Joni Mitchell
photo: Jay Blakesberg
96 articles
FREE!
Joni Mitchell Starring at Troubadour
Live Review by Stephen M H Braitman, Van Nuys Valley News, 24 January 1969
THE CROWD was larger, more expectant this time, as they waited for Joni Mitchell to mount the Troubadour stage Tuesday night and begin her return ...
Joni Mitchell: The Renaissance Woman
Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, The, 11 February 2007
At last the times have caught up with Joni Mitchell – musician, artist and now inspiration for a ballet ...
AUDIO
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, 14 September 1994
The First Lady of the Canyon looks at her past and present, from her Canadian youth through the Canyon days, the nightmare of the '80s and to her place in 1994. Songs, places, lovers, friends, gender and politics. Oh, and Bob Dylan's bad breath.
File format: mp3; file size: 116.9mb, total interview length: 2h 1' 46" sound quality: ***
ARTICLES IN LIBRARY
Tom Rush Tells Why He's Now Electrified!
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Detroit Free Press, 11 November 1966
ONCE UPON a time folk singers looked at electric guitars and top 40 radio in horror. Then several years back the big hero of the ...
Joni Mitchell Sings Own Songs In Debut At Troubadour Nitery
Live Review by Stephen M H Braitman, Van Nuys Valley News, 7 June 1968
MANY OF THE current crop of popular folk singers today have used the songs of Joni Mitchell in their rise to the top. Now, young ...
Joni, The Seagull From Saskatoon
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 28 September 1968
TALKING TO Joni Mitchell about her songs is rather like talking to someone you just met about the most intimate secrets of her life. Like ...
Joni Mitchell, Al Stewart, The Johnstons: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 5 October 1968
OPENERS AT Roy Guest's "Festival of Contemporary Song" at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday, the Johnstons, finished their set with Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides ...
Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, The Age of Rock, 1969
Joni Mitchell: Joni Mitchell (Reprise)Earth Opera: Earth Opera (Elektra) ...
Profile and Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, Rolling Stone, 17 May 1969
FOLK MUSIC, which pushed rock and roll into the arena of the serious with protest lyrics and blendings of Dylan and the Byrds back in ...
The Johnny Cash Show (ABC TV/Screen Gems)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Gene Guerrero, Great Speckled Bird, The, 12 June 1969
TV CASHES IN ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, Guardian, The, 24 June 1969
JONI MITCHELL has written songs for Tom Rush, and the Fairport Convention have used her songs on both their albums. ...
Joni Mitchell: Clouds (Reprise RSLP 6293)
Review by Wesley Laine, Record Mirror, 6 September 1969
Beautiful new Joni Mitchell LP – but it's an acquired taste ...
Joni Mitchell: My Personal Life is a Shambles
Interview by Caroline Boucher, Disc and Music Echo, 10 January 1970
GENTLE, SHY Joni Mitchell flew into London last week with her friends, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, to do her last concert for a long, ...
Joni Still Feels The Pull Of The Country
Report and Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Melody Maker, 10 January 1970
CANADIAN FOLK singer Joni Mitchell this week denied rumours that she would be retiring after her Royal Festival Hall concert on January 17th. ...
Joni Mitchell: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Jerry Gilbert, Melody Maker, 24 January 1970
A triumph for Joni ...
Joni Mitchell: Let's Make Life More Romantic
Profile and Interview by Jacoba Atlas, Melody Maker, 20 June 1970
JONI MITCHELL is a poet whose time has come. Because she uses the vehicle of music, her words and thoughts reach out to countless minds. ...
Report by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, July 1970
JONI MITCHELL is a beautiful lady, one who write and sings songs born from the depths of her experience, a word painter who shows us ...
Joni Mitchell: Isle of Wight Festival, Afton Down
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 5 September 1970
Update, 2019. LIKE SO many who were there, my sense of life's possibilities was changed forever by the Isle of Wight five-day open-air festivals created ...
