Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell was born in 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta, and grew up in Saskatoon, which she calls her hometown. At nine she caught polio, and it left her left hand weak. When she taught herself guitar from a Pete Seeger songbook, she worked out alternative tunings to get around it. Those open tunings became the base of her songwriting.

She sang in folk clubs across Canada, then moved to the United States in 1965. Other singers recorded her songs before she did, Both Sides, Now among them. Settled in California, she wrote Big Yellow Taxi and Woodstock (1970), then released Blue (1971), a very personal record that Rolling Stone ranked third in its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums. She moved towards jazz after that, and Charles Mingus asked her to work on his final recordings.

She designed most of her own album covers and calls herself “a painter derailed by circumstance”. A brain aneurysm in 2015 kept her away from music for years; she relearned the guitar at informal sessions with friends at her home. In 2022 she made an unannounced return to the stage at the Newport Folk Festival, and in 2024 she sang Both Sides, Now at the Grammys.

Start with Blue, in one sitting. Then Big Yellow Taxi, and save Court and Spark (1974), her best-selling album, for later.