Download Free Joni Mitchell * Songs

Joni Mitchell music biography continued...

1943 in Macleod, Alberta, Canada, Mitchell taught herself to play guitar from a Pete Seeger instruction book. She moved to Toronto to play on the local folk scene and then Detroit, where great reviews led to a series of successful engagements in New York. There, in 1967, she was signed by Reprise Records. In late 1968 Judy Collins had a smash hit with Mitchell's "Both Sides Now." Collins also recorded Mitchell's "Michael From the Mountains" on her Wildflowers album; the British folk-rock band Fairport Convention recorded Mitchell's "Eastern Rain"; and Tom Rush recorded "The Circle Game." Thanks to her notoriety as a songwriter, Mitchell's debut LP — coproduced by David Crosby — sold fairly well. Clouds (1969) sold better and Ladies of the Canyon (1970) went platinum and yielded a minor hit single: "Big Yellow Taxi." Mitchell's next platinum album was the critically acclaimed Blue (1971), which featured "Carey," "My Old Man," and "The Last Time I Saw Richard." In 1974, Mitchell released the highest charting album of her career, Court and Spark, which shot up to #2 and contained the hit singles "Help Me" and "Free Man in Paris." Having reached the pinnacle of the folk rock genre, Mitchell was now a household name in both Canada and the United States.



In the 1970s, Mitchell started to turn her attention toward jazz, blending it with pop, folk and rock on experimental albums like 1976's Hejira. She worked closely with jazz greats like Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, cultivating new fans alongside the Mitchell diehards. From the 1980s on, Mitchell reduced her recording and touring schedule but turned again, this time toward pop, making greater use of synthesizers and direct political protest in her lyrics, which often took aim at social and environmental themes alongside romantic and emotional ones. She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2002, she was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for her life's work. She continues to record and perform, inspiring younger generations and satisfying longtime fans.