Reckoning With Joni Mitchell’s Genius and Flaws

More than any other artist from the Golden Era of rock ‘n’ roll, Joni Mitchell has captured the imaginations of music fans of every age, gender, and race in the 2020s. And biographer Ann Powers is pretty sure she knows why.

“What I love about Joni Mitchell that I tried to represent in this book is her tenacity, her stubbornness, and her absolute willingness to smack down anyone who she feels is feeding bullshit to her or anyone else,” Powers tells The Daily Beast. “Her idiosyncrasies, her neuroticism—those are the qualities we love in her and are the very things that make her such a rich, complex artist and a wonderful rebel soul. The difficulty is what we love.”

It's true. And in the wake of carefully curated reissues of her studio albums and deep archival dives into both the earliest days and breakout moments of Mitchell’s storied career, she is as present in our lives today as she has been in almost half a century. The 80-year-old has even managed to return to the stage—after suffering a brain aneurysm that left most fans thinking she would never perform again, she made a surprise appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022, followed by a concert in Seattle last summer and an appearance at the Grammys earlier this year. She’ll headline a Hollywood Bowl concert this October, and there are more reissues of her music on the way, plus an excellent new podcast series that focuses on her singular artistry and vast legacy.

Read more at The Daily Beast.