Joni Mitchell, CC (born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7 1943) is a Canadian musician, songwriter, and painter.http://www.jonimitchell.com/biography/bio.cfm?id=230

Mitchell's singing began in small nightclubs and busking on the streets of Toronto and in her native Western Canada. She subsequently became associated with the burgeoning folk music scene of the mid-1960s in New York City. Mitchell achieved fame in the late 1960s and was considered a key part of the Southern California folk rock scene. Throughout the 1970s, she explored and combined the pop and jazz genres. Mitchell has amassed a body of work that is highly respected by both critics and fellow musicians.

Mitchell is also an accomplished visual artist. She has, through photography or painting, created the artwork for each of her albums and, in 2000, in an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail, described herself as a "painter derailed by circumstance". A blunt critic of the music industry, Mitchell had stopped recording over the last several years, focusing mainly on her visual art, but in 2007 released Shine, her first album of new songs in nine years.

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 a Royal Canadian Air Force airman. 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 11, the family settled in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which Mitchell considers her hometown.

At the age of nine, Mitchell contracted polio during a Canadian epidemic, but recovered after a stay in the hospital, during which she first became interested in singing. She was hospitalized during the long Canadian winter, and remembered:

"They said I might no[t] walk again, and that I would not be able to go home for Christmas. I wouldn't go for it. So I started to sing Christmas carols and I used to sing them real loud....The boy in the bed next to me, you know, used to complain. And I discovered I was a ham."

Mitchell also took up cigarette smoking at the same age, which may explain the unique texture to her voice.

She began taking piano lessons at age seven, and immediately felt the creative instinct to write her own music. Meanwhile, she excelled at art in school. In grade 7 her English teacher, Mr. Kratzman, told her: "If you can paint with a brush, you can paint with words." As a teenager, she taught herself guitar and ukulele and began performing at parties. This eventually led to busking and gigs playing in coffeehouses and other venues in Saskatoon. After finishing high school, she attended the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary for a year, but then left and returned to the coffeehouse scene.

As Mitchell prepared to leave her home in Saskatoon to relocate to Toronto, she became pregnant. Seeing no other alternatives, she gave her daughter, Kelly Dale Anderson (born February 19 1965), up for adoption. The experience remained private for most of her career, but she made allusions to it in several songs, most notably the song "Little Green" (from Blue), and, years later, the song "Chinese Cafe" from "Wild Things Run Fast" ("Your kids are coming up straight/My child's a stranger/I bore her/But I could not raise her"). Her daughter, renamed Kilauren Gibb, began a search for her as an adult, and the two were reunited in 1997.

Mitchell took her surname from a brief marriage to folksinger Chuck Mitchell in 1965. She performed frequently in coffeehouses and folk clubs and, by this time creating her own material, became well known for her unique songwriting and her innovative guitar style. Oscar Brand featured her several times on his CBC television program "Let's Sing Out" in 1965 and 1966, broadening her exposure. Personal and often self-consciously poetic, her songs were strengthened by her extraordinarily wide-ranging voice (with a range in pitch at one time covering over four octaves ) and her striking guitar technique, which makes extensive use of alternative tunings.

While she was playing one night in "The Gaslight South", a club in Florida, David Crosby walked in and was immediately struck by her ability and her appeal as an artist. He took her back to Los Angeles, where he set about introducing her and her music to his friends.

Much of her initial acclaim was as a result of other artists covering her songs. Her first songwriting credit to hit the charts, "Urge for Going," was a success for country singer George Hamilton IV and for folk singer Tom Rush; it also appeared many years later as a B-side by the Scottish band Travis. Irish singer Luka Bloom also recorded the song to great effect, as has classical violinist Nigel Kennedy with a gentle, lilting instrumental version. Her good friend Dave Van Ronk recorded a version in 1970 on Van Ronk. Mitchell's own 1967 recording of the song was released on the flip side of the 1972 single "You Turn Me On I'm A Radio", but was not released on an album until the Hits compilation in 1996. In any version, "Urge for Going" was an audacious piece of songwriting, painting an extremely evocative picture of the oncoming of dread winter. Not surprisingly for someone from the Canadian prairies, Mitchell had a finely developed sense for the passings of seasons and comings of age, themes that would appear on her "The Circle Game", which Tom Rush recorded in 1968.