The Isle of Wight Festival: Five Days That Rocked Britain
Report by Chris Welch, Michael Watts, Richard Williams, Mark Plummer, Melody Maker, 5 September 1970
MM's Richard Williams, Chris Welch, Michael Watts and Mark Plummer present a five-page report on an amazing weekend of music and other scenes... ...
The Isle of Wight Festival: 5 Days of Peace, Music and Love
Report by uncredited writer, Mick Farren, International Times, 10 September 1970
2011 note: this report on the 1970 IoW festival is led off by Mick Farren but includes contributions by other, unnamed IT writers. The title ...
Joni Mitchell: Glimpses of Joni
Report and Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 19 September 1970
SCENE IN A television studio: a girl in a long pink shift, which catches at her ankles when she walks, picks hesitantly at a few ...
Report by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 31 October 1970
JONI MITCHELL flew into London last Sunday – with James Taylor the man with whom she is being romantically linked. ...
Joni Mitchell: Joni Takes a Break
Interview by Larry LeBlanc, Rolling Stone, 4 March 1971
CANADIANS are stunned by the vague, awesome level that Joni Mitchell has reached. She was the least-known of the Toronto group of folksingers of the ...
Joni Mitchell: Blue (Warner Bros.)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, Guardian, The, 29 June 1971
JONI MITCHELL'S new album, Blue, is about to be released here by Warner Brothers (K 44128). A large proportion of Joni's most notable songs, to date, ...
Joni and the Laurel Canyon Mob
Comment by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 18 September 1971
SO YOU wanna be a rock and roll star, right? Well, our advice is to head out Laurel Canyon way. Take a tip from one ...
Joni Mitchell: Royal Festival Hall, London,
Live Review by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 13 May 1972
Saturday night was Cup Final day in London and – in passing – the last time the crowd joined for ‘Abide With Me’ at Wembley. ...
Joni Mitchell: An Interview (part 1)
Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 3 June 1972
THE LADY WHO walks on eggs is sitting in her hotel suite overlooking St. James' Park with her legs tucked up, her chin resting on ...
Joni Mitchell: An Interview (part 2)
Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 10 June 1972
LAST WEEK Joni Mitchell spoke for the first time in over two years about why she virtually "retired" from the music scene during a period ...
This is David Geffen, by Gentlemen's Agreement Manager to the Superstars
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 22 July 1972
Will CSN&Y ever re-unite and find true happiness? ...
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 9 December 1972
MORE SONGS OF transient euphoria and stabbing loss, played out against an ambiguous background of relentless fatalism and constant hope, mingled in approximately equal proportions, ...
Joni Mitchell: The Troubadour, Los Angeles
Live Review by Steven Rosen, Sounds, 9 December 1972
Steve Rosen reports from the West Coast ...
Review by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 16 December 1972
IN A VAST, empty, wild beach a blonde girl sits in the breakers and watches the sea rolling endlessly into the sand. There are seagulls ...
Joni Mitchell: A Tender Dignity
Guide by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 6 January 1973
ONE DAY, many years ago, Al Kooper went home with a blonde Canadian chick who used to hang out with the Blues Project. In the ...
The Voice of Woman: Joni Mitchell
Comment by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 17 February 1973
I am on a lonely road and I am travellingLooking for the key to set me free . . . ...
Review by Michael Gray, Let It Rock, March 1973
THIS IS ONE of those albums which makes me feel I should apologise to the artist concerned for previously undervaluing her work. Even as late ...
Joni Mitchell: Court and Spark (Asylum)
Review by Loraine Alterman, New York Times, The, 6 January 1974
Joni's Songs Are For Everyone ...
Joni Mitchell: Court and Spark (Asylum)
Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 20 January 1974
OF ALL THE female writers and singers post-dating Joan Baez in pop music, Joni Mitchell seems to me to have arrived at the most complete ...
Joni Mitchell and Tom Scott: Lost Innocence with a Rock and Roll Band
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, New Musical Express, 9 February 1974
JONI MITCHELL, no longer an innocent folkie, has turned her back on the garden for rockier pastures. Yep the times certainly are changing. ...
