Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell, CC (b. 1943) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. Born Roberta Joan Anderson on 7th November 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, Mitchell is a musician, artist, and poet. She grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and briefly attended the Alberta College of Art at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary, Alberta. Her writing and art talent emerged before her exposure as a gifted musician performing in Western Canada, including Winnipeg, where she met Neil Young. She then associated with the burgeoning folk music scene of the mid-1960s in New York City. Through the 1970s she expanded her horizons, predominantly to pop music and jazz, to become one of the most highly respected singer-songwriters of the late twentieth century. She is a multiple Grammy winner, and was awarded the Order of Canada. Mitchell is also an accomplished visual artist. She has, through photography or painting, created the artwork for each of her albums, and has described herself as a "painter derailed by circumstance". A blunt critic of the music industry, Mitchell has stopped recording over the last several years, and now focuses mainly on her visual art, although she released a new album - Shine on 25th September 2007. Official website: http://www.jonimitchell.com