Mitchell's songwriting reached its highest visibility when Judy Collins had a top-ten hit in early 1968 with "Both Sides Now". British folk rock group Fairport Convention included "Chelsea Morning" and "I Don't Know Where I Stand" on their debut album, recorded in late 1967, and the otherwise unreleased "Eastern Rain" on their second album the following year.

The songs on Mitchell's first two solo albums, Song to a Seagull (1968) and Clouds (1969), feature nothing but Joni and her acoustic guitar, and were perhaps typical of the emerging singer-songwriter movement of the time and concurrent with such other notable efforts as Gordon Lightfoot's Did She Mention My Name. Song to a Seagull includes not only Joni's artwork on the cover but a classic portrait of her in her mid-twenties that was made into a poster, and much like it, the album is one her most innocent and beautiful collections of material. Notable are the dynamic sound of "Night in the City," the album's most commercial track, the sadly regretful "I Had a King," concerning the disintegration of her first marriage to Chuck Mitchell (I had a king dressed in drip dry and paisley, Lately he's taken to saying I'm crazy and blind, He lives in another time, Ladies in gingham still blush while he sings them of wars and wine, But I in my leather and lace, I can never become that kind), the evocative and poetic "Michael From Mountains," which gives hope to nature boys everywhere, the beautiful singing in "Marcie," the desire for complete freedom in the title track "Song to a Seagull," and an ethereal, utopian vision of the simple life close to the land in "Sisotowbell Lane" (Sisotowbell Lane, Go to the city you'll come back again, To wade through the grain, You always do, Yes we always do/Come back to the stars, Sweet well water and pickling jars, We'll lend you the car, We always do, Yes sometimes we do). The album concludes with "Cactus Tree," a litany of some of the men who have loved Joni Mitchell, in which she warns them and others not to hem her in (She will love them when she sees them, They will lose her if they follow, And she only means to please them, And her heart is full and hollow, Like a cactus tree, While she's so busy bein' free). Clouds, featuring one of her first self-portraits on the cover, is a more haunting collection of songs than her first and sounds a sadder, somewhat lonlier note, despite the upbeat and optimistic mood of awakening to a beautiful day in "Chelsea Morning." "Tin Angel" is a well-written love song presented with great emotion, but is eclipsed by the beautiful "I Don't Know Where I Stand," about the tentative and uncertain first days of falling in love. In it is some of Joni's most beautiful and emotive singing. A somewhat similar sound, but with the addition of overdubbed harmonies, is found on the more recognized "Song to Aging Children Come." Following "The Fiddle and the Drum," an acapella appeal to America lamenting its involvement in Vietnam, the melancholy album concludes with one of Mitchell's most recognized songwriting efforts, "Both Sides Now," which when covered by Judy Collins was a significant milestone in Joni's rise to popularity.

Mitchell moved to California in late 1967. Her third album, Ladies of the Canyon (1970), is infused with the spirit of the early seventies in Southern California when Joni and Graham Nash lived together in Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. Nash memorialized the period in the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song "Our House" (Our house is a very very very fine house, With two cats in the yard, Life used to be so hard, Now everything is easy cuz of you). Of immediate note on Ladies of the Canyon is Joni's unusual, heartfelt piano playing, used on about half the songs, while her acoustic guitar still dominates the rest. Also evident is the participation by other musicians, at least to a minor degree, the clarinet on "For Free," the flute and sax elsewhere. The title track, "Ladies of the Canyon," may be the most memorable song, but "Morning Morgantown," is an upbeat effort that seems to indicate how happy she was at that point in her life. Included is her first mainstream hit, "Big Yellow Taxi", "The Arrangement," expressing the determination of 'the other woman' to free a married man from the shackles of what she thinks is an unhappy union, and the so-called 'anthem for a generation,' "Woodstock", made popular by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Mitchell wrote the song after missing the Woodstock music festival. She'd cancelled her intended appearance there on the advice of her manager for fear that she'd miss a scheduled appearance on The Dick Cavett Show and has since called that career move one of the biggest regrets of her life. The album concludes with a poignant track, "The Circle Game," which like "Where Are You Going? (the Kodak commercial) or "Sunrise, Sunset" (from "Fiddler on the Roof") considers the cycles of our lives from birth until death.