Albums from Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell et al
Review by j. poet, Berkeley Barb, The, 22 February 1974
j poet advertizes fer joni: male groopie wanted ...
Joni Mitchell: Ellis Auditorium, Memphis, Tennessee
Live Review by Steven X Rea, Phonograph Record, May 1974
JONI MITCHELL has finally accepted stardom and all the craziness that goes with it. During her Memphis appearance she still revealed her female submissiveness on ...
Joni Mitchell: New Victoria, London
Live Review by Mick Gold, Let It Rock, June 1974
WHEN JONI MITCHELL sang in a cinema next to Victoria Station, her entire audience fell in love with her three nights running. For weeks afterwards ...
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, 1 August 1974
LOS ANGELES – Mention the name Tom Scott in jazz circles and recognition is immediate: The 25-year-old horn-playing prodigy from Southern California is well known ...
Joni Mitchell: Wembley Stadium, London
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 21 September 1974
IN CONCERT, Joni Mitchell is one of those rare performers whose sophisticated charisma and fairy-tale personality reach the inner emotions of her audience. ...
Joni Mitchell: Miles Of Aisles
Review by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, January 1975
THE TWO MOST annoying things (to me) about Joni Mitchell in the early years of her career were her songs, which often seemed impersonal, shallow ...
Essay by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 11 January 1975
Question: what well-known biped possesses an upper-register vocalic system, is pleasant to look upon, and is almost universally misunderstood and/or patronised? Answer: any Rock 'n ...
Joni Mitchell: Miles of Aisles (Asylum)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, March 1975
"JONI, YOU'VE GOT more class than Mick Jagger, Richard Nixon or Gomer Pyle combined," a male Joni junkie interjects after ‘Cold Blue Steel and Sweet ...
Joni Mitchell: The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 29 November 1975
ON THE INSIDE sleeve of this album, Joni has a short, cryptic liner note stating that the record is "graphically, musically, lyrically and accidentally" a ...
Joni Mitchell: Hostess Twinkies for Your Dreams
Live Review by Michael Gross, Swank, 1976
Joni Mitchell: Nassau Coliseum ...
Joni Mitchell: Hejira (Asylum K53053) *****
Review by Tim Lott, Sounds, 27 November 1976
The tip of the iceberg ...
Joni Mitchell: Hejira (Asylum)
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 27 November 1976
Joan travels on; Joni travels back ...
Joni Mitchell: Hejira (Asylum 7E-1087)
Review by Colman Andrews, Phonograph Record, December 1976
VERY FEW of Joni Mitchell's songs since the Ladies of the Canyon LP have been recorded by other artists, and I suppose that must be ...
The Band's "Last Waltz": Winterland, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Stephen M H Braitman, Phonograph Record, December 1976
WHEN THE announcement came, 5,000 tickets at $25 each were sold out almost immediately. This was the final show, "The Last Waltz." The Band — ...
Joni Mitchell: Hejira (Asylum 7E 1087); Melanie: Photograph (Atlantic SP 18190)
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, February 1977
JONI DRONES, MELANIE FINDS NEW KEY ...
Joni Mitchell: Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (Asylum)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1978
DON JUAN SAYS HE DOESN'T KNOW YOU ...
Joni Mitchell Meets Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Report by Wesley Strick, Circus, 2 March 1978
NINETEEN SEVENTY EIGHT is a watershed year for Joni Mitchell; Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (Asylum) is the superlative singer-songwriter's tenth album; its release marks the ...
Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 16 June 1979
THE CONCEPT of Joni Mitchell singing Charles Mingus, the late and very great jazzman, is eccentric but not illogical. For her it is the culmination ...
Review by Rosalind Russell, Record Mirror, 30 June 1979
IF YOU WERE to point an accusing finger at me and say I'd no qualifications to review a jazz album, I'd agree with you in ...
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 30 June 1979
IF INTENTION automatically equalled success then this would be one hell of an album. As it is, it's beautifully recorded, self-consciously precious, a maddeningly white ...
