"Joni Mitchell's songs are the product of her fascination with changes of heart, changes of mind, changes of season and changes of self."

And that's how Ellen Sander, record reviewer of the New York Times, starts a summary of Miss Mitchell's album, "Song to a Seagull", recorded for Reprise.

Miss Mitchell, a native of Saskatoon whose parents still live here, finds acceptance of her folk singing and her equally-qualified talents as a composer are growing in all corners of North America.

The New York Times review makes its point:

"Joni Mitchell writes and sings of the people and places she's been, from the windy Saskatchewan prairies where she was raised to the seaside which entrances her and to the big cities. Her lyrics are poetic portraits, artistically detailed and honest.. Her melodies are exotic, taking unusual turns in time and tone. She takes the listeners on a wistful journey in her quest for honesty, in her search for human values."

"The songs about herself are songs for today's independent young woman and the peculiar problems she faces. I Had a King, is a sad, backward glance at the artist's broken marriage, without bitterness or self-reproach. Cactus Tree speaks of today's young divorcee on the rebound "so busy being free."

"It would be good to be able to say that "Song to a Seagull" is as successful an album as Joni Mitchell is a performer and composer. But the engineering is uneven, her voice sometimes sounds shaky. The songs, accompanied only by Miss Mitchell's guitar, beg for adornment and their sequence works to decided disadvantage of the material. The effect is monotony, albeit a gentle monotony. Any one of these frailties would ruin an album of a lesser talent, but "Song to a Seagull" offers rewards in spite of itself."

Another singer with a Saskatchewan background, Jeanne McDonald, a native of Blaine Lake, has completed a four-week stint as an entertainer of the troops in Vietnam and she is now moving into the Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas, for four weeks... The Bessborough's discotheque, launched last Friday night, was such a roaring success that the program will be extended to Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week and every week if the response keeps up...the young set, who must be 21 and over, move into the hotel's coffee shop after 9, can listen to the rock sound of The Kaleidoscope and avail themselves of food and refreshments...

The Paramount theatre has come up with a real catch: Franco Zeffirelli's version of Romeo and Juliet, which has two gifted English teen-agers, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, cast as fated lovers...it's a production that is definitely geared towards the young and has won countless raves.