- Album list
- Singer Intro
Roberta Joan 'Joni' Mitchell, CC (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and painter. Rolling Stone called her 'one of the greatest songwriters ever', and AllMusic has stated, 'When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century'. Drawing from folk, pop, rock, and jazz, Mitchell's songs often reflect social and environmental ideals as well as her feelings about romance, confusion, disillusionment, and joy. Throughout her career, she has won various accolades, including 9 Grammy Awards.
Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and throughout western Canada, before busking in the streets and nightclubs of Toronto, Ontario. In 1965, she moved to the United States and began touring. Some of her original songs ('Urge for Going', 'Chelsea Morning', 'Both Sides, Now', 'The Circle Game') were covered by other folk singers, allowing her to sign with Reprise Records and record her debut album in 1968. Settling in Southern California, Mitchell, with popular songs like 'Big Yellow Taxi' and 'Woodstock', helped define an era and a generation. Her 1971 album Blue is often cited as one of the best albums of all time; it was rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone's list of the '500 Greatest Albums of All Time', the highest entry by a female artist. In 2000, the New York Times chose Blue as one of the 25 albums that represented 'turning points and pinnacles in 20th-century popular music'. In 2017, NPR ranked Blue Number 1 on a list of Greatest Albums Made By Women.
Following the release of her fifth album, For the Roses, in 1972, Mitchell switched labels and began moving toward jazz rhythms by way of lush pop textures on 1974's Court and Spark, her best-selling LP, featuring the radio hits 'Help Me' and 'Free Man in Paris'. Around 1975 her vocal range began to shift from mezzo-soprano to more of a wide-ranging contralto. Her distinctive piano and open-tuned guitar compositions also grew more harmonically and rhythmically complex as she explored jazz, melding it with influences of rock and roll, R&B, classical music, and non-western beats. In the late 1970s, she began working closely with noted jazz musicians, among them Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, and Charles Mingus, who asked her to collaborate on his final recordings. She later turned again toward pop, embraced electronic music, and engaged in political protest. In 2002, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th annual Grammy Awards.
She is the sole producer credited on most of her albums, including all her work in the 1970s. A blunt critic of the music industry, she quit touring and released her 17th, and reportedly last, album of original songs in 2007. With roots in visual art, Mitchell designed her own album covers. She describes herself as a 'painter derailed by circumstance'.
Discography
Main article: Joni Mitchell discography
Studio albums
1968: Song to a Seagull
1969: Clouds
1970: Ladies of the Canyon
1971: Blue
1972: For the Roses
1974: Court and Spark
1975: The Hissing of Summer Lawns
1976: Hejira
1977: Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
1979: Mingus
1982: Wild Things Run Fast
1985: Dog Eat Dog
1988: Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm
1991: Night Ride Home
1994: Turbulent Indigo
1998: Taming the Tiger
2000: Both Sides Now
2002: Travelogue
2007: Shine
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