first female artist that really spoke to her as a teenager; "I was really, really into Joni Mitchell. I knew every word to Court and Spark; I worshiped her when I was in high school. Blue is amazing. I would have to say of all the women I've heard, she had the most profound effect on me from a lyrical point of view."[12] Awards and honoursMitchell was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 1995, she received Billboard's Century Award. In 1996 she was awarded the Polar Music Prize. She has received five regular Grammy Awards during her career, with the first coming in 1969 and the most recent in 2000. Also in 2000 she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, with the citation describing her as "one of the most important female recording artists of the rock era" and "a powerful influence on all artists who embrace diversity, imagination and integrity." Her home country has, along with inducting her into their Hall of Fame, bestowed other honours on Mitchell. On May 1, 2002, the singer was given Canada's highest civilian honour when she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. She received an honourary doctorate in music from McGill University in October 2004, and, on January 28, 2007, she was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her #60 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The album Blue was listed by Time magazine as among the "All-Time 100 Albums" in November 2006.[13] Mitchell has sometimes objected to the way her legacy is described by critics, singling out in particular the "female Bob Dylan" moniker. "Being female creates a new category in some people's minds. No one would say that Dylan is the 'male Joni Mitchell.'"[citation needed] DiscographyAlbumsImage:Joni Roses.jpg For The Roses (1972)
CompilationsImage:JoniMitchellRefugeDVD-1.jpg Refuge of the Roads (DVD) (1984)
Singles
Videos
MultimediaImage:JoniMitchellWomanHeart-1.jpg Woman of Heart and Mind (DVD) (2003)
References
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