As luck would have it, three very attractive girls have been displaying their singing wares in the vicinity during the past week, and between them they have managed to put to rest any hint that Ottawa might still be an entertainment desert.

And they were doing it in highly individual ways.

Down at the Le Hibou coffee house on Sussex Street, there was the pure tone and folk-singing flavoring of Joni Mitchell; over in Hull, a shimmering redhead named Betty Fellows tiptoed suggestively through a well-chosen repertoire of standard tunes at Le Diplomate; and in the Executive Penthouse of the Hotel Duvernay, the cool charm of Mary Frances was very much in evidence as she elegantly tossed off a combination of blues, ballads and bright show tunes.

Miss Mitchell is a rarity, even among that group of popular folk-singing females who accompany themselves on the guitar as they deliver numbers of their own devising.

Not only is she visually striking, with her arresting bone structure, long blonde hair and flashing smile, but she has a warm and appealing personality to go with it.

The voice itself is remarkably true, a clear soprano that can lower itself into a rich lower range whenever the mood calls for it.

However her principal asset is the wealth of feeling she can bring to a song, which with the clarity of her lyric expression, makes each piece particularly meaningful. In her case, too, it is important to grasp the words, for Miss Mitchell, although she writes about simple things, does so in an almost poetic way.

The Circle Game, to take one example, may, as it is pointed out in the introduction, have been written as a song for "people over 20", but the imaginative phrasing and evocation of images that she has put into it, give it a far more touching and universal application.

There is a touch of poignancy to most of her compositions, in fact, more pronounced at certain times than others (and very smoothly injected into something like I Don’t Know Where I Stand), but Miss Mitchell is not without a sense of humor as well. Her Doctor Junk The Dentist Man proved that very handily.

At any rate, she's a most talented young lady, and for anyone who has yet to acquire a taste for what might be called "contemporary music", Joni Mitchell provides a perfect introduction.