Mitchell again alternated use of acoustic guitar and piano on Blue (1971), which some consider the best of her first five albums. A more accurate appraisal might characterize it as a culmination of her inspired early work, with depressed assessments of the world around her serving as counterpoint to exuberant expressions of romantic love. Mitchell later remarked, "At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong." The album featured increasing use of Appalachian dulcimer on "Carey" , "California", "All I Want", and the beautifully sung "A Case of You. "Little Green" is a touching lament about having to give up her daughter for adoption when Joni was under twenty, prior to leaving Canada and heading south to America, as did the child's father before her (Born with the moon in Cancer, Choose her a name she will answer to, Call her green and the winters cannot fade her, Call her green for the children who have made her, Little green, be a gypsy dancer). Mother and daughter were reunited in the nineties and Joni explained in an interview with NPR in October of 2004 that with the renewed relationship, she no longer felt the need or even the urge to make music.

"River" found Joni in warmer climes at Christmastime, probably L.A., where she may have found the commercialized celebration somehow disappointing and her way of life, in general, a "crazy scene." Her thoughts, perhaps, turned to her formative years back home ("I wish I had a river / I could skate away on"). The song has been covered by numerous artists, including Aimee Mann, Indigo Girls, Robert Downey Jr., Allison Crowe, Sarah McLachlan, Michael Ball, Dianne Reeves, Rachael Yamagata, James Taylor, and a duet by Madeleine Peyroux and k.d. lang.

Other songs of note on the album are "My Old Man" (We don't need no piece of paper From the city hall, Keeping us tied and true, No, my old man, Keeping away my lonesome blues), and "The Last Time I Saw Richard," a cynical but ultimately hopeful assessment of what happens to sentimental romantics in this dog eat dog world (I'm gonna blow this damn candle out, I don't want nobody comin' over to my table, I got nothing to talk to anybody about, All good dreamers pass this way someday, Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes, dark cafes, Only a dark cacoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away, Only a phase, these dark cafe days.)

Joni's next album was For the Roses (1972), which included the country-influenced hit single "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio." From an artistic standpoint, however, For the Roses is certainly one of her best early efforts, heralding the emerging transition in her music to more complex and interesting arrangements. She seemed to be reaching for a fuller, more collaborative sound by giving other accomplished musicians a greater role as backup while reflecting upon her life and personality in a somewhat clearer and more mature fashion. Tracks of particular note are the lilting "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire," the poignant "Lesson in Survival," which expressed her longing for greater privacy (I need more quiet times, By a river flowing, You and me, Deep kisses and the sun going down), her sense of isolation (Your friends protect you, Scrutinize me, I get so damn timid, Not at all the spirit that's inside of me, Oh baby I can't seem to make it with you socially, There's this reef around me), and her love for nature (I'm looking way out at the ocean, Love to see that green water in motion). Also included in the collection is the moving and poetic "Let the Wind Carry Me," in which Joni contrasts thoughts of a more stable, conventional life with her overpowering need to live with minimal constraints upon her freedom (I get that strong longing and I wanna settle down and raise a child up with somebody, But it passes like the summer, I'm a wild seed again, Let the wind carry me). "Electricity," a lovely melody with interesting and wonderfully unpretentious lyrics, is reminiscent of "Sisotowbell Lane" from Song to a Seagull in that it extolls the simplicity and serenity of the quiet country life (Well, I'm learning, It's peaceful, With a good dog and some trees, Out of touch with the breakdown Of this century, They're not going to fix it up Too easy) while the impressive and beautifully sung "Woman of Heart and Mind," in which she gently chides her lover, may be the album's centerpiece. It concludes with "Judgement of the Moon and the Stars," a powerful call to action by individuals rather than pressure groups (You've got to shake your fist at lightning now, You've got to roar like a forest fire, You've got to spread your light like blazes, All across the sky, They're going to aim the hoses on you, Show 'em you won't expire, Not 'til you burn up every passion, Not even when you die). All in all, For the Roses is a significant artistic achievment and edges up on a tour de force, which sadly has been overlooked and underrated by many of those who attempt to review Joni Mitchell's long and distinguished career from a commercial standpoint, only, because that's all they really understand. Included on the green cover is a photo of her sitting on the verdant bank of a river wearing boots and a green velour outfit, while inside the back of the jacket is a naked photo where she is standing on the beach, looking out to sea. While "defenders of the faith" thought this ill-advised and a tad scandalous, it was in keeping with the naturalistic, earth-loving sentiments of the era and the values of a younger, counterculture crowd who formed the bulk of her fan base. They loved it.

