Her music has flowed from folk to rock to jazz and includes inventive lyrics and distinctive stylings, and tomorrow Joni Mitchell releases a compilation, "Beginning of Survival," of some of her socially conscious music from the 1980s and '90s. An artist as well as a musician, this self-portrait is one of many that have graced her album covers.

"Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you've got til it's gone,
They paved paradise,
And put up a parking lot."
-- "Big Yellow Taxi" from "Ladies of the Canyon," 1970

From very early in her career, Joni Mitchell followed her artistic instincts. When her third album, "Ladies of the Canyon," sold 500,000 copies and produced three hit singles, she postponed touring in order to write and paint. And for almost 40 years, Ms. Mitchell, 60, has continued to follow her distinctive muse, staying beyond simple classifications of folk or rock or jazz. Which is one of the reasons that so many people love her.

"We love our loving,
But not like we love our freedom."
-- "Help Me," from "Court and Spark," 1974

Tomorrow, Ms. Mitchell will release a new album, "Beginning of Survival," featuring socially conscious songs from the 1980s and '90s, the second part of her career. She sees the record as, "Commentaries on the world in which we live." The tracks include less familiar material such as "Dog Eat Dog," which rails against the corrupting power of money, and "Tax Free," an acerbic sermon on televangelism with spoken words by the late actor Rod Steiger.

But there's an additional element to this record. Ms. Mitchell has included images of some of her latest paintings. Ms. Mitchell wants this latest CD to be "more than just a disc with a plastic box."

"Yesterday a child came out to wonder,
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar,
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder,
And tearful at the falling of a star."
-- "The Circle Game," from "Ladies of the Canyon"

"Joni Mitchell has done something different on every one of her albums," says Ken Richards of New Bedford, who is also a musician and an artist. "She's always kept me interested. She's remained cutting edge. She's one of the most intelligent songwriters ever."

"Lyrically, she's up there with Bob Dylan," says Tom Sexton of Marion. "Musically she has done things that no one can compare to. She's been flexible enough to do a lot of different styles.

"She's iconoclastic -- she's one of those people who'll do exactly what she wants."

"And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden." --
"Woodstock," from "Ladies of the Canyon"

Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson in Alberta, Canada, in 1943. She learned to play piano as a child, progressing to ukulele as a teen. She attended one year of art school in Calgary, moved to Toronto and began performing on guitar in 1964.

The first song she wrote, "Day After Day," was released in 1966. Her first real break was a short performance at the Newport Folk Festival in the same year. In 1967, she moved to New York City and began playing up and down the East Coast. At a club in Florida, she met and became involved with ex-Byrds member David Crosby, who helped her get recorded.

Ms. Mitchell's self-titled first album was released in 1968, and she began playing to larger audiences as a major folk artist. In December of that year, her song "Both Sides, Now" was a Top 10 hit for her idol Judy Collins. She released the album "Clouds" in 1969 and toured with Crosby, Stills and Nash in 1971.

At one performance, she walked off stage due to a large inattentive audience, preferring to play clubs and smaller venues instead.

"Rows and flows of angel hair,
And ice cream castles in the air."
-- "Both Sides, Now," from "Clouds," 1969

Singer Marcelle Gauvin of Westport teaches voice at UMass Dartmouth.

"I love the way she's aged," Ms. Gauvin says. "I love how the color of her voice has taken on more character. Her sound and message have deepened.

"When you put in a Joni Mitchell CD, you know it's Joni Mitchell. She's very distinct.

"She's truly an artist."

Ms. Gauvin connects with Joni Mitchell because she "has no boundaries between her artforms. She's both a visual and performing artist. She works from images and concepts. She approaches her music differently than most artists. She gets intuition and insight by working from images."

"Oh you are in my blood like holy wine,
You taste so bitter and so sweet,
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling,
And I would still be on my feet."
-- "Case of You," from "Blue," 1971

"She's done it all," says folk artist Art Tebbetts of New Bedford. "She broke ground with all sorts of different tunings, creating these weird little patterns."

Mr. Tebbetts points out how Ms. Mitchell evolved from being a solo folk performer and eventually began playing jazz with Tom Scott and the L.A. Express in the mid-1970s. She released a popular live album with the band Miles of Aisles.

"Every album of hers has been a landmark," Mr. Tebbetts says. "And every other one has been a classic." M

"Sitting in a park in Paris, France,
Reading the news and it sure looks bad,
They won't give peace a chance.
That was just a dream some of us had."
-- "California," from "Blue"

"Joni Mitchell was one of the people who started the socially conscious genre," says Jessica Ellis, a folk DJ on WSMU-FM.

"She's up there with Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. She's stood the test of time because what she has to say is important. When you set something to music, people will listen a little closer. She gets her message across well."