Joni Mitchell: Chords of Inquiry Her Life and Music by Yamily Habib
It is a summer’s night in July, 1966 in Newport, Rhode Island. Thousands have gathered to watch the Newport Folk Festival. She’s been through a lot at 24, including a childhood bout with polio, giving her daughter up