Mitchell's next album, Court and Spark (1974), was her most commercially successful, critically acclaimed, and widely popular collection of songs. A new set of mainstream fans who up to that point had not been much impressed with her music or who'd never even heard of her began singing her praises and calling her their own. This unexpected phenomenon had the effect of alienating the core of her fan base, that is, the more introspective and sensitive people who'd found refuge in her early work and been among her most ardent admirers. Many of them scorned the album and felt somehow betrayed, despite the general acclaim that attended its release, and some even charged that Joni had sold out in order to achieve "success," allowing her personal and professional life to be appropriated by a cadre of hangers-on looking to feather their own nests at her expense. However, in retrospect, that view may present a distorted picture. The increasing production on her albums, if not the widespread commercial appeal, certainly did not happen overnight, but these questions aside, Court and Spark contained such popular tracks as "Free Man in Paris" and "Help Me," and is often said to include the first jazz elements in Mitchell's work. She spent the rest of the decade creating more free-form, jazz-inflected music.

Mitchell's 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns further departed from the folk/pop foundation Mitchell had developed. The introspective songs were less dominant and the social commentary moreso, as with the mobsters and nightclub dancers in "Edith and the Kingpin," the bored wives of the wealthy in "The Hissing of Summer Lawns," as well as in her expose of the shallow, corporate lifestyle in "Harry's House/Centerpiece," a very interesting and widely appealing track whose sentiments are reminiscent of "The Arrangement" from Ladies of the Canyon (the helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof like a dragonfly on a tule, and businessmen in buttondowns press into conference rooms/battalions of paper-minded males talking commodities and sales/while at home their paper wives and their paper kids paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid). In toto, the album was lyrically and musically diverse. Although many fans and other artists often cite Hissing as one of their favorite Mitchell works (the lyrics to many of the songs seem purposefully obscure, metaphorical, and difficult to comprehend, almost as if in code, but nonetheless remain rather poetic), it was not well received at the time of its release. A common legend holds that Rolling Stone magazine declared it the "Worst Album of the Year"; which may say more about the the pseudo-hip, commercial instincts of the staff at Rolling Stone than about Joni Mitchell, a perfectionist and a consumate artist practically incapable of handing in anything less than a credible job. In truth, it was called only the year's worst album title. (Mitchell and Rolling Stone have had a contentious relationship, initiated years earlier when RS featured a "tree" illustrating all of Mitchell's alleged romantic partners, primarily other musicians, which the singer said "hurt my feelings terribly at the time.")

During 1975 Mitchell also participated in several concerts in the Rolling Thunder Revue tours featuring Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and in 1976, she performed as part of "The Last Waltz" by The Band.