Joni Mitchell: Shadows and Light
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980
LIKE, A Rolling Stone picnic or something more in touch with these headachey contemporary days? ...
Joni Mitchell: Shadows and Light (Asylum BB704)
Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 2 November 1980
JONI'S NEW ALBUM STAYS IN SHADOWS ...
Joni Mitchell: Wild Things Run Fast
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 November 1982
A YEAR before her 40th birthday, the great romantic of rock music undoes her locket once more. Three years have passed since Mingus and ...
Joni Mitchell: Wild Things Run Fast
Review by Carol Clerk, Melody Maker, 27 November 1982
I LISTEN TO Joni Mitchell's voice these days with a fleeting pang of nostalgia. Flitting from one plaintive note to another, fluttering up and down ...
Joni Mitchell: Wild Things Run Fast
Review by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 3 December 1982
JONI MITCHELL'S in love. At least she was while writing and recording Wild Things Run Fast. You can hear it in the loose and easy ...
Interview by Mick Brown, Guardian, The, 22 April 1983
IT WOULD BE an exaggeration to describe Larry Klein as a hated man; but, face it, there must have been times when he has felt ...
Live Review by Mary Harron, Guardian, The, 25 April 1983
WITH JONI Mitchell, the music and the life are inseparable. As a confessional songwriter the appeal is based on identification; with those of us who ...
Joni Mitchell: Jones Beach Theater, New York
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 26 July 1983
DURING THE COURSE of her unpredictable but resilient career, Joni Mitchell has been the dewy-eyed sophomore, the slit-eyed hipster, the clear-eyed visionary. Her songs of ...
Joni Mitchell: Dog Eat Dog (Geffen)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1985
Joni looks at dogs from both sides now: coyotes to curs to sheepskin wolves ...
Joni Mitchell: The Travailer's Tale
Review and Interview by Mick Brown, Times, The, 10 November 1985
AT 41, JONI MITCHELL remains, to all appearances, very much the idealistic woman who embodied an era of pop music at its most wistfully self-absorbed ...
Dog Day Afternoon: Joni Mitchell
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 4 January 1986
THEY'VE ALL all been coming out of the woodwork this past year, the artists who'd never deign to speak to anyone - ole Neil, Dylan ...
Joni Mitchell: Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1988
She's danced to the beat of her own drum all the way from Laurel Canyon to uptown Los Angeles. Joni Mitchell talks about her life, ...
Joni Mitchell: Joni Rocks Again
Report and Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, Chatelaine, June 1988
JONI MITCHELL was a folk star in the '70s, ignored in the '80s when she turned to jazz. Her new album, which tackles everything from ...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 4 June 1988
"THE POET is the vainest of the vain, even before the ugliest of water buffalo doth he fan his tail." ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, The, 9 September 1990
"WHAT DO I THINK of the new Joni Mitchells?" Joni Mitchell grins, sucks appreciatively on another cigarette and thinks hard, as she often does, before ...
Joni Mitchell: Conversation with a Wandering Dreamer
Review and Interview by David Sinclair, Times, The, 11 February 1991
WITHIN 60 SECONDS of setting eyes on me, Joni Mitchell has started telling me about her dreams. I am spared details, but she insists that ...
Joni Mitchell: Lookin' Good, Sister
Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 23 February 1991
THE HAIR still tumbles to the shoulders, sunshine blonde; the smile is as winsome as ever; the perfect bone-structure remains, well, perfect. ...
Joni Mitchell: Joni Rides Home
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Vox, April 1991
JONI MITCHELL MAY HAVE CUT HER MUSICAL TEETH DURING THE ERA OF LOVE AND PEACE BUT SHE TAKES NONE TOO KINDLY TO COMPARISONS WITH TODAY'S ...
Joni Mitchell at Troubadours of Folk Festival: Drake Stadium, UCLA
Live Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1993
FOR HER FIRST public performance in several years, Joni Mitchell found a way to affirm her spiritual ties to the folk music community whence she ...
Joni Mitchell: Lady of the Canyon
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 31 October 1994
FOR JONI MITCHELL, fame has been a fickle lover. In the 1970s, it lavished her with sold-out tours and numerous magazine covers. She was the ...
