THREE OAKS — The idea came the way the best ones often do.

The nearly dozen women singer-songwriters who are part of an informal New York City-based musical posse called Chicks With Dip convened for their monthly swap of road tales, wine and songs when the conversation turned to Joni Mitchell.

"It was the summer of 2011 and the 40th anniversary of her masterpiece BLUE album," says Carolann Solebello, the longtime Chick perhaps best known for her stint in Americana trio Red Molly. "We were discussing what her songwriting has meant to each of us and we also had been talking about finding a way to perform something together. That's when Honor Finnegan said we should do a Joni Mitchell tribute. From there it was decided on a whim that we would perform every song on that album. It went from idea to reality pretty quickly."

In January 2012, Chicks With Dip performed Mitchell's seminal album from top-to-bottom as a fundraiser for the Christopher Street Coffeehouse at St. John's Lutheran Church in New York's West Village. What the ensemble thought would be a one-time gig has now become a cast album, "Joni Mitchell's BLUE: A 40th Anniversary Celebration," produced by Jay Mafale at his Hudson Valley, N.Y., studio, and an ongoing tour, including Friday's 7 p.m. appearance at The Acorn Theater, 107 Generations Dr., Three Oaks. Tickets are $20 each. For more, call (269) 756-3879 or log on to www.acorntheater.com.

"It was just going to be one concert so everyone kind of picked the song they wanted to do," Solebello says. "What we didn't know is that there were a lot of people in the audience who booked for other venues and we booked a whole lot of shows right there that night. We kind of wanted to preserve the moment so we did a quality recording and the project has just been rolling on for two years now."

As has been widely reported, Mitchell wrote the bulk of BLUE, her fourth album, following a breakup with long­time boyfriend Graham Nash and the start of an intense relationship with James Taylor. When Taylor broke it off, Mitchell retreated to the studio to record the album, which explores relationships from infatuation to insecurity. It has long been lauded for its raw, honest emotion in both Mitchell's vocals and songwriting.

"Besides the beauty of the melodies and the beauty in the way Joni sings these songs, there's a gut-wrenching quality about all of them," Solebello says. "It was so open and so vulnerable. She had her heart broken and she just laid it all out there on the page in very raw, emotional terms and that really hadn't been done before. I think she surprised a lot of people. There's something about the way her lyrics and melodies go together that touches something really, really deep in people. You listen and you put yourself in that place."

The first half of Friday's concert will feature all 10 tracks from BLUE in order. Finnegan, a Chicago native with two solo CDs to her credit, opens the show with All I Want. Allison Tartalia, whose latest solo CD SWEET AND VICIOUS, includes the single Ran, performs My Old Man. Little Green, the third track on the album, is performed by pop singersongwriter Elisa Peimer. New Jersey-based singersongwriter Sharon Goldman, who recently released SILENT LESSONS, lends her voice to Carey. Solebello, whose latest solo effort, STEEL AND SALT, was released last August, takes on the title track. Catherine Miles, one half of the folk-pop duo The YaYas, performs both California for the absent Victoria Lavington and the final track, The Last Time I Saw Richard.

Allison Scola, who received an honorable mention award in the 2009 Billboard Magazine World Song Competition for My Naked Heart, steps in for the absent Anna Dagmar Johnson on This Flight Tonight. Meg Braun, an Ohio native who cowrote Drunkard's Daughter with neo-traditional singer-songwriter Diana Jones, covers River. And Karyn Oliver, whose current CD is MAGDALENE, performs A Case of You.

Chicks With Dip also features Cheryl Prashker on drums.

"I thought it was just me, but this album has affected several generations of listeners in a deep, deep way," Solebello says. "We're the second generation of musicians who have benefitted from Joni's trailblazing. I have been in love with this record for 20 years now. I was happy to sing any song on the record. I love them all."

The second half of the concert will feature each Chick performing original songs inspired by Mitchell.

"We kind of think of it as a theater piece almost," Solebello says. "We all are writers but we all owe something to Joni. We write what we do because of Joni or perhaps our influences were influenced by Joni.

"She has this stellar voice that grabbed people right off the bat, but her lyrics are literary. It was unexpected. She gives you turns of poetry that was uncommon at the time. And then later, she became known as an instrumentalist. She's a fantastic guitar player. Much has been said about her open-tuning, but it just opened up a whole new sonic palette. ... It's really meant as a tip of the hat."