Hejira (1976) continued Mitchell's trend toward jazz. The instrumentation is very intimate, usually consisting only of Mitchell's acoustic guitar, the electric guitar of Larry Carlton, and Jaco Pastorius's fretless bass guitar (on one track, Mitchell and Carlton reverse roles). The songs themselves, however, featured densely metaphorical lyrics and swooping vocal melodies providing contrast and counterpoint to the jazz rhythms of the arrangements. This album also highlighted as never before the unusual "open" guitar tunings that Mitchell used. While Hejira "did not sell as briskly as [Mitchell's earlier] more accessible albums," its stature in her catalogue has grown over the years. Joni herself believes the album to be unique; in 2006, she said, "I suppose a lot of people could have written a lot of my other songs, but I feel the songs on Hejira could only have come from me."

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977) was a further move towards the freedom and abstraction of jazz, a double album dominated by the lengthy part-improvised "Paprika Plains". The album received mixed reviews - its experimentation and originality were not generally expected of such a celebrated music star. The cover of the album created its own controversy; Mitchell was featured in several photographs on the cover, including one where she was disguised as a black man.

Mitchell's next work was to be a collaboration with legendary bassist Charles Mingus, who died before the project was completed in 1979. Mitchell finished the tracks with a band featuring Pastorius, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock and the resulting free-form, sometimes arhythmic music was daring and eclectic. Mingus was poorly received; rock audiences were not receptive, and jazz purists were unimpressed. However, appreciation for this work has grown considerably over the years.

Mitchell released Shadows and Light, a second live album that documented her recent tours, in 1980. The album contained some earlier hits, but focused on the late 1970s songs. Interestingly, the young jazz guitarist Pat Metheny featured on the album. He had worked extensively with Pastorius and was considered to be at the cutting edge of jazz and 'new age' music.

The 1980s saw a reduced output of recordings compared to the previous decades. Only three albums of new material appeared on her new label (Geffen Records). 1982's Wild Things Run Fast marked a return to pop songwriting, including "Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody" which incorporated the chorus and parts of the melody of the famous Righteous Brothers hit, and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" - which charted higher than any Mitchell single since her 70s sales peak.

For Dog Eat Dog (1985), British synth-pop performer and producer Thomas Dolby was brought on board. Mitchell employed a host of modern sounds, courtesy of the Fairlight CMI synthesizer. Of Dolby's role, Mitchell later commented, "I was reluctant when Thomas was suggested because he had been asked to produce the record (by Geffen), and would he consider coming in as just a programmer and a player? So on that level we did have some problems...He may be able to do it faster. He may be able to do it better, but the fact is that it then wouldn't really be my music."

Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm (1988) saw Mitchell collaborating with artists including Willie Nelson, Billy Idol, Wendy and Lisa, Tom Petty and Don Henley. The songs spanned several genres, including a duet with Peter Gabriel on "My Secret Place".

After the release of Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm, Mitchell participated in Roger Waters' The Wall Concert in Berlin.

For her final Geffen album, 1991's Night Ride Home, Mitchell presented what she described as a batch of "middle-aged love songs." Critically, it was better received than her 80s work and seemed to signal a move closer to her acoustic beginnings. But to many, the real return to form came with the Grammy-winning Turbulent Indigo (1994). "Indigo" was Mitchell's most simple, straightforward set of songs in years, mixing politics (in the beautifully written and musically dynamic "Sex Kills") with social commentary ("Sunny Sunday", "Borderline") to create "a startling comeback" that won two Grammy awards, including Best Pop Album. The recording of Turbulent Indigo saw the divorce of Mitchell and Larry Klein, whose musical collaboration had lasted four albums.

Mitchell released her most recent set of 'original' new work with Taming the Tiger (1998). She promoted "Tiger" with a return to regular concert appearances, most notably a co-headlining tour with Bob Dylan and Van Morrison.

