Happy birthday, Joni Mitchell!

Joni Mitchell 1943-
singer songwriter, painter, was born Roberta Joan Anderson on this day at Fort McLeod, Alberta, in 1943. Mitchell moved to Saskatoon at age 10, studied art, started folk singing, then moved to Toronto in 1965. She met musician Chuck Mitchell, who took her to Detroit, where they were married, but soon divorced. In 1967 she moved to New York, signed with David Geffen, and released her first album, Song to a Seagull (1968), produced by David Crosby on the Reprise label. Her career took off in 1968 when Judy Collins recorded her song Both Sides Now. After she moved to Laurel Canyon, near Los Angeles, she wrote The Circle Game (recorded by Tom Rush) and her monster hippy anthem Woodstock (recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young). Mitchell's prime folk/rock albums include Blue (1971), For the Roses (1972) and Court and Spark (1974). She is a painter as well as a musician, and much of her later work, such as Hejira (1976) and Mingus (1979) has expanded her style into jazz.