In a 1963 article in the Calgary Albertan, journalist Peter Mathews made a prediction about a 20-year-old artist named Joni Anderson.

The profile, titled Folk Singer: Two-Career Girl, was published with a picture of the singer sitting on a stool with her ukulele, grinning widely and sporting a fashionable-for-its-day 1960s Mary Tyler Moore hairdo. She is described by Mathews as "attractive, unattached and blessed with two talents," a reference to both her success performing at Calgary's Depression coffee house during its Sunday night hootenannies and as a fledgling art student in her first year at the Alberta College of Art. According to the article, she had become an "overnight favourite" at the Depression. The dilemma was that she was also being encouraged by her art instructor to give up music and make visual art her future.

"Whatever she decides, you have not heard the last of her," Mathews wrote.

This was true, of course. But not everyone who watched young Joni Anderson croon traditional folk music at the basement coffee house in downtown Calgary was as enamoured. Even for those who were impressed, it's probably safe to assume they could not have foreseen the journey she would take as Joni Mitchell, becoming one of the most celebrated artists of her generation.

The Albertan, which was the predecessor of the Calgary Sun, had published another article a few months earlier about the Depression, which occupied the basement of a building near 12th Avenue and 1st Street S.W. It was created by "bearded Torontonian" and folk impresario John Uren in 1963 during a folk-singing revival that was "sweeping the country." According to an article written a month later in the Royal Reflector, the club was closed on Mondays, held chess night on Tuesdays and offered a "surprise night" where "anything could happen" on Wednesdays. Thursday was poetry night and folk music was played on Fridays and Saturdays.

Sunday was reserved for what would now be considered an open-mic night for locals. At the time, these hootenannies were hosted by the Irish Rovers, the now-legendary act led by Irish-born singer-songwriter Will Millar.

"All the folkies came through in those days," says Millar, who now lives on Vancouver Island. "Everybody dropped in, (including) Gordon Lightfoot. Joni Mitchell was just a young girl at that time. Every Sunday night we would run a hootenanny and people could put their name on the list and they would get up on stage and do their thing. I remember she had a baritone ukulele. That's what she played in those days."

He remembers her performing Sloop John B., an old Bahamian folk song later made famous by the Beach Boys when it was recorded for their 1966 classic Pet Sounds album. Apparently, she sang it with a lisp.

"We said, 'Oh Christ, this bird is singing again?' " Millar says with a laugh.

So, no, Millar did not see future greatness in Joni Anderson, at least not at that point.

"Not a bit," he says. "It would have blown me down if you had told me at the time she was going to become a superstar in the world of music and writing and all that. I would have been absolutely astounded. You never knew in those heady '60s days what was going to happen."