Joni Mitchell

"Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock" are among Mitchell's most famous songs but the monumental songwriter had her best material ahead of her when this came out in 1970. The real rewards of the album are in marking Mitchell's growth as an artist and catching the flashes of that experimental nature that made her subsequent records such events.

Along with the other established ladies of folkdom, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Judy Collins,
both Mrs. Harris and Miss Mitchell have been around a while, Some brilliant chick
folksingers have vanished -- Judy Henske, Alice Stuart and Rosalie Sorrels whither art
thou? -- but these two have endured. This is Joan's eleventh album and Joni's third and in
their own gentle ways they come to grips with the teeth of the times in their cur... More >

Joni's new dependence on piano implies a move from the open air to the drawing room--or at least living area--that's reflected in richer, more sophisticated songs. Sometimes the wordplay is still laughably high school--"lookout thru the pain" my eye. But "Both Sides Now" was only the beginning, and this album offers at least half a dozen continuations, all in different directions. Side two leads off with songs to a (real) FM DJ and a (figurative?) priest and includes her versions of "Woodstock" and "The Circle Game" as well as my own favorite, "Big Yellow Taxi," an ecology song with a trick ending. (Grade - A-)