Mitchell, Joni

orig. Roberta Joan Anderson

born Nov. 7, 1943, Fort McLeod, Alta., Can.

Canadian singer and songwriter.

Mitchell studied art in Calgary, where she began to sing in clubs. She eventually settled in Laurel Canyon, Calif., U.S. Several early songs, including "Both Sides Now" and "Woodstock," became hits for other artists. While her early recordings, such as Clouds (1969) and Blue (1971), were folk-oriented and reflected the idealism of the time, later releases, including Court and Spark (1974), Hejira (1976), Mingus (1979, with Charles Mingus) and Turbulent Indigo (1994), were marked by strong pop and jazz influences. Her notably original lyrics and musical settings made her one of the preeminent female songwriters of the late 20th century.

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▪ Canadian singer-songwriter

Introduction

original name  Roberta Joan Anderson 

born November 7, 1943, Fort McLeod, Alberta, Canada

      Canadian experimental singer-songwriter (singer-songwriters) whose greatest popularity was in the 1970s. Once described as the “Yang to Bob Dylan (Dylan, Bob)'s Yin, equaling him in richness and profusion of imagery,” Mitchell, like her 1960s contemporary, turned pop music into an art form.

      Mitchell studied commercial art in her native Alberta before moving to Toronto in 1964 and performing at local folk clubs and coffeehouses. After a brief marriage to folksinger Chuck Mitchell, she relocated to New York City, where in 1967 she made her eponymous debut album (also known as Songs to a Seagull). Produced by David Crosby (Crosby, Stills and Nash), this concept album was acclaimed for the maturity of its lyrics.

      With each successive release, Mitchell gained a larger following, from Clouds (which in 1969 won a Grammy Award for best folk performance) to the mischievous euphoria of Ladies of the Canyon (1970) to Blue (1971), which was her first million-selling album. By the early 1970s Mitchell had branched out from her acoustic base to experiment with rock and jazz, with The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975) marking her transition to a more complex, layered sound. Whereas earlier albums were more confessional in their subject matter, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, on which she satirized the role of the 1970s housewife, showed Mitchell's movement toward social observation. Although she had a number of pop hits, especially in 1970 with "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock" (this song about the famous festival spawned three hit cover versions by other artists), Mitchell's impact was as a long-term “album artist.” With its carefully precise yet improvisational feel, her music is at times difficult to listen to. She does not opt for straight melody or satisfying conclusions. “My music is not designed to grab instantly. It's designed to wear for a lifetime, to hold up like a fine cloth,” she once said.

      With Hejira (1976) and Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977), she continued to disregard commercial considerations, while Mingus (1979) was considered by many as beyond the pale. An album that began as a collaboration with the jazz bassist Charles Mingus (Mingus, Charles) ended up as a treatment of his themes after his death. Mitchell moved ever further beyond her own experience, delving not only deeper into jazz but also into black history; the album was as much a voice for the dispossessed as it was a biography of Mingus. Though fans were confused, Mingus remains a brave homage that does not fit neatly into either the rock or jazz genre.

      Having proved that she could make commercially successful albums and win critical acclaim, Mitchell became a prestige artist. Moreover, because her songs had become hits for others, she was a source of considerable publishing revenue for her record companies. As a result, they went along with her musical experiments. After Mingus, however, Mitchell stood back a little from the pop world. From the beginning of her career she had illustrated her own album covers, so it was not surprising that in the 1980s she began to develop her visual art, undecided about whether to concentrate more on painting or music.

      Although not as prolific as in the 1960s and '70s, Mitchell continued to create penetrating, imaginative music, from the Thomas Dolby-produced Dog Eat Dog (1985) to the more reflective Night Ride Home (1991) and the Grammy Award-winning Turbulent Indigo (1994). Having dealt with international political and social issues such as Ethiopian famine (Ethiopia) on Dog Eat Dog, she returned, by the early 1990s, to more personal subject matter—singing about true love, for instance, on Turbulent Indigo. One of the first women in modern rock to achieve enviable longevity and critical recognition, Mitchell has been a major inspiration to everyone from Dylan and Prince to a later generation of female artists such as Suzanne Vega and Alanis Morissette. Although she regularly collaborated with producers and arrangers—such as Jaco Pastorius, Mike Gibbs, and Larry Klein—Mitchell maintained coproducer credit and always had control over her material. Her songs have been covered by a range of stars, including Dylan, Fairport Convention, Judy Collins (Collins, Judy), Johnny Cash (Cash, Johnny), and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Though unworried about pop chart trends, in 1997 she enjoyed major success with a new, young audience when Janet Jackson (Jackson, Janet) sampled from Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" for the massive hit "Got 'Til It's Gone." In 1997 she published a new collection of her work, entitled Joni Mitchell: The Complete Poems and Lyrics. That year she was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Lucy M. O'Brien

Representative Works

● Ladies of the Canyon (1970)

● Blue (1971)

● The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975)

● Hejira (1976)

● Mingus (1979)

● Dog Eat Dog (1985)

● Turbulent Indigo (1994)

Additional Reading

Brian Hinton, Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now (1996), is a biography.

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