ALBUMJoni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975)Joni Mitchell
Albums by Joni Mitchell
ALBUMShineJoni Mitchell
ALBUMTravelogueJoni Mitchell
ALBUMBoth Sides NowJoni Mitchell
ALBUMTaming the TigerJoni Mitchell
ALBUMTurbulent IndigoJoni Mitchell
ALBUMNight Ride HomeJoni Mitchell
ALBUMChalk Mark In a Rain StormJoni Mitchell
ALBUMDog Eat DogJoni Mitchell
ALBUMWild Things Run FastJoni Mitchell
ALBUMMingusJoni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell's Popular Music Videos
Big Yellow Taxi (Live)
Joni Mitchell
River
Joni Mitchell
Big Yellow Taxi (Lyric Video)
Joni Mitchell
Artist Playlists
Joni Mitchell Essentials
Rule-breaker, restless spirit, and now a Grammys performer: Revisit all her defiant, defining hits.
Joni Mitchell: The Songwriters
A visionary singer/songwriter earns tributes from generations of fans.
Joni Mitchell: Influences
Folk, jazz, and classical fuse to ignite the mercurial songwriter.
Inspired by Joni Mitchell
Laurel Canyon's most restless spirit inspired generations of fans.
Joni Mitchell: Deep Cuts
The master songwriter spans introspective folk and nimble jazz.
Joni Mitchell: Live
The Canadian legend’s onstage recordings rank among her finest work.
Artist Biography
A pioneering figure of the singer-songwriter era, Joni Mitchell charted an interior world that felt bigger and more ambiguous—but every bit as real—as the one outside, rendering relationships and self-exploration with a candor, humor, and wisdom unheard of before her and rarely matched since. Canadian by birth, Mitchell spent the mid-’60s breaking into America, being covered by artists like Judy Collins and Tom Rush before settling in Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon. Despite properly launching her solo career during the late ’60s, in a decidedly antiestablishment folk scene, Mitchell harbored a vocal skepticism toward the counterculture, an iconoclasm and commitment to her muse that followed her for decades—from her forays into jazz (including collaborations with Charles Mingus and Jaco Pastorius) to her occasional retreats into poetry and painting. (“I have always thought of myself as a painter derailed by circumstance,” she once said.) Delicate as it is, her work is quietly transgressive, too, crossing freely between folk, pop, and jazz without flaunting it, juxtaposing her fluttery voice with tough advice and a sharp, sometimes unsparing wit. But at the heart of Mitchell’s music lies that quest for the inner realm, for personal truth laid as bare as possible without sacrificing its complexity—a “feminine appetite for intimacy” (her words) that has influenced artists from Prince and Kate Bush to the more diaristic sides of Taylor Swift.