Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada.

At the age of nine, Mitchell contracted polio during a Canadian epidemic, but she recovered after a stay in hospital. It was during this time that she first became interested in singing.

Joni Mitchell moved to New York City in 1967, and took up residence in the arty Chelsea district. She met Elliot Roberts in the fall and he began to manage her career, helping to open up the circuit for her in New York City.

While performing at a club in Florida, Joni met ex-Byrds member David Crosby, who was quite taken with her. David was a great help in convincing the record company to agree to let Joni record a solo acoustic album without all the folk-rock overdubs that were in vogue at the time. His clout earned him a producer’s credit in March 1968, when Reprise records released her debut album. She continued her steady touring to promote the LP, and that stimulus, in addition to the performers who were covering her songs and exposing her to bigger and bigger audiences as a major “songwriter,” was causing a major buzz. At Elliot’s suggestion, she moved to southern California late in 1967, and moved in with David, who became an enthusiastic promoter of Joni’s and had her play at the homes of his Hollywood friends, where she got noticed by press and radio people, who in turn wrote and spoke of her talent.

She played the Troubadour in L.A., getting raves from the crowds and critics; she was also a big hit in London at the Royal Festival Hall in September, and at the Miami Pop Festival on the last weekend of 1968. Accompaning her at the fest was Hollies singer-songwriter Graham Nash, whom Joni had met through their mutual friend, David Crosby.

Also in December of ’68, Judy Collins version of “Both Sides Now” peaked in the national music charts top ten, and brought Joni “lots of those little royalty pennies.” This songwriting success helped create an eager anticipation for Joni’s second LP, “Clouds”, which was released in April ’69. It contained Joni’s own versions of songs already recorded and being performed by other artists; “Chelsea Morning,””Both Sides Now”, and “Tin Angel.”

Joni’s concert at Carnegie Hall in February, and a later show in Berkeley, CA were recorded for a live album, but the project was shelved in favor of a third LP of original studio performances.

She made an appearance that summer on The Johnny Cash Show. The series was a U.S. summer replacement series that rated very highly on ABC-TV. Joni appeared 2 more times on Johnny’s show, once more later in the first season, and once in 1971.

Joni toured as the opening act for her friends Crosby, Stills, & Nash, and while at the Atlantic City Pop Festival in August, she left the stage angrily due to the inattentiveness of the large crowd. She said she’d enjoyed the intimacy of the clubs and was now finding it difficult to concentrate and perform in front of huge crowds.

Joni was scheduled to perform at Woodstock on Sunday of that weekend of love, but when the traffic jams were seen by all of America on TV that Friday, her manager advised her not to go. He was concerned that she might have trouble getting back to the city in time for a major TV appearance on the Dick Cavett Show that Monday. Still, she did create the definitive chronicle of the festival with her song “Woodstock,” which was a hit for C, S, & N the next year.

She did an equinox festival at Big Sur in September, and this was filmed and released as “Celebration At Big Sur” (Joni’s first film appearance). She was also set to do her “Songs To Aging Children Come” in the film version of Arlo Guthrie’s song epic, “Alice’s Restaurant”, but when the movie producers demanded a half share of the song’s publishing rights just for the privilege of appearing in their major Hollywood feature film, she refused. The song was sung in the film anyway by a look-a-like hippie girl with long blonde hair and a ringing soprano.

Reprise released Joni’s third album, “Ladies Of The Canyon” soon after. It was an instant smash on FM radio, and sold briskly thru the summer and fall, eventually becoming Joni’s first gold album (500,000 copies).

Reviewers and listeners began to note the confessional qualities in Joni’s songs, and conjecture “who’s that about?.”

Joni made a decision to stop touring for a year and just live and write and paint, but after a few months she was persuaded to perform at the last minute at the Isle of Wight Festival. Held in August, this festival became a financial and logistical disaster, and the audience there had strong anti-performer feelings. When a stoned-out guy that Joni knew from her months in Crete jumped on stage and took over her mic ranting about how “Desolation Row is this festival…”, he had to be dragged off stage. The crowd saw him as one of their own and booed his eviction until Joni chastised them tearfully about acting like tourists and not giving the performers the respect they deserved.

Joni struggled with a way to remain creative while dealing with the pressures of a career with a required touring schedule. The songs she wrote during the months she took off for travel & life experience would appear on her next album, “BLUE.”

Chelsea Morning

California

*Post was written with the help of Wikipedia.

delete reply instrumentalpavilion wrote on May 20, ’09 : ) Thanks!

delete reply catfishred wrote on May 20, ’09, edited on May 20, ’09 Oh, thank you, thank you for this. I just can’t tell you how much this woman has affected my life during my own pivotal points of existence. ‘Chelsea Morning’ I heard over and over as a young runaway fresh on the streets and so full of my own ‘moonbeams of disillusionment’. ‘Both Sides Now’ was another skipping, adolescent tune.’Green’ reminded me of my mother, and I wept for her and my own strong-headedness that caused me to run off and attempt to be a cog in something turning. ‘Conversation’ reminded me of a ne’er-do-well I was quite smitten with at the time followed by the ‘FM Radio’- LOL. ‘My Old Man’ was my first long-term affair that ended in another’s death and tragedy due to drug intake, attempting to swallow a Vietnam nightmare that wouldn’t go away.And, of course, as we grew older didn’t many of us become as ‘Richard’? :)But my all-time favourite was the ‘Court and Spark’ album, because I had come into my own then – a late bloomer who had grown up too soon, whereby robbing herself of her childhood. And, thus, I seemed to go into reverse for a while to make up for lost time. I was becoming healthy once more, performing again, modelling and back in school while in my best looking years, I think, as I filled out but was still a young woman with a whole life ahead of her – and it was one now to experience in the mainstream. How scary! But I did it. :)All us Joni fans could probably tell comparable tales, don’t you think? And aren’t you glad that she was born? I know I am.

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on May 20, ’09 Yes, a lot of us grew up with her music, and it’s still very haunting to hear even to this day. I’ll see if I can add some more songs to this playlist, but I wanted to focus more on the songs that were great but were not regarded as the top 40 that everybody is so used to hearing.

delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 22, ’09 you have just solved a mystery……………..I’ve often looked at the photo you use and wondered who it reminds me of……….now I know …………..it reminds me of her, very much so………..and yes I agree, she has a beautiful voice with a timeless quality.

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on May 22, ’09 Loretta, the woman in the photo I use is actually Stevie Nicks, not Joni Mitchell, LOL!!

delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 22, ’09 ahhhhhhhhhhh ok but she still reminds me of Joni Mitchell, they have a very similar look.

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on May 22, ’09 If you look at recent pictures of Stevie Nicks, she’s really aged quite a bit, not just because of the natural aging process, but because of all the drugs and alcohol she’s taken for many years. This really takes its toll on the body.