Joni Mitchell: Our Lady of Sorrows
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1994
SHE ALMOST bounds into the room, this dowager duchess of American rock, fresh from whooping it up for Mojo's photographer on the street outside manager ...
Both Sides Now: Joni Mitchell's Hits and Misses
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1996
• First-ever attempt to compile a "best of" the former Roberta Joan Anderson.• Simultaneously released albums of "hits" - songs successful either for Mitchell or ...
Joni Mitchell: Hits and Misses
Review by Susan Whitall, Houston Press, 26 December 1996
IN A POP WORLD where female musicians are designed, micromanaged and as carefully positioned in the marketplace as a new brand of air freshener, how ...
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison at the Pauley Pavilion, UCLA, Los Angeles
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, July 1998
Set List Van Morrison: Sweet Thing/You Make Me Feel So Free/Burning Ground/It Once Was My Life/Cleaning Windows/Vanlose Stairway/That's Life/Days Like This/Sometimes We Cry/Moondance/This Weight/Tupelo Honey/Why ...
Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, August 1998
IT'S A SATURDAY NIGHT IN Burbank, California, and perhaps 200 invited guests are sitting in a circular arrangement of plush chairs, overstuffed sofas, even cross-legged ...
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
I was born in Fort Macleod, Alberta, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies – an area of extreme temperatures and mirages. When I was ...
A Crown Jewel of a Show: King Bob and Queen Joni
Essay by Al Aronowitz, Blacklisted Journalist, The, 1 March 1999
I REALLY WOULDN'T know what to say to Bob Dylan if I bumped into him again. I suppose I could talk about our one-time mutual ...
Review by Gerrie Lim, BigO, April 2000
TO PUT IT MILDLY, the new year's most surprising new album has arrived. And it comes from Joni Mitchell, the woman who wrote Woodstock and ...
Joni Mitchell's Dull Twist On Standards
Live Review by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 May 2000
NOBODY SINGS Joni Mitchell like Joni Mitchell. ...
Guide by Barney Hoskyns, Blender, Fall 2002
IF ANY WOMAN has kept up with the big boys (Dylan, Young and co.) in the obstacle race that is folk-based singer-songwriter rock, that woman ...
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, January 2004
Raised in Canada, Joni Mitchell found her way to California in 1968. Barney Hoskyns on the crowning of a canyon princess. ...
Joni Mitchell: How 'Free Man In Paris' came along
Interview by Johnny Black, Blender, September 2004
WHEN Joni Mitchell played the finished tapes of her 1974 album Court and Spark for her Asylum Records labelmate Bob Dylan, the venerated spokesman of ...
Retrospective by Jim Irvin, Word, The, March 2005
NINE WAS A memorable age for Roberta Joan Anderson. Three things occurred that year, more than 50 years ago, which affect her to this day: ...
How Joni Mitchell Got Her Groove Back
Interview by Robin Eggar, Rolling Stone (Germany), May 2007
JONI MITCHELL is lost in her own music, eyes closed, head still, an American Spirit burning between her fingers. A scarcely sipped glass of red ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, eMusic.com, November 2007
JONI MITCHELL declared in 2002 that she was done with the music biz and would never, ever, make another album. I can't have been the ...
Report by Charles Bermant, Rock's Backpages, 12 February 2010
IN 1970, 16-year-old me was following Neil Young around; learning his songs, going to his concerts (two identical sets on one night!), and counting the ...
Comment by Ellen Sander, Rock's Backpages, October 2012
I WAS driving Stephen Stills to a CSN recording session, it must've been 1969, and the subject of Joni Mitchell came up. ...
David Yaffe: Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell
Book Review by Clinton Heylin, unpublished, Fall 2017
WARREN ZEVON, a Laurel Canyon contemporary of Joni Mitchell, once wrote a song called 'Accidentally Like A Martyr'. Taking a leaf from Zevon, David Yaffe's ...
back to LIBRARY
