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Joni Mitchell, CC (born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943) is a noted Canadian musician, songwriter, and painter. Mitchell's musical career began in small nightclubs and busking on the streets of Toronto and in her native Western Canada. She subsequently became associated with the burgeoning folk music scene of the mid-1960s in New York City. Mitchell achieved her greatest fame in the early 1970s and was considered a key part of the Southern California folk rock scene. Throughout the 1970s, she explored and combined the pop and jazz genres. Mitchell has amassed a body of work that is highly respected, especially by fellow musicians. Retrospective appraisals of Mitchell's work have often labeled her the "female Bob Dylan", * *, but Mitchell has rejected that comparison. Mitchell is also an accomplished artist. She has, through photography or painting, created the artwork for each of her albums and has described herself as a "painter derailed by circumstance." A blunt critic of the music industry, Mitchell has stopped recording over the last several years and now focuses mainly on her visual art, although in October 2006 she announced that she is working on material for a new album.
Early life The child of a grocer and a teacher, Mitchell was born and raised in Fort Macleod, Alberta until the age of nine, when the family moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which Mitchell considers her hometown. She began taking piano lessons at age seven, and immediately felt the creative instinct to write her own music. Meanwhile, she excelled at art in school, and a teacher who saw her talent in art suggested she should try music as well. At the age of nine, she contracted polio but recovered after a stay in hospital. Her first performances were to other patients there. She also took up cigarette smoking at the same age, which may explain the unique texture to her voice, especially on her later albums. As a teenager she taught herself guitar and ukulele and began performing at parties. This grew into busking and playing in coffeehouses and other venues in Saskatoon. After finishing high school she attended the Alberta College of Art and Design for a year, but then left and returned to the coffeehouse scene. As Mitchell prepared to leave her home in Saskatoon to relocate to Toronto, she became pregnant. Seeing no other alternatives, she gave her daughter, Kelly Dale Anderson (born February 19, 1965), up for adoption. The experience remained a private part of her life during the ascendance of her career, but she made allusions to it in several songs, most notably the song "Little Green," (from "Blue") and, years later, the song "Chinese Cafe" from "Wild Things Run Fast" ("Your kids are coming up straight/My child's a stranger/I bore her/But I could not raise her"). Her daughter, renamed Kilauren Gibb, began a search for her as an adult, and the two were reunited in 1997. * 1960s folk singer Mitchell took her surname from a brief marriage to folksinger Chuck Mitchell in 1965. She performed frequently in coffeehouses and folk clubs and, now creating her own material, became well known for her unique style of songwriting and her innovative guitar style. Personal and often self-consciously poetic, her songs were strengthened by her extraordinarily wide-ranging voice (with a range in pitch at one time covering over four octaves) and her unique style of guitar playing, which makes extensive use of alternative tunings. While she was playing one night in "The Gaslight South" *, a club in Florida, David Crosby walked in and was immediately struck by her ability and her appeal as an artist. He took her back to Los Angeles, where he set about introducing her and her music to his friends. 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; it also appeared many years later as a b-side by the Scottish band Travis. Irish singer Luka Bloom has also since recorded the song to great effect. Mitchell's own 1967 recording of the song was released on the flip side of the 1972 single "You Turn Me On I'm A Radio", but was not released on an album until the Hits compilation in 1996. In any version, "Urge for Going" was an audacious piece of songwriting, painting an extremely evocative picture of the oncoming of dread winter. Not surprisingly for someone from the Canadian plains, Mitchell had a finely developed sense for the passings of seasons and comings of age, themes that would appear on her "The Circle Game", which Tom Rush recorded a well-received take of in 1968. Mitchell's songwriting reached its highest visibility when Judy Collins had a top-ten hit in early 1968 with "Both Sides Now". British folk rock group Fairport Convention included "Chelsea Morning" and "I Don't Know Where I Stand" on their debut album, recorded in late 1967, and the otherwise unreleased "Eastern Rain" on their second album the following year. The songs on Mitchell's first two solo albums, Joni Mitchell (Song to a Seagull) (1968) and Clouds (1969), were archetypes of the nascent singer-songwriter movement of the time. Early and mid-1970s chart success
Mid to late 1970s jazz experimentation
1980s: the "Geffen era" The 1980s saw Mitchell's most paltry output of recordings since the beginning of her career. Only three albums of new material appeared on her new label (Geffen Records), and none made an impression on the climate of popular music or the charts. 1982's Wild Things Run Fast was an attempt to return to pop songwriting, including "Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody" that incorporated the chorus and parts of the melody the famous Righteous Brothers hit, and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" - which charted higher than any Mitchell single since her 70s sales peak. Though it was influenced largely by Mitchell's marriage to producer Larry Klein, Mitchell complained that critics reduced the new music to a batch of "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. For Dog Eat Dog (1985) British synth-pop performer and producer Thomas Dolby was brought on board. Largely an indictment consumerism and the political landscape of the time, Mitchell employed a host of modern sounds, courtesy of the Fairlight CMI synthesizer. Of Dolby's role, Mitchell later commented, "I was reluctant when Thomas was suggested because he had been asked to produce the record (by Geffen), and would he consider coming in as just a programmer and a player? So on that level we did have some problems...He may be able to do it faster. He may be able to do it better, but the fact is that it then wouldn't really be my music." Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm (1988) saw Mitchell collaborating with multiple artists, 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". To some critics of Dog Eat Dog the multi-layered synthesized sounds on "My Secret Place", "Beat of Black Wings" and "The Tea Leaf Prophecy" were a better marriage of Mitchell's voice to electronic arrangements. After the release of Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm, Mitchell participated in Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin. Turbulence and resurgence in the 1990s For her final Geffen album, 1991's Night Ride Home Mitchell presented what she described as a batch of "middle-aged love songs." Critically, it was better received than her 80s work and seemed to signal a 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 simple, straightforward set of songs in years, mixing politics ("Sex Kills") with romance ("Sunny Sunday") and winning two Grammy awards, including Best Pop Album. Mitchell released her most recent set of 'original' new work with Taming the Tiger (1998). She promoted "Tiger" with a return to regular concert appearances, most notably a co-headlining tour with Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. "I hate music": the 2000s Both Sides Now (2000) was an album composed mostly of covers of jazz standards, performed with an orchestra. It received mostly strong reviews and featured orchestral arrangements by Vince Mendoza, who would collaborate with her again on Travelogue) 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 had stated that this would be her final album. In 2003, after years of being variously out-of-print or relegated to bargain price bins, Mitchell's Geffen recordings were collected in a four-disc box set, The Complete Geffen Recordings. Included were remastered versions of all four albums, personal notes by Mitchell herself and three bonus tracks - A wordless vocal demo of what would become "Two Grey Rooms" (from Night Ride Home) the basic piano demo for "Good Friends" (from Dog Eat Dog), and an unreleased cover of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." A series of themed compilations of songs from earlier albums were also released: The Beginning of Survival (2004), Dreamland (2004), and Songs of a Prairie Girl (2005), the last of which collected the threads of her Canadian upbringing and which she released after accepting an invitation to be a featured performer at a Saskatchewan Centennial concert in Saskatoon before the Queen. In Prairie Girl liner notes, she writes that the collection is "my contribution to Saskatchewan's Centennial celebrations." Music vs. art Recently, 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 remember what she ever liked about it." She has also 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. Although Mitchell has stated she will no longer tour or give concerts, she has made occasional public appearances to speak (for example) on environmental issues.* Currently, Mitchell divides her time between her longtime home in Los Angeles and a cabin in Sechelt, BC, and is said to be focused mainly on her visual art, which she does not sell and which she displays only on rare occasions.* Possible comeback In an October 2006 interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Mitchell apparently "revealed she's recording her first collection of new songs in nearly a decade". * She went on, in a different version of the article, to talk about two songs, "Holy War" and "If," based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling. She revealed she has laid down basic tracks for five songs, and will play piano, synthesizers, and guitars will be by Mickey Wynne; the album will feature a familiar cast of musicians including Mickey Wynne on guitars Brian Blade on drums and Wayne Shorter. Unique guitar style Almost every song she composed on the guitar uses an open, or non-standard tuning; she has written songs in some 50 different tunings, which she has referred to as "Joni's weird chords". The use of alternative tunings allows more varied and complex harmonies to be produced on the guitar, without the need for difficult chord shapes. Indeed, many of Joni's guitar songs use very simple chord shapes, but her use of alternative tunings and a highly rhythmic picking/strumming style creates a rich and unique guitar sound. Her right-hand picking/strumming technique has evolved over the years from an initially intricate picking style, typified by the guitar songs on her first album, to a looser and more rhythmic style, sometimes incorporating percussive "slaps", that have been featured on later albums. In 2003 Rolling Stone named her the 72nd greatest guitarist of all time; she was the highest-ranked woman on the list. * Influence on other artists Mitchell could be labeled a "musician's musician"; her work has had an enormous influence on artists as disparate as Elvis Costello, Maynard James Keenan and Prince. For instance, Prince's song "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" off the album Sign 'O' the Times, pays tribute to Mitchell, both through his evocative Mitchell-like harmonies and through the use of one of Mitchell's own techniques: as in Mitchell's song "This Flight Tonight", Prince references a song in his lyrics (Joni's own "Help Me") as the music begins to emulate the chords and melody of that song. Mandy Moore also expressed a huge admiration for Mitchell upon the release of her 2003 album Coverage on which she covered Mitchell's classic "Help Me". A number of artists have had hits covering Mitchell's songs; most recently Counting Crows scored a hit in 2002 with a cover of "Big Yellow Taxi". Janet Jackson used a sample of "Big Yellow Taxi" as the centerpiece of her 1997 single "Got 'Til It's Gone". Other famous Mitchell covers include "Woodstock" by both Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Matthews Southern Comfort, "This Flight Tonight" by Nazareth, "A Case of You" by Tori Amos and "Both Sides Now" by Judy Collins. Although Mitchell usually refrains from commenting on other artists, particularly ones that she influences, she has expressed satisfaction with the work with two jazz-based artists who have interpreted her songs, 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. She also praised the New Radicals, bemoaning the band's status as one-hit wonders. Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" was said to be written about Robert Plant's infatuation with Mitchell, a claim that seems to be born out by the fact that, in live performances, Plant often says "Joni" after the line "To find a queen without a king, they say she plays guitar and cries and sings". Jimmy Page uses a double drop D guitar tuning similar to the alternative tunings Mitchell uses. Awards and honours 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. In 1996 she was awarded the Polar Music Prize. Mitchell has sometimes objected to the way her legacy is described by critics, singling out in particular the "female Bob Dylan" moniker. "Being female creates a new category in some people's minds. No one would say that Dylan is the 'male Joni Mitchell.'" She received five regular Grammy Awards during her career, with the first coming in 1969 and the most recent in 2000. Also in 2000 she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. She then received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, with the 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." On May 1, 2002, she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. Mitchell received an honorary doctorate from McGill University on October 27, 2004. Discography (with U.S. chart positions) Albums Compilations
Singles
Videos Multimedia
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