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Joni Mitchell, Order of Canada|CC (born Roberta
Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, in Fort
Macleod, Alberta|Fort Macleod, Alberta), is a
legendary Canada|Canadian musician and painter. 
Initially working in Toronto and western Canada,
she was associated with the burgeoning folk music
scene of the mid-1960s in New York City. Through
the 1970s she expanded her horizons, predominantly
to Rock and roll|rock music and jazz, to become
one of the most highly respected
singer-songwriters of the late 20th century.
Mitchell is also an accomplished artist; she has,
through photography or painting, created the
artwork for each of her albums, and she often
describes herself as a "painter derailed by
circumstance". 

==Early life==
A painter who had also dabbled in piano, guitar
and ukulele since childhood, Mitchell took her
surname from a brief marriage to folksinger Chuck
Mitchell in 1965.  She performed frequently in
coffee houses and folk clubs and became well known
for her unique style of song writing and her
innovative guitar style. Personal and often
self-consciously "poetic", her songs were
strengthened by Mitchell's extraordinary
wide-ranging voice (with a range in pitch at one
time covering over four octaves) and unique guitar
playing, tuning the instrument in unorthodox
manners to produce a distinctive rhythmic, driving
sound.  She has been a cigarette smoker since the
age of nine, which may explain the unique texture
to her voice, which was especially prominent in
her later albums.

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.  The
songs on her first two solo albums Joni Mitchell
(Song to a Seagull) (1968) and Clouds
(album)|Clouds (1969) were archetypes of the
nascent singer-songwriter movement of the time.  
Clouds represented a commercial breakthrough,
containing  her first two songs widely adopted by
other artists, "Chelsea Morning" and "Both Sides
Now". 

By her third album, Ladies of the Canyon (1970),
maturity brought a record infused with the spirit
of California life (the canyon of the title is
Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California|Laurel
Canyon, Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles) as
well as containing her first major hit single, the
environmental "Big Yellow Taxi" (about paving
paradise to put up a parking lot), and her song
"Woodstock (song)|Woodstock", about the Woodstock
Festival|music festival, which was later a hit for
both Crosby, Stills and Nash and Matthews Southern
Comfort. (Ironically, Mitchell did not even go to
Woodstock Festival|Woodstock, having 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.)  "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.

==1970's success==
The more mature, confessional approach was
continued on Blue (album)|Blue (1971), widely
considered the best of this period. Exploring the
various facets of relationships, from infatuation
on "A Case of You" to insecurity on "This Flight
Tonight", the songs featured increasing use of
piano and Appalachian dulcimer on "Carey
(song)|Carey" and "All I Want".  Others were piano
led, some exhibiting the rhythms associated with
Rock and roll|rock music.

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".  But 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 producer 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", she would spend the rest of the decade
following that muse and creating more free-form,
jazz-inflected music. 

==Jazz period==
The first such album, The Hissing of Summer Lawns
(1975), was also a lyrical departure, with the
confessional style replaced by a series of 
vignettes, from nightclub dancers ("Edith and the
Kingpin") to the bored wives of the wealthy ("The
Hissing of Summer Lawns" and "Harry's House"). 
The album was stylistically diverse, with complex
vocal harmonies set with African drumming (the
Drum|Warrior Drums of Burundi making up the
foundation of "The Jungle Line"). Although many
fans and other artists often cite "Hissing" as
their favorite Mitchell work, it was not well
received at the time of its release. A common
legend holds it that Rolling Stone magazine
accorded it the "Worst Album of The Year"; in
actuality it was called only the worst album title
http://www.jonimitchell.com/Melancholy97.html.
(Mitchell and Rolling Stone have had a contentious
relationship, initiated years earlier when RS
featured a "tree" illustrating all of Mitchell's
alleged romatic partners, primarily other
musicians.)  

During 1975 Mitchell also participated in several
concerts in the Rolling Thunder Revue tours
headlined by Bob Dylan, and in 1976, she performed
as part of "The Last Waltz" by The Band. 

Hejira_(album)|Hejira (1976) continued Mitchell's
trend toward jazz, with many of the tracks led by
(jazz musician) Jaco Pastorius's fretless bass
guitar.  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. 

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977) was a further
move away from pop toward the freedom and
abstraction of jazz, a wordy double album
dominated by the lengthy part-improvised "Paprika
Plains".  The album received mixed reviews: some
enjoyed its experimentation and originality; many
others found it un-engaging. 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, sometimesarhythmic 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.

==Geffen era==
The 1980s saw Mitchell's lowest recorded output
since the beginning of her career.  Only three
albums of new material appeared, and none of them
made an impression.  1982's Wild Things Run Fast
was an attempt to return to pop songwriting,
including cover versions of "Unchained Melody" and
"(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care". It was
influenced largely by Mitchell's marriage to
producer Larry Klein - Mitchell herself referred
to the songs in several interviews as "I love
Larry" songs. Although the songwriting was solid,
the set was released at a time where
multi-layered, darker music in the New Wave and
New Romantic genres prevailed.  

British synth-pop performer and producer Thomas
Dolby was brought on board for Dog Eat Dog (1985),
but the synthesizer and drum machine-led
arrangements, coupled with some of Mitchell's most
strident and angry lyrics, have dated far quicker
than Mitchell's earlier work. 

Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm (1988) saw Mitchell 
collaborating with a wealth of talent, 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" that harkened back to "classic"
Mitchell material. Although there are some jarring
transitions in genre ("Dancing Clown" and "Cool
Water"), the multi-layered synthesized sounds on
"My Secret Place", "Beat of Black Wings" and "Tea
Leaf Prophecy" were a better marraige of
Mitchell's voice to electronica. 

==Turbulent 1990's==
1991's Night Ride Home, an album Mitchell
described as "middle-aged love songs", was better
received and signaled another 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 solid
set of songs in years. It included a duet with pop
performer Seal. Mitchell released her last set of
'original' new work with Taming the Tiger (1998). 

=="I hate music": the 2000's==
Both Sides Now (album)|Both Sides Now (2000) was
an album composed mostly of covers of classic
standards, performed with an orchestra. It
received rave reviews by critics 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 has stated that this
would be her final album.  

Recently, Joni Mitchell has voiced her discontent
with the current state of the music industry,
describing it as a "cesspool", and stating that
she "hates music" and "would like to rememember
what she ever liked about it". She has 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. Several compilations of her work have
been re-released in 2004 and 2005.

==Influences==
Mitchell could be labeled a "musician's musician";
her work has had an enormous influence on a number
of artists; she has influenced not only "similar"
singer-songwriters, such as Sheryl Crow and Shawn
Colvin, but a number of artists in diverse genres,
such as k.d. lang, Prince, Elvis Costello, PM
Dawn, and, perhaps most famously, Janet Jackson,
who used a sample of "Big Yellow Taxi" as the
centerpiece of her 1998 single "Got 'Til It's
Gone". (Mitchell appears to have enjoyed Jackson's
sampling of "Taxi"; she made a rare appearance on
MTV/VH1 to appear in a brief clip and give the
creation a thumbs up.)   Although Mitchell usually
refrains from commenting on other artists,
particularly ones that she influences, she has
been impressed with two jazz-based artists that
have interpreted her work, 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".  

Mitchell 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". On May 1, 2002, she was appointed
a Companion of the Order of Canada. She received a
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, with a
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."

Mitchell received an honorary doctorate from
McGill University on October 27, 2004.

==Discography==
(with U.S. chart positions)
===Albums===
*Song to a Seagull (also known as Joni Mitchell)
(1968) #183
*Clouds (album)|Clouds (1969) #31
*Ladies of the Canyon (1970) #27
*Blue (album)|Blue (1971) #15
*For the Roses (1972) #11
*Court and Spark (1974) #2
*Miles of Aisles (live) (1974) #2
*The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975) #5
*Hejira (album)|Hejira (1976) #13
*Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977) #25
*Mingus (album)|Mingus (1979) #17
*Shadows and Light (live) (1980) #38
*Wild Things Run Fast (1982) #25
*Dog Eat Dog (album)|Dog Eat Dog (1985) #63
*Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm (1988) #45
*Night Ride Home (1991) #41
*Turbulent Indigo (1994) #47
*Taming the Tiger (1998) #75
*Both Sides Now (album)|Both Sides Now (2000) #66
*Travelogue (2002)

===Compilations===
*The World of Joni Mitchell (1972) (Australia/NZ
only)
*Hits (1996) #161
*Misses (1996)
*The Complete Geffen Recordings (4-CD box set of
material 1982-91) (2003)
*The Beginning of Survival (2004)
*Dreamland (2004) #177
*Starbucks Artist's Choice (2004)
*Songs of a Prairie Girl (2005)(Remastered)

===Singles===
*"Night in the City" (1968)
*"Chelsea Morning" (1969)
*"Big Yellow Taxi" (1970) #67
*"Carey" (1971) #93
*"You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio" (1972) #25
*"Free Man in Paris" (1974) #22
*"Help Me" (1974) #7
*"Big Yellow Taxi (live)" (1975) #24
*"In France They Kiss On Main Street" (1975) #66
*"Coyote (song)|Coyote" (1976)
*"Off Night Backstreet" (1977)
*"The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines" (1979)
*"Why Do Fools Fall In Love" (1980)
*"Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody" (1982)
*"(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care" (1982)
#47
*"Good Friends" (1985) #85
*"My Secret Place" (1988)
*"Snakes and Ladders" (1988) #32
*"Come in from the Cold" (1991)
*"How Do You Stop" (1994)
*"Big Yellow Taxi" (remix) (1996) #39 (dance
charts)

==External links==
Wikiquote
*
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/232
9001.stm Mitchell slates (criticizes) music
industry
* http://www.jonimitchell.com/ Joni Mitchell
official homepage
**Since August of 1995, Mitchell has maintained
her official site at http://www.jonimitchell.com. 
The site was created by an extremely dedicated fan
named Wally Breese.  It has a substantial wealth
of information and features that is not usually
found in sites not created specifically by the
artist, management, or record company. This site
is now considered the official homepage. Breese
ran the site until his death in 2000. It continues
to be moderated and updated by Mitchell's fans. 
* http://www.jmdl.com/ Joni Mitchell discussion
list homepage
*http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?
PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0002397 Joni Mitchell in the
Canadian Encyclopedia