A Woman of Heart and Mind

Toronto Star
July 3, 1976

In the middle of the lives of Joni Mitchell

Thirteen years ago when she was 19, she left the Alberta Prairie, following the voices of her sweet mysteries east to Toronto. And there in the thriving musical subculture of Yorkville, Joni Mitchell found room to grow alongside better-known performers Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Malka and Loso.

Today, throughout the world, she is known and respected for her ability as a composer and performer. Time magazine recently labeled her "rock 'n' roll's leading lady…a creative force of unrivalled stature in the mercurial world of rock." And now she is celebrated in a new photo-book, Joni Mitchell, by Leonore Fleischer, published by Gage - a comprehensive history in pictures of her career, from which the photographs on these pages have been taken.

Certainly in '64, Mitchell couldn't predict her future. She only knew that music was her first love. In 1965, while singing at the Penny Farthing, a local club, she met Detroit performer Chuck Mitchell. They married that June and worked the Eastern folk circuit as a duo. She was by then writing all the time - and writing well.

But as she began to succeed, the marriage failed. "She knew she was beginning to happen and needed out," says her husband. More to the point, she says, "I guess the thing that bust it was when I started making more money. That hurt a lot." In '66, the Mitchells split up and Joni headed for New York.

"I always kept my goals very short," she says. "I had no idea that I would be this successful., especially since I came to folk music when it was already dying."

In New York she wrote prolifically, wandering the streets, talking to strangers for inspiration. It wasn't until she moved to California, however, that she laid down the tracks for Song to a Seagull, first of eight successful albums to date.

The key year was 1969 - Mitchell played festivals and toured the U.S. with Crosby, Stills and Nash, then the best band in the country. She also fell in love with band member Graham Nash, a liaison responsible for some of her finest, if also most bittersweet, songs. The relationship didn't last, but it was painstakingly analyzed in songs on several albums.

That year she spent close to 40 weeks on the road. A new celebrity, she was the object of much personal scrutiny - she was exhausted, she was tired of questions about her loves. In early 1970, the self-described "woman of heart and mind" called it quits. "I felt I never really wanted to play in front of people again. I felt like what I was writing was too personal to be applauded for."

For a year she traveled, took stock of her success and wrote. Blue, For the Roses and Court and Spark, probably her most popular albums, were released after that temporary retirement, in a period of three years.

Since then, she has toured extensively, released a double album of concert material, Miles of Aisles, and most recently The Hissing of Summer Lawns.

Her material now is well away from its original folk influences, with close ties to jazz and also to rock 'n' roll and ethnic music. Still the same themes arise, from an older point of view now - relationships gone sour, loneliness sprung from success, the responsibility of art. "The most important thing," says Mitchell now, "is to write in your own blood. I bare intimate feelings because people should know how other people feel."