A Long Climb for Joni

by John David Kalodner
Philadelphia Bulletin
January 27, 1974

She Even Designs Her Albums
'2d Fret' to Academy...

Joni Mitchell did not become a superstar overnight. Her climb was slow and steady, through the ranks of the thousands of artists who have come and gone in contemporary music since she emerged on the coffee house scene about a decade ago.

A sensitive singer-songwriter who prefers remaining out of the public eye, Joni has it all - talent, beauty, and charm. That may be why she's reluctant to grant interviews, because after all the hard years of promoting herself and her music, she may feel that if music fans don't know her by now...

They do know her, of course, well enough to be buying up tickets to Joni Mitchell's Wednesday night concert at the Academy of Music, sponsored by Electric Factory Concerts.

"Joni doesn't want to talk to anyone," perspective interviewers are told today - unlike the more outgoing days when she first hit Philadelphia, she and her then-husband playing the now-defunct Second Fret coffee house in November, 1966. Chuck Mitchell tried to dwarf and dominate his wife professionally, but even then it was obvious which had the greater potential.

BORN ROBERTA Joan Anderson, in Alberta, Canada, a little more than 30 years ago, she first wanted to be a commercial artist, enrolling in the Alberta College of Art in Calgary. As a hobby, she played the ukelele, then expanded her talents to guitar, performing in small local coffee houses. Response was good, so she went to the Mariposa Folk Festival in Ontario - and never returned to Alberta.

Instead, she went to Toronto working in coffee houses, strengthening her concert talents and writing songs.

In Toronto, she met Chuck Mitchell, and they were married in June 1965, in Detroit, where they were performing.

Chuck and Joni took to the national coffeehouse circuit playing small clubs all over the country. "We were originally a duo, but our musical tastes were very different, so we decided to perform separately," she explained in one of her early interviews.

As early as the fall of 1966, the young artist was approached by several record companies. But it took them over a year to understand her music and potential, and sign her.

"The trend at the time was toward groups not single artists," she once explained. "And what single artists there were were pure folksingers. I really couldn't be classified as a folk singer, and they really did not know what to make of it."

WITHIN THE UNDERGROUND scene, Joni and her music had come to be known. And by the time she returned to the Second Fret in March 1967 (without Chuck as a partner or husband), her songs had been recorded by Tom Rush, Judy Collins, and Ian and Sylvia. And while the audiences at the spartan club were still small, magic was in the air when Joni played.

Finally a record company made a move. With foresight and faith, Warner Reprise's Andy Wickham "discovered" Joni Mitchell in a New York club, and signed her to record her first album, "Songs to a Seagull."

Her second album "Clouds" was released in June of 1969 to a public used to hearing Joni Mitchell songs, but not by Joni Mitchell. Judy Collins had hit with "Both Sides Now" and "Michael From Mountains", and Tom Rush was well known for "Urge for Going" and "Circle Game."

But by early 1970 and "Ladies of the Canyon", Joni Mitchell had built her own faithful audience, and when Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young recorded "Woodstock," most people knew she had written it.

Identified artistically and romantically with some of the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young crew, (she played Swarthmore College in1968 with David Crosby) Joni became part of the musical "in" set - the celebrities of pop music.

Entrenching her place as a brilliant artist with "Blue" in 1971, "For the Roses" in 1972, and her new album "Court and Spark," just issued, she has become one of the most highly respected and revered singer-songwriters of the day. Not only does she write all of the songs, sing all of the vocals, play the guitar and piano, and produce her albums, she also does the art work for their jackets.