For more than half a century, Joni Mitchell has stood out as one of the most distinctive voices in Canadian music.
In her new Joni Mitchell bio, veteran music journalist Ann Powers covers one of the uglier chapters of the singer’s career. Here’s how she handled it. Powers looks at things like how Mitchell broke through as a woman in the sexist boys' club that was L.A.'s Laurel Canyon music scene, and how — later in her career — she came to be seen as a role model and inspiration for subsequent generations of women artists.
We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.What I appreciated is that you spent quite a bit of time with a chapter in Joni's career that a lot of people don't want to talk about. Or don't want to think about? I'll give the context here: Joni started experimenting with jazz in the '70s.
One costume, that's a silly, terrible error, and there is a photograph documenting it. However, she didn't leave it at that. She was so delighted in her charade that she then donned the costume again for the cover of her album, on which she also appears on the back cover with her head superimposed on the body of a First Nations person in full regalia. So she's definitely playing with fire, the fire of identity here.
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