Joni Mitchell是上个世纪最成功的女歌手之一，她的音乐影响了目前很多成功的歌手，在音乐风格方面不断创新的她，涉及民谣，摇滚，爵士等众多领域，并且她还是位出色的诗人，画家，1997年她入选了摇滚名人殿堂，滚石杂志，VH1等权威音乐评论对她都有很高的赞誉，但我认为她的音乐并不在于被别人评论的怎么样，她音乐的影响力在于她可以同时用娴熟的音乐技巧，过人的天分和丰富优雅的词作感动别人。
大事记
1943年11月7日出生在加拿大的阿尔伯塔的福克麦克劳德，原名Roberta Joan Anderson的Joni Mitchell在还很小的时候就同父母搬到了萨斯咯彻温省的北巴特福德,。在老朋友Frankie McKitrick启发下, 7岁的Joni请求家人让她学钢琴，这样的日子持续了一年半。在搬到萨斯卡通后她还开始了绘画。 9岁那年，Joni被诊断患有小儿麻痹，幸运的是在父母的关心爱护以及对艺术的追求下她康复了，但这后来还是对她的舞台表演起了很大的制约。七年级的时候，她的一位老师Kratzman先生鼓励她去创作歌词，这为老师成了众多影响她后来事业的人之一（还有Pete Seeger对她学习吉他起了很大帮助）。在她少女时期她就曾想方设法的省吃俭用来攒够一笔钱买一把ukele （因为那时侯吉他太贵了），她用它在派对和咖啡屋里表演。
在高中之后，也就是1964年，Joni进入在卡尔加里的阿尔伯塔艺术学院学习了一年。比起上学，她更喜欢在卡尔加里一个叫“沮丧”（The Depression）的咖啡屋作一名正式的表演者。为了追求音乐的理想她将她在绘画方面的爱好屏弃了，至少是作为一门职业。她搬到多伦多，梦想成为一名成功的民谣歌手。但是，60年代在多伦多的俱乐部里表演需要有工会会员证，她那时并不可能提供这个，于是她只能夜以继日的为Simpsons-Sears工作。 同时她也有了前男友的孩子，并在1965年2月生下一个女儿。
民谣歌手Chuck Mitchell并不介意，他同Joni相爱而且他们还结了婚，但对事业的野心以及Joni的年龄，他决定放弃收养Joni的女儿。1965年夏天Mitchell夫妇搬到底特律，这个全新的Joni Mitchell在1966年的Newport民谣节上表演了，但她同Chuck Mitchell的婚姻也走到了尽头，他们在1967年初分开了。再也没有了任何束缚，她去了纽约的切尔西，为的是在这块东海岸音乐集散地上寻找到更多成功的机会。她演唱了传奇般的Tom Rush的"The Urge For Going" 以及其他各种风格歌手的作品，最终得到很多的预约，来自从西芝加哥到东弗罗里达，在经纪人Elliot Roberts的帮助下她在纽约打开了小小的知名度。
在弗罗里达表演时Joni认识了David Crosby （The Byrds），他十分肯定她的才华并将她推荐给Reprise唱片，1968年Joni推出了首张同名专辑。 1968年其他的事还有她同 Graham Nash （The Hollies）在迈阿密流行音乐节上一起表演，Judy Collins演唱了她的"Both Sides Now" 并且成为经典...这也从一定程度上补充了Joni日益扩大的开支。
1969年Joni推出专辑'Clouds' ，里面有她亲自演绎写给其他歌手的几首作品，她还录制了一张现场专辑，虽然最终被废掉了。她同Graham Nash一起去了月桂峡谷，为Crosby, Stills & Nash巡演，那年夏天被还邀请到Woodstock表演 ，但由于随后将出现在电视节目Dick Cavett秀导致她不能冒这个险，因为很有可能被困在拥挤的交通里无法定期返回，作为替代，她在苏尔的Equinox音乐节上的表演被录制并得到发行，她还因这件事创作了具有讽刺意味的经典Woodstock。
'Clouds' 在1970年获得了格莱美奖， 对Joni接着发行的'Ladies Of The Canyon'最终卖到金唱片起了很大的帮助， 由于在怀特岛音乐节上的厄运和失败她决定休息一段时间，这一整年，她不断旅行，绘画并且进行她的下一张专辑Blue的创作。
Blue于1971年发行，成为评论和商业上都十分成功的典范，在Billboard排行榜前20名上停留过短暂时间。她回到了加拿大布列颠哥伦比亚，过着孤独，被森林覆盖着的生活。后来由于频繁的同朋友David Geffen互访与交流，Joni得以重新回到舞台，开始和像Geffen的唱片公司Asylum里拥有成功经历的Jackson Browne 这样的人一样，可以有自己的欧洲巡演，为有希望的总统George McGovern进行收益演出。
1972年她发行了'For The Roses'，她将爵士摇滚巧妙的融入她的音乐里，"You Turn Me On (I'm A Radio)"成为她的第一首电台热门曲目， 她这次真的取得了商业上的成功。但她不希望自己成为一个流行偶像，很快的她开始寻找能够帮助她的音乐更有水准而且更加个人化的音乐人。
于是她开始同Tom Scott以及LA Express合作她的下一张专辑 'Court And Spark' ，同时甚至还为他们的专辑录制了曲子。1974年1月'Court And Spark' 发行，专辑里的Free Man In Paris，Raised On Robbery，Help Me都成为了热门的单曲。她着手准备同LA Express的一个为期20天的巡演，这次巡演的内容也成为她11月发行的的现场专辑 'Miles Of Aisles'。现场版本的"Big Yellow Taxi" 被作为单曲发行，让Joni在排行榜上居高不下。她在加州贝尔艾尔买了一套新房，同LA Express的鼓手John Guerin 一同搬入，随后她获得了格莱美的4项提名。
