Roberta Jean Anderson was reared on a prairie in central Canada. At nine, she was stricken with polio; she began to develop her creative side, turning to painting, poetry, and music, all of which became lifelong passions. An early marriage didn’t last, but she kept his name, Mitchell, calling herself Joni. She moved from Toronto clubs to New York, where her songwriting talent got noticed by folk artists like Buffy Sainte-Marie and Judy Collins who had a hit with her “Both Sides Now”. David Crosby got her a recording contract and she was on her way.

            Mitchell, blessed with a lovely ethereal soprano and a knack for unusual guitar tunings, was originally pigeonholed as an acoustic folkie, but she was much too restless and talented to stand still artistically. Her song “Woodstock”, made famous by the CSN&Y cover, became a counterculture anthem; “Big Yellow Taxi”, one of her biggest hits, can be heard as lover’s lament or environmental protest. Two albums really stand out from her oeuvre. 1971’s Blue is a deeply personal, richly poetic, psychologically astute meditation on desire, infatuation, love, regret, loss- the whole gamut of human emotion- performed with the most basic accompaniment- guitar, piano, dulcimer. It’s a stunning work whose stature has only grown in the past half century, recognized by NPR and Rolling Stone as an all-time classic; highlights include the mournful title track; “River”, a Christmas heartbreak; the celebratory “Carey”; the sweet longing of “California”. Her other classic is the 1974 LP, Court and Spark”. More rocking, jazzier, this was Joni’s commercial peak; best known tracks include “Help Me” and “Free Man in Paris”, but the album is filled with gems.

            Joni began to move in a more jazz inflected direction after that; she never regained her commercial footing. In time, music was no longer her primary artistic pursuit as she was painting more and more. Then she got ill, deathly sick, and her voice was silenced. The last couple years, however, have seen a Joni renaissance. Honored by the likes of the Grammy academy, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress, and then coaxed by her friend Brandi Carlile into singing again, she recently gave a full headline performance in Washington state.

            Praised and admired by the likes of Jimmy Page, Neil Young, Prince, and James Taylor, her influence has been enormous on such diverse artists as Madonna, Taylor Swift, Bjork, and Lorde.

            – Steve Williams (8/7/23) Greatest Recording Artists Blog Post #34