Joni Mitchell is a Grammy-winning folk singer best known for her compositions “Both Sides, Now” and “Big Yellow Taxi.” After recording her first album in 1968, she achieved financial and critical success with three albums in the early 1970s: Ladies of the Canyon, Blue, and Court and Spark. Mitchell’s songs have been covered by Judy Collins and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and her emotionally raw lyrics have influenced a wide range of performers. Her contributions to music have won her entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Gershwin Prize.
Early Life
Joni Mitchell, the singer-songwriter, was born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, in Fort McLeod, Canada. Her renowned last name is the same as her first husband, Chuck Mitchell.
Joni had polio at the age of nine, and while recovering in the hospital, she began performing and singing for patients. After teaching herself to play the guitar, she enrolled in art college and swiftly rose to prominence as one of the premier folk performers of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Songs and Albums: “Both Sides, Now,” Blue, and More
Mitchell’s early compositions were highly original and personal in terms of lyrical imagery. This technique first drew attention from folk music audiences in Toronto when she was still in her teens. In 1968, she released her first album, Song To A Seagull, produced by David Crosby of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young after relocating to the US in the mid-1960s. Other very popular albums followed.
Mitchell earned her first Grammy Award in 1969, and her second album, Clouds, won Best Folk Performance. The recording includes “Both Sides, Now,” which is now one of her best-known songs. Her third album, Ladies of the Canyon (1970), was a mainstream triumph for the folk singer, becoming her first gold album with songs “The Circle Game” and “Big Yellow Taxi.”
Blue, released in June 1971, was an even more successful recording. After less than five months, the album was declared gold. Mitchell’s analytical and emotionally raw lyrics have been praised.Blue became a platinum record, selling over one million copies. It was the first of three albums inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
Mitchell began experimenting with pop, rock, and other genres as early as the 1970s. Critics liked her album “Court and Spark” (1974), which marked her transition into jazz and fusion music. It became her most financially successful effort to date and was nominated for four Grammy Awards, with Mitchell winning Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists for “Down to You.” Another well-liked song was “Help Me.”
Later albums include “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” (1975), “Hejira” (1976), and “Turbulent Indigo,” which won two Grammys in 1994. Her 1977 record, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, grabbed news for a different reason. On the cover, the singer appeared as a Black guy in an Art Nouveau costume, which she also wore to a Halloween party before the album’s release. Mitchell’s use of blackface has been highlighted in articles since 2015, including in the 2017 biography “Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell.”
Mitchell was not the only one whose songs became successes. Other performers who have successfully covered her songs include Judy Collins, the Counting Crows, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. In addition to her large body of work, she has had a significant impact on many musicians with her distinct guitar playing and emotional lyrics. Mitchell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1997, recognizing her impact.
Mitchell’s 1998 album, Taming the Tiger, remained her most recent compilation of original music for many years, despite other albums like as the Grammy-winning Both Sides Now in 2000. Mitchell announced her retirement in a 2002 Rolling Stone interview, citing disgust with the music industry as a “cesspool.” However, she did not stick to her word, as she became busier than ever with the publishing of several anthologies featuring her older works.
In 2007, she released Shine, her first album with new songs in nearly a decade. Mitchell told a Canadian newspaper while recording the album, “When the world becomes a massive mess with nobody at the helm, it’s time for artists to make their mark.” Her twentieth studio album, which was both political and environmentally oriented, was a Billboard triumph. It remains her most recent collection of entirely original music.
Mitchell has released several collections and live albums, including the 2014 box set “Love Has Many Faces” and “Blue at 50: Demos and Outtakes” (2021). The singer’s first full-length concert since 2000 will take place at the Newport Folk Festival in July 2022. The surprising visit, dubbed the “Joni Jam,” came after a significant health crisis in 2015. Mitchell’s live CD, At Newport, was released a year after the concert. In 2023, the singer received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, which has previously been awarded to Paul Simon, Carole King, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, and Gloria Estefan.
She made another big breakthrough at the Grammys in February 2024. Mitchell won her 10th Grammy for Best Folk Album and sang “Both Sides, Now” for the first time during the ceremony. Mitchell said during her award speech, “We had so much fun at that concert, and I think you can feel it on the record.”
Health Issues
Mitchell has contended with additional health difficulties in addition to saying her voice has weakened as a result of polio sequelae and a pinched larynx. According to the Mayo Clinic, Morgellons disease is a rare skin ailment that causes sores, crawling sensations, and fiber-like filaments to emerge from the sores. In a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she first revealed her personal experience with the strange sickness.
Mitchell faced yet another health catastrophe in 2015. In late March, it was revealed that the 71-year-old singer had been admitted to a Los Angeles hospital after being discovered unresponsive at her home. In May, a California judge named Mitchell’s friend Leslie Morris as her conservator while she remained in the hospital.
In a June interview with the Huffington Post, singer David Crosby revealed Mitchell suffered from an aneurysm and was unable to speak. Morris issued a statement on Mitchell’s website to clarify her situation. She acknowledged the aneurysm and stated that the singer was anticipated to make a “full recovery.” Morris also responded to Crosby’s comment, stating, “Joni is speaking, and she’s speaking well. She is not yet walking, but she will be in the near future as she receives daily therapy. She is resting comfortably at home and improving day by day.”
Mitchell had to relearn how to walk and play the guitar due to a life-threatening emergency. “I’m looking at videos from the internet to see where I put my fingers,” Mitchell said of her rehabilitation in July 2022. “It’s amazing what an aneurysm knocks out: how to get out of a chair, you don’t know how to get out of bed.”
Daughter and Ex-Husbands
Mitchell became pregnant while attending college as an art student and gave birth to a daughter named Kelly Dale Anderson in 1965. Mitchell’s natural father refused to marry her, so she felt forced to give up her daughter for adoption. The adoptive parents renamed the baby Kilaruen Gibb. Mitchell reunited with her daughter in 1997, after maintaining her secret and being separated from her for nearly 30 years.
Mitchell met American folk singer Chuck Mitchell a few weeks after giving birth to Kilaruen, and they married within 36 hours of meeting. In June 1965, the pair departed for Michigan, where they had a legal wedding ceremony and she acquired his last name. They got divorced two years later.
Mitchell married musician Larry Klein in 1982, who collaborated on her record Wild Things Run Fast. Klein quickly established himself as a music producer, working on several of Mitchell’s albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The pair split in 1994 after working on Turbulent Indigo together.