1975年她重新召集'Court And Spark'的制作班底， 并在11月推出'The Hissing Of Summer Lawns'。虽然评论对Joni描写社会的歌词给予恶劣评价，仍然挡不住新专辑在Billboard排行第4的成绩。她非常希望能够加入Bob Dylan的'Rolling Thunder Revue来结束这年的工作，并且计划着一场与LA Express 再次合作的回归巡演。
巡演从1976年1月就开始了，她走遍了整个美国和加拿大。当巡演结束她同John Guerin分手，并开始花时间同Neil Young在一起。一些朋友确信她是去进行环绕整个国家的旅行，的确是的，而且她回来的时候是带了一整箱她下张专辑'Hejira'的曲谱，'Hejira'于76年夏天录制并在11月发行。11月Joni还在The Band'的"Last Waltz" 演唱会做嘉宾演出，为Martin Scorsese拍电影。同时，'Hejira' 在排行榜上攀升，在12月成为金唱片并在排行榜上一直久居到1977年初。
Joni不断发行着新的专辑：1977年的Don Juan's Reckless Daughter，1979年纪念爵士贝司手Charles Mingus的Mingus，接着她发行了她第二张现场精选1980年的Shadows and Light, 1982年她回到流行领域，发行了Wild Things Run Fast，这张专辑里的第一首单曲翻唱猫王Elvis Presley的经典作品 "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" 成为她8年来头一支上榜单曲。
就在她专辑发行不久后，她同贝司手兼音效师Larry Klein，并同他维持了很长时间的婚姻，他也是Joni音乐上的帮手，包括1985年的Dog Eat Dog。Joni还涉足电子领域，但只到1988年Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm前，这张Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm的嘉宾创作有Peter Gabriel,，Willie Nelson，Tom Petty以及Billy Idol。
Joni在1991年的Night Ride Home里完全回归了她原本的感觉，虽然她一直在不断进行新的实验。在1994年发行Turbulent Indigo之前她同Klein分手了，但尽管如此他还是帮她制作了这张专辑，而它也成为她多年来最让人喝彩的作品。
1996年Joni汇编了她所有的上榜单曲，还有些她自己认为并没有受到充分赏识的作品，分为Hits和Misses两张分别发行， 而一张全新的录音室专辑Taming the Tiger也在1998年随后问世。值得一提的，是当年Chuck Mitchell不肯领养的那个女儿同Joni在1997年见面并相认了，她们现在关系很好。Both Sides Now作为一张水准一流的专辑在2000年初发行。
两年后，Joni带着双张精选Travelogue重新露面，她说这是她最后的一张专辑，2002年10月的她宣告她已经厌倦了唱片工业，她告诉W杂志她想隐退，她还声名她不会再同任何厂牌签约，并且她在滚石杂志里诅咒唱片工业为“一个化粪池” 。Travelogue发行一个月以后，Joni冷静下来，她的退出计划也被暂搁。
2003到现在，Joni还一直有作品问世，最新的作品是一张叫做Songs Of A Prairie Girl的精选专辑和一张由她的朋友们选出的他们最喜欢Joni的一些作品合辑，但不难看出的是，她的确再没有新的创作出炉了，看来我们只能等待她重新爱上音乐的那天，然而拥有诗人，画家，歌手多重身份的她，也许在其他的领域里找到了更多快乐。
When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century. Uncompromising and iconoclastic, Mitchell confounded expectations at every turn; restlessly innovative, her music evolved from deeply personal folk stylings into pop, jazz, avant-garde, and even world music, presaging the multicultural experimentation of the 1980s and 1990s by over a decade. Fiercely independent, her work steadfastly resisted the whims of both mainstream audiences and the male-dominated recording industry. While Mitchell's records never sold in the same numbers enjoyed by contemporaries like Carole King, Janis Joplin, or Aretha Franklin, none experimented so recklessly with their artistic identities or so bravely explored territory outside of the accepted confines of pop music, resulting in a creative legacy which paved the way for performers ranging from Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde to Madonna and Courtney Love.
