Joni Mitchell

1. Joni Mitchell Born 1943

2. A Brief Introduction • Canadian Singer/Songwriter/Painter • Career spans from the 1960’s until today • On the cover of Time Magazine in 1974 • In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame • Awarded Best Album in the 1994 Grammy Awards Show.

3. Early Life • Mitchell was born in Alberta, Canada. Her mother was a teacher. Her father was a Royal Canadian Air Force flight lieutenant. During the war years, she moved with her parents to various bases in western Canada. After the war, her father began working as a grocer. She later sang about her small-town upbringing in "Song for Sharon". • As a child Mitchell seemed athletic rather than academic. • At age eight, Mitchell contracted polio in an epidemic, and was hospitalised for weeks. No longer athletic, she turned her thoughts to her creative talent, and considered a singing or dancing career for the first time.

4. Continued • By age nine, she was a smoker; she denies claims that smoking has affected her voice. • She was not a strong student, and was more drawn to art. One of her teachers did manage to make an impact on her, encouraging her to write poetry, and her first album includes a dedication to him. • In twelfth grade, she flunked out and hung out downtown with a rowdy set until deciding that she was getting too close to the criminal world.

5. Continued • Mitchell wanted to play the guitar but her mother disapproved of its associations, she settled initially for the ukulele. Eventually she taught herself guitar from a Pete Seeger songbook, but the polio had affected her fingers, and she had to devise dozens of different finger patterns and tunings of her own. • Mitchell started singing with her friends at bonfires. Her first paid performance was on October 31, 1962, at a Saskatoon club that featured folk and jazz performers.

6. Continued • But art was still her chief passion at this stage, and after she went back and finished high school at Aden Bowman Collegiate in Saskatoon,, she took art classes at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary. • She had kept gigging as a folk musician on weekends, playing at her college and at a local hotel. Now she took a $15-a-week job in a Calgary coffeehouse. • In 1964 at the age of 20, she told her mother that she intended to be a folk singer in Toronto, and she left western Canada for the first time in her life, heading east for Ontario. On the three-day train ride there, Mitchell wrote her first song, called "Day After Day".

7. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets of Toronto. In 1965, she moved to the United States and began touring. How she got started continued

8. Settling in Southern California, Mitchell, with popular songs like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock", helped define an era and a generation. Her 1971 recording Blue was rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" Her Legacy

9. She explored and performed many different genres of music. She loved jazz and melded it with rock and roll, R&B, and classical music. Later in her career she turned again toward pop, embraced electronic music, and engaged in political protest music. She did it all!

10. A blunt critic of the music industry, she quit touring and released her 17th, and reportedly last, album of original songs in 2007.

11. What others say… • Mitchell has deeply influenced fellow musicians in a diverse range of genres, and her work is highly respected by critics. It has been said that, when the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the 1900s. Rolling Stone called her "one of the greatest songwriters ever.” Her lyrics are poetic and address social and environmental ideals alongside her personal feelings of romantic longing, confusion, disillusion, and joy.

12. Influence • Mitchell's approach to music struck a chord with many female listeners. In an era dominated by the stereotypical male rock star, she presented herself as multidimensional and conflicted allowing her to build a powerful identification among her female fans. • Mitchell asserted her desire for artistic control throughout her career, and still holds the publishing rights for her music.

13. Influence Continued • She rose to popularity at a time when women were still primarily singers of other people's songs and who were marketed almost exclusively on their sex appeal. Though Mitchell undeniably had the latter, it was not what made people buy her records or love her songs. • Mitchell's work has had an influence on many other artists. Artists such as Taylor Swift and Madonna have cited Mitchell as the first female artist that really spoke to them as kids.

14. Covers • Several artists have had success covering Mitchell's songs. • Pop group Neighborhood in 1970 and Amy Grant in 1995 scored hits with covers of "Big Yellow Taxi", the third-most covered song in Mitchell's repertoire (with over 300 covers). A more recent release of this song was by Counting Crows in 2002. Janet Jackson used a sample of the chorus of "Big Yellow Taxi" as the centerpiece of her 1997 hit single "Got 'Til It's Gone", which also features rapper Q-Tip saying "Joni Mitchell never lies". • Rap artists Kanye West and Dr. Dre have also sampled Mitchell's vocals in their music.

15. Official Site • You can visit her official website for more information. It has information about all 28 of her albums and has they lyrics of all her songs. There are also lots of cool pictures and samples of her painting. • http://jonimitchell.com/

16. Brain Aneurysm • On March 31, 2015, Mitchell was found unconscious in her Los Angeles home. She regained consciousness in an ambulance on her way to hospital, but was taken to intensive care for tests. • On 28 April 2015 a statement was made through JoniMitchell.com: "Contrary to rumors circulating on the Internet today, Joni is not in a coma. Joni is still in the hospital – but she comprehends, she's alert, and she has her full senses. A full recovery is expected. T • On May 29, 2015, it was confirmed that Mitchell had suffered a brain aneurysm and that while speech was difficult, Mitchell had been communicating with others. Later a press release stated that "details that have emerged in the past few days are mostly speculative. The truth is that Joni is speaking, and she's speaking well. She is not walking yet..."

17. Big Yellow Taxi (1970) • Listen to song for meaning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20 • read the lyrics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmdbYSgGmXE

18. Big Yellow Taxi cont. • This song talks a lot about the environment and shows how concerned she was with environmental issues. • If this is the first time hearing her you will notice her voice. She has a 3 octive range (very rare)

19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvtJPs8IDgU Here is one of the newer versions. Janet Jackson & Q-Tip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCi_abqsSR8 Counting Crows

20. Little Green • Joni Mitchell had a child that she gave up for adoption and with whom she was reunited with in 1997. • Her song Little Green has been said to be about this.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvhdKywbcJ0 • Her talking about it. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7TgqBYByUc

21. Joni and her Daughter

22. Paintings • "I'm a painter first, and a musician second..."  - September 8, 1998 • "I have always thought of myself as a painter derailed by circumstance."  - June 2000 • Here is her talking about her painting (watch the first 10 minutes) • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEJuiZN3jI8

23. Some other songs • California https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm39YkGrHp8 • Both Sides Now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCnf46boC3I&list=PL_jrKrBTmTmCGTsebdJCxGgjt2gL3XAhA • River https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAK9Pj5-QXY&list=PL_jrKrBTmTmCGTsebdJCxGgjt2gL3XAhA

24. Assessment • Take out a piece of paper and write three things that your learned about Joni Mitchell . Please talk about what songs you liked best and why she should be seen as a Canadian hero.