A 1971 album of unguarded confessional songs written after travels in Europe, often called the finest of its kind (1971)
Blue.
Popular music · Folk & country
Joni Mitchell
born 1943 · Canadian
Folk and singer-songwriter — Laurel Canyon, later jazz
Joni Mitchell emerged from the 1960s folk circuit and became the most musically adventurous songwriter of her generation, moving from confessional acoustic albums through the pop-jazz of Court and Spark to collaborations with Jaco Pastorius and Charles Mingus. Childhood polio left her unable to form standard chords, and she invented dozens of open tunings instead — the source of her unmistakable harmonic language. After a brain aneurysm in 2015 she relearned to play, and returned to the stage at Newport in 2022.
How to spot them
- ▸Dozens of unorthodox open guitar tunings, and a piano style to match; a soprano that darkened to alto after years of smoking
- ▸The Laurel Canyon scene; painter as well as musician — she designed most of her own sleeves
- ▸A late turn to jazz, with Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter and Charles Mingus
- ▸Songs of hers that were hits for other people first
Songs & albums
A song about a festival she did not attend, written in a New York hotel room and made a hit by four others (1970)
"Woodstock", a hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and for Matthews Southern Comfort.
A 1970 single lamenting a paved paradise, a parking lot and a pink hotel (1970)
"Big Yellow Taxi".
A song about examining clouds from two directions, first a hit for Judy Collins (1969)
"Both Sides, Now" — Collins's 1968 recording won a Grammy.
A 1974 album, her best-selling, whose hit concerns a record executive at liberty in Paris (1974)
Court and Spark, including "Free Man in Paris".
A 1976 album about travel, flight and escape, with fretless bass by Jaco Pastorius (1976)
Hejira.
A 1979 album of collaborations with a dying jazz bassist and composer (1979)
Mingus, made with Charles Mingus in the last months of his life.
A 2022 surprise return to the stage at a Rhode Island folk festival, her first full set in decades (2022)
The Newport Folk Festival, with Brandi Carlile — the 'Joni Jam'.
Quick-fire facts
- •Born Roberta Joan Anderson on 7 November 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta
- •She contracted polio aged nine; the weakness left in her left hand led her to invent open tunings, of which she has used more than fifty
- •She wrote "Woodstock" without attending the festival, having stayed in New York for a television appearance
- •"Both Sides, Now" was a hit for Judy Collins in 1968 before Mitchell released her own version
- •She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, and did not attend
- •She suffered a brain aneurysm in 2015 and had to relearn to walk and to play the guitar
- •She received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2023
- •She was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Juno Awards, only the third person to receive it
- •She is a painter, and has provided the artwork for most of her own albums
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — Joni Mitchell — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee
- Rolling Stone — Joni Mitchell Will Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at 2026 Juno Awards