Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell made personal lyrics and unconventional compositions her signature, then kept stretching them. Born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort Macleod, Alberta, in 1943, she emerged from the 1960s folk circuit and pulled it towards pop, rock and jazz. Polio had weakened her left hand, so she devised alternative tunings that shaped her unusual harmony and structure. She is also a painter, designed most of her own album covers and produced or co-produced most of her records.

After singing in clubs in Saskatoon and Toronto, she began touring the United States in 1965. Other singers recorded "Both Sides, Now" and "The Circle Game" first, which helped her sign to Reprise and make Song to a Seagull in 1968. "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock" came in 1970, then Blue in 1971. Court and Spark (1974), home to "Help Me" and "Free Man in Paris", became her best seller, and she worked with Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny and Charles Mingus. Her last album of original songs appeared in 2007. After a brain aneurysm in 2015 she returned to public appearances in 2021, and played an unannounced set at Newport Folk Festival in June 2022.