It was around this time that critics began to notice a change in Mitchell's voice; the singer later admitted to feeling the same way, explaining that "I'd go to hit a note and there was nothing there." While her more limited range and huskier vocals have sometimes been attributed to her smoking (she has been described as "one of the world's last great smokers"), Mitchell believes the changes in her voice that became noticeable in the nineties were due to other problems, including vocal nodules, a compressed larynx, and the lingering effects of having had polio. In an interesting live interview with NPR in October of 2004, she denied that "my terrible habits" had anything to do with her more limited range and pointed out that singers often lose the upper register when they pass fifty. In addition, she contended that in her opinion her voice became more interesting and expressive when she no longer could hit the high notes, let alone hold them like she did in her remarkable youth. It sounded a bit rationalizing, but regardless of the effect of heavy cigarette smoking on her voice, those of us who love Joni Mitchell wish she'd moderate it because we want to keep her around for as long as possible.

The singer's next two albums featured no new songs and, Mitchell has said, were recorded to "fulfill contractual obligations." Both Sides Now (2000) was an album composed mostly of covers of jazz standards, performed with an orchestra. It received mostly strong reviews and featured orchestral arrangements by Vince Mendoza, who would collaborate with her again on Travelogue and remains a strong seller. The album contained reappraisals of "A Case of You" and the title track "Both Sides Now", two early hits transposed down to Mitchell's now-dusky, soulful alto range. Its success led to 2002's Travelogue, a collection of re-workings of her previous songs with lush orchestral accompaniments. Mitchell had stated that this would be her final album.

In a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone, Mitchell voiced her discontent with the current state of the music industry, describing it as a "cesspool." She expressed her dislike of the record industry's dominance and her desire to control her own destiny, possibly through releasing her own music over the Internet.

During the next few years, the only albums Mitchell released were compilations of her earlier work. In 2003, Mitchell's Geffen recordings were collected in a four-disc box set, The Complete Geffen Recordings. Included were remastered versions of all four albums, personal notes by Mitchell herself and three bonus tracks: a wordless vocal demo of what would become "Two Grey Rooms" (from Night Ride Home), the basic piano demo for "Good Friends" (from Dog Eat Dog), and an unreleased cover of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." A series of themed compilations of songs from earlier albums were also released: The Beginning of Survival (2004), Dreamland (2004), and Songs of a Prairie Girl (2005), the last of which collected the threads of her Canadian upbringing and which she released after accepting an invitation to the Saskatchewan Centennial concert in Saskatoon. The concert, which featured a tribute to Mitchell, was also attended by Queen Elizabeth II. In Prairie Girl liner notes, she writes that the collection is "my contribution to Saskatchewan's Centennial celebrations."

Although Mitchell stated that she would no longer tour or give concerts, she has made occasional public appearances to speak (for example) on environmental issues. Mitchell divides her time between her long-time home in Los Angeles, and the 80-acre property in Sechelt, British Columbia she's owned since the early '70s. "L.A. is my workplace", she said in 2006. "B.C. is my heartbeat." She focuses mainly on her visual art, which she does not sell and which she displays only on rare occasions. Her painting, some of which she has incorporated on her album, cassette, and CD cover art, has always been as artistically important to her as the songwriting, musicianship, and singing that the world knows and appreciates the most. In fact, she has stated that she began her professional musical career as a way to make money so that she could get through art school and afford the little things she needed. Those who consider her a musical genius of the first rank at first may not detect the same level of brilliance displayed in her paintings. I suspect, however, that just as you must listen to her songs over and over to really appreciate them, no doubt you have to study one of her original paintings to discern all that it contains.

In the early 1990s, Mitchell had signed a deal with Random House to publish an autobiography. In 1998, she told The New York Times that her memoirs were "in the works," that they would be published in as many as four volumes, and that the first line would be "I was the only black man at the party." In 2005, Mitchell said that she continued to work on the project, and was using a tape recorder to get "down [her memories] in the oral tradition."

In an October 2006 interview with The Ottawa Citizen, Mitchell "revealed she's recording her first collection of new songs in nearly a decade," but gave few other details. Four months later, in an interview with The New York Times, Mitchell said that the forthcoming album, titled Shine, was inspired by the war in Iraq and "something her grandson had said while listening to family fighting: 'Bad dreams are good—in the great plan.'" Early media reports characterized the album as having "a minimal feel....that harks back to [Mitchell's] early work," and a focus on political and environmental issues. In February 2007, Mitchell returned to Calgary and served as an advisor for the Alberta Ballet Company premiere of "The Fiddle and the Drum," a dance choreographed to both new and old songs. Mitchell also filmed portions of the rehearsals for a documentary she's working on. Of the flurry of recent activity she quipped, "I've never worked so hard in my life."