Born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort McLeod, Alberta, Canada, on November 7, 1943, she was stricken with polio at the age of nine; while recovering in a children's hospital, she began her performing career by singing to the other patients. After later teaching herself to play guitar with the aid of a Pete Seeger instruction book, she went off to art college, and became a fixture on the folk music scene around Alberta. After relocating to Toronto, she married folksinger Chuck Mitchell in 1965, and began performing under the name Joni Mitchell.
A year later the couple moved to Detroit, MI, but separated soon after; Joni remained in the Motor City, however, and won significant press acclaim for her burgeoning songwriting skills and smoky, distinctive vocals, leading to a string of high-profile performances in New York City. There she became a cause célèbre among the media and other performers; after she signed to Reprise in 1967, David Crosby offered to produce her debut record, a self-titled acoustic effort that appeared the following year. Her songs also found great success with other singers: in 1968, Judy Collins scored a major hit with the Mitchell-penned "Both Sides Now," while Fairport Convention covered "Eastern Rain" and Tom Rush recorded "The Circle Game."
Thanks to all of the outside exposure, Mitchell began to earn a strong cult following; her 1969 sophomore effort, Clouds, reached the Top 40, while 1970's Ladies of the Canyon sold even better on the strength of the single "Big Yellow Taxi." It also included her anthemic composition "Woodstock," a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Still, the commercial and critical approval awarded her landmark 1971 record Blue was unprecedented: a luminous, starkly confessional set written primarily during a European vacation, the album firmly established Mitchell as one of pop music's most remarkable and insightful talents.
Predictably, she turned away from Blue's incandescent folk with 1972's For the Roses, the first of the many major stylistic turns she would take over the course of her daring career. Backed by rock-jazz performer Tom Scott, Mitchell's music began moving into more pop-oriented territory, a change typified by the single "You Turn Me On (I'm a Radio)," her first significant hit. The follow-up, 1974's classic Court and Spark, was her most commercially successful outing: a sparkling, jazz-accented set, it reached the number two spot on the U.S. album charts and launched three hit singles — "Help Me," "Free Man in Paris," and "Raised on Robbery."
After the 1974 live collection Miles of Aisles, Mitchell emerged in 1975 with The Hissing of Summer Lawns, a bold, almost avant-garde record that housed her increasingly complex songs in experimental, jazz-inspired settings; "The Jungle Line" introduced the rhythms of African Burundi drums, placing her far ahead of the pop world's mid-'80s fascination with world music. 1976's Hejira, recorded with Weather Report bassist Jaco Pastorius, smoothed out the music's more difficult edges while employing minimalist techniques; Mitchell later performed the album's first single, "Coyote," at the Band's Last Waltz concert that Thanksgiving.
Her next effort, 1977's two-record set Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, was another ambitious move, a collection of long, largely improvisational pieces recorded with jazz players Larry Carlton and Wayne Shorter, Chaka Khan, and a battery of Latin percussionists. Shortly after the record's release, Mitchell was contacted by the legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus, who invited her to work with him on a musical interpretation of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Mingus, who was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease, sketched out a series of melodies to which Mitchell added lyrics; however, Mingus died on January 5, 1979, before the record was completed. After Mitchell finished their collaboration on her own, she recorded the songs under the title Mingus, which was released the summer after the jazz titan's passing.
Following her second live collection, 1980's Shadows and Light, Mitchell returned to pop territory for 1982's Wild Things Run Fast; the first single, a cover of the Elvis Presley hit "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care," became her first chart single in eight years. Shortly after the album's release, she married bassist/sound engineer Larry Klein, who became a frequent collaborator on much of her subsequent material, including 1985's synth-driven Dog Eat Dog, co-produced by Thomas Dolby. Mitchell's move into electronics continued with 1988's Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, featuring guests Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, and Billy Idol.
Mitchell returned to her roots with 1991's Night Ride Home, a spare, stripped-down collection spotlighting little more than her voice and acoustic guitar. Prior to recording 1994's Turbulent Indigo, she and Klein separated, although he still co-produced the record, which was her most acclaimed work in years. In 1996, she compiled a pair of anthologies, Hits and Misses, which collected her chart successes as well as underappreciated favorites. A new studio album, Taming the Tiger, followed in 1998. Both Sides Now, a collection of standards, followed in early 2000.
Two years later, Mitchell resurfaced with the double-disc release Travelogue. She announced in October 2002 that this would be her last album ever, for she'd grown tired of the industry. She told W magazine that she intended to retire. She also claimed she would never sign another corporate label deal and in Rolling Stone blasted the recording industry for being "a cesspool." By the time Travelogue appeared a month later, Mitchell had simmered down and her plans to call it quits had been axed. Numerous compilations and remasters appeared between 2002 and 2006, culminating in the release of the independent Shine in 2007.