Joni Mitchell has had a life of strife, to say the least. A battle with polio, giving a daughter up for adoption, a series of bad marriages and incurable depression, her music provided her with solace--which she describes in her latest Q&A memoir In Her Own Words: Conversations with Malka Marom.
Folk darling and staple of the late-60s "hippie" music scene, again, Mitchell endured a lot of hardship. Growing up in Fort Macleod in the southwest corner of the Canadian Providence, she came down with polio in 1951--lacking support from her parents.
Mitchell was told she'd never walk again, but after praying, she somehow recovered. It was a miracle she felt she owed to some higher cause.
She was introduced to music at an early age, and at 10-years-old, she bought a $36 ukulele, which kicked her proverbial door wide open.
Performing at coffeehouses in Calgary to make some pocket money for her childhood excursions, Mitchell formed acute connections between her life and her own life in song.
Later on, she made her way in the Toronto underground, playing in small divey joints around town and eventually becoming pregnant by a fleeting boyfriend. He ended up leaving Mitchell to reside in a house with other starving artists.
Of course, Mitchell ended up marrying another suitor, but her paranoia that she and her beau weren't made for each other (an anxiety deriving from her parents' marriage) boiled over; she later put Kelly (renamed Kilauren) up for adoption in 1965.
Joni would find success not long after. When she met manager Elliot Roberts in Greenwich Village in 1967, her life indeed turned around. She would fly to Los Angeles in 1968 to sign her first deal with Reprise Records, then on to Asylum.
Her personal life, though, would wade in turmoil: leaving David Crosby for Graham Nash, introducing Crosby, Stills and Nash to one another and, ultimately, planting the seeds for the trio's rise to fame.
Between 1977 and 1980, she would find herself involved with Don Alias, too, a jazz percussionist who widened her musical palette--which would now incorporate Afro-Cuban stylings.
Despite the pain and anguish she felt most of her life, Mitchell went on to win eight Grammys (though she would not show up to receive them, regarding the award as "invaluable").
Regardless, songs like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Both Sides Now" brought her a world of love and a stage that would mark her as a musical icon for decades toc ome.
Mitchell's memoir is out this month on ECW Press.
Check out an extended review at The Daily Mail (UK) here and keep calm with some time-tested tunes below...
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