In summer 2007, Mitchell's official fan-run site confirmed speculation that she had signed a 2-record deal with Starbucks' Hear Music label. Shine was released by the label on September 25, 2007. On the same day, Herbie Hancock, a longtime associate and friend of Mitchell's, released River: The Joni Letters, an album paying tribute to Mitchell's work. Among the album's contributors were Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Leonard Cohen, and Mitchell herself, who contributed a vocal to the re-recording of "The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)" (originally on her album Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm).

Almost every song she composed on the guitar uses an open, or non-standard, tuning; she has written songs in some 50 different tunings, which she has referred to as "Joni's weird chords". The use of alternative tunings allows more varied and complex harmonies to be produced on the guitar, without the need for difficult chord shapes. Indeed, many of Joni's guitar songs use very simple chord shapes, but her use of alternative tunings and a highly rhythmic picking/strumming style creates a rich and unique guitar sound. Her right-hand picking/strumming technique has evolved over the years from an initially intricate picking style, typified by the guitar songs on her first album, to a looser and more rhythmic style, sometimes incorporating percussive "slaps", that have been featured on later albums.

In 2003 Rolling Stone named her the 72nd greatest guitarist of all time; she was the highest-ranked woman on the list.

Any discussion of Joni Mitchell's legacy would be remiss in avoiding mention of her genius as a songwriter, which in addition to her original musical compositions must include the thoughtful, poetic, and often poignant nature of her highly effective lyrics. Her interesting piano style also should not be ignored, but perhaps most of all, her beautiful and expressive voice will be remembered long after we're gone. Whether or not these facts are published in Rolling Stone magazine by one of their staff writers or a currently popular musician does not make them any less so.

Mitchell could be labelled a "musician's musician"; her work has had an enormous influence on artists as disparate as Annie Lennox, Jeff Buckley, Elvis Costello, Tori Amos, Maynard James Keenan, Clannad, Madonna, Prince, Björk, George Michael, Conor Oberst, Morrissey, The Roots, KT Tunstall, and Meg & Dia.

For instance, Prince's song "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" off the album Sign 'O' the Times, pays tribute to Mitchell, both through his evocative Mitchell-like harmonies and through the use of one of Mitchell's own techniques: as in Mitchell's song "This Flight Tonight", Prince references a song in his lyrics (Joni's own "Help Me") as the music begins to emulate the chords and melody of that song. Another Joni reference left by Prince can also be seen on the back cover of his 1981 Controversy record - one of the headlines reads "★JONI★". Mandy Moore also expressed a huge admiration for Mitchell upon the release of her 2003 album Coverage on which she covered Mitchell's classic "Help Me".

A number of artists have had hits covering Mitchell's songs; most recently Sarah McLachlan, who included her version of "River" on her 2006 Christmas album, Wintersong (a year after Aimee Mann covered the same song on her own 2005 Christmas EP). McLachlan also did a version of "Blue" years before. Amy Grant scored a hit in 1995 with a cover of "Big Yellow Taxi", as did The Counting Crows in 2002. Further to this, Janet Jackson used a sample of "Big Yellow Taxi" as the centerpiece of her 1997 single "Got 'Til It's Gone". Rap artists Kanye West and Mac Dre have also sampled Mitchell's vocals in their music. In 2004 singer George Michael covered her song "Edith And The Kingpin" for a radio show. Annie Lennox has covered "Ladies Of The Canyon" for the B-side of her 1995 hit "No More I Love You's". Other famous Mitchell covers include "Woodstock" by both Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Matthews Southern Comfort, "This Flight Tonight" by Nazareth, "Both Sides Now" by Judy Collins, Clannad, Paul Young and Roger Whittaker, "Woodstock" by Eva Cassidy and "A Case Of You" by Tori Amos, Jane Monheit, Prince, and Diana Krall.

