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Joni Mitchell
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Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, to Bill Anderson and Myrtle Anderson (née McKee). Her mother was a teacher, and her father an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. During the war years, she moved with her parents to a number of bases in western Canada. After the war, her father began working as a grocer, and his work took the family to Saskatchewan to the towns of Maidstone and North Battleford. When she was eleven years old, the family settled in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which Mitchell considers her hometown.
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Joni Mitchell's new release Taming the Tiger, her first in four years, is in some ways, a comeback record for the veteran singer-songwriter. Prior to making the album, she had decided to get out of the music business, and was only inspired to press on only after finding an interesting new instrument to play and discovering after a live performance that her fans had not deserted her after all, in an industry where experienced performers are cast aside for the latest disposable trend followers. She channels some of that contempt for the commercial music business into the songs, and true to form, weaves personal experiences into lyrics that can have wider implications. As she says in a recent interview about this album, "All my records are cathartic." Musically, Taming the Tiger is one of her more interesting recordings. She uses her new guitar synthesizer instrument to create arrangements that range from the stark, brooding quality of her 1976 album Hejira to the more jazzy to near-ochestral arrangements vaguely reminiscent even of art rock.
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One of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century, Joni Mitchell has made music, ranging from folk to pop-rock to jazz, for more than three decades. The Canadian-born icon has 5 Grammys and is in the Rock and Roll and Canadian Songwriters Halls of Fame. Mitchell stopped recording in '02 to focus on her painting and poetry. Realizing that she wasn't ready to retire, she's back, with "Shine"—inspired by the Iraq war. She ... has a mixed-media art exhibit in New York and is working on a ballet based on her music.
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Joni Mitchell became a pop legend at least 20 years ago—the Greatest Female Singer-Songwriter of the Century, the Female Dylan, the Folkie So Hip That She Became a Jazz Musician. It’s all true, and it’s all puffery. More recently, in 1997, Mitchell was publicly reunited with the daughter she gave up for adoption at 20—an event followed quickly by her last album of new songs, 1998’s Tame the Tiger. Then, in 2002, Joni announced her retirement from music, an art she no longer loved, referring to the music industry as a “cesspool”.
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Joni Mitchell strummed her way out of Canada and into the L.A. music scene in the late '60s. Produced by David Crosby, her sparse debut album reveals a striking, if somewhat fragile, folksinger in the accepted acoustic mode. However, Mitchell's heart-piercing cold-water vocals and restless, self-questioning persona separate her from the competition. Judy Collins scored a Top 10 hit with Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" in 1968; Joni's more contemplative version sets the older-and-wiser tone of Clouds, her much-improved second album. Ladies of the Canyon solidifies those songwriting advances.
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In the months prior to the passing of legendary {\jazz} bassist {$Charles Mingus}, {$Joni Mitchell} had been personally summoned by the {\bop} pioneer to collaborate on a musical version of {$T.S. Eliot}'s {-Four Quartets}. The project would entail {$Mitchell} to condense the text for {$Mingus} to score instrumentally. He planned on utilizing a full orchestra, as well as the more traditional guitar and bass. They would accompany {$Mitchell}'s vocals and the narration of selected portions of the text. After a few weeks of consideration, {$Mitchell}'s reaction was that "[she]'d rather condense the bible."
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Joni Mitchell