Joni Mitchell
photo: library of congress life · cc0 ↗Joni Mitchell left Saskatchewan for Toronto's folk clubs in the mid-1960s and quickly became one of the form's most harmonically adventurous songwriters, her open-tuned guitar and startlingly candid lyrics reshaping what a folk singer-songwriter could sound like on albums like 'Blue.' By the mid-1970s she pushed further still, folding jazz harmony and phrasing into records like 'Court and Spark' and 'Hejira,' becoming one of the most restlessly inventive songwriters of her generation.
Mitchell has called the vocalese trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross 'my Beatles,' saying their record was the one she wore thin in high school and knew every word to — a debt she paid back directly by recording her own version of their signature tune 'Twisted' on 'Court and Spark.'
listen forThis one isn't an echo, it's the same song: hear the sly, tongue-twisting vocalese patter of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross's 'Twisted,' then Mitchell's faithful 1974 cover, cut with the same jokey, spoken-tumble delivery — right down to the Cheech & Chong cameo.
Mitchell named Miles Davis among her favorite performers as a teenager discovering jazz, and that early admiration deepened over her career as modal jazz harmony and loose, conversational phrasing became more and more central to her songwriting.
listen forSit with the cool, spacious modal drift of Davis's 'So What,' then Mitchell's 'Amelia' — both let a small handful of chords stretch out unhurried, with the melody floating and searching rather than resolving on a tidy pop hook.
Mitchell has said she widened her listening at eighteen to include Édith Piaf, and the torchy, emotionally bare-nerve delivery Piaf brought to French chanson resurfaces in Mitchell's own most exposed, confessional ballads.
listen forListen to the swelling, heart-on-sleeve vulnerability of Piaf's 'La Vie en rose,' then Mitchell's 'A Case of You' — both let a single voice carry naked emotional risk over a spare, mostly acoustic arrangement.