Although Mitchell usually refrains from commenting on other artists, particularly ones that she influences, she has expressed satisfaction with the work of two jazz-based artists who have interpreted her songs, Cassandra Wilson and Diana Krall. Although most listeners tend to remember Mitchell's earlier, more commercially popular work, many musicians have found inspiration in her more experimental work, particularly The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira.

Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" was said to be written about Robert Plant and Jimmy Page's infatuation with Mitchell, a claim that seems to be borne out by the fact that, in live performances, Plant often says "Joni" after the line "To find a queen without a king, they say she plays guitar and cries and sings". Jimmy Page uses a double dropped D guitar tuning similar to the alternative tunings Mitchell uses.

Madonna has cited Mitchell as the first female artist that really spoke to her as a teenager; "I was really, really into Joni Mitchell. I knew every word to Court and Spark; I worshiped her when I was in high school. Blue is amazing. I would have to say of all the women I've heard, she had the most profound effect on me from a lyrical point of view."

In 2007, Nonesuch Records released A Tribute to Joni Mitchell, a CD featuring Sufjan Stevens, Björk, Caetano Veloso, Brad Mehldau, Cassandra Wilson, Prince, Sarah McLachlan, Annie Lennox, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, k.d. Lang and James Taylor. Some of the recordings were made in the late 1990s when a project entitled 'A Case Of Joni' was developed, although never released. Among those who recorded tracks for the first tribute album, and remain unreleased were Janet Jackson and Sheryl Crow.

Mitchell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 1995, she received Billboard's Century Award. In 1996 she was awarded the Polar Music Prize.

She has received five regular Grammy Awards during her career, with the first coming in 1969 and the most recent in 2000. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, with the citation describing her as "one of the most important female recording artists of the rock era" and "a powerful influence on all artists who embrace diversity, imagination and integrity."

Her home country Canada has bestowed a number of honours on Mitchell. She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981, and into Canada's Walk of Fame in 2001. In 2002 she became only the third popular Canadian singer/songwriter (Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen being the other two), to be appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. She received an honorary doctorate in music from McGill University in 2004, and, in January 2007, she was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. On June 29, 2007, Canada Post featured Mitchell on a postage stamp.

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her #60 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The album Blue was listed by Time magazine as among the "All-Time 100 Albums" in November 2006.

* The World of Joni Mitchell (1972) (Australia/NZ only) * Hits (1996) #161 (US), #102 (UK) * Misses (1996) * The Complete Geffen Recordings (4-CD box set of material 1982–91) (2003) * The Beginning of Survival (2004) * Dreamland (2004) #177 (US), #43 (UK) * Starbucks Artist's Choice (2004) * Songs of a Prairie Girl (2005) (Remastered)

* "Shadows and Light" (1980) with Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny and Michael Brecker * "Refuge of the Roads" (1984) with Vinnie Colaiuta * "Come in from the Cold" (1991) * "Painting With Words & Music" (1998) * "Both Sides Now - An All-Star Tribute To Joni Mitchell" (TNT Network - 2000) with Richard Thompson, k.d. lang, Cyndi Lauper, Shawn Colvin, Bryan Adams, Diana Krall, James Taylor, Elton John and Wynonna Judd. * "Woman of Heart and Mind - A Life Story" (2003) * "Goodbye Blue Sky" - Pink Floyd The Wall LIVE at Berlin - On 21 July 1990

* My Secret Place with Peter Gabriel (1998) * Amelia from "Travelogue" (2002) * Dreamland album (2004) (Windows Media Audio) *RBMA Radio On Demand - Sound Obsession - Volume 8 - Joni Mitchell Special - Kirk Degiorgio (The Beauty Room, As One)

* Official website * Joni Mitchell in the Canadian Encyclopedia * MusicChain - Joni Mitchell * CBC Digital Archives - Joni Mitchell: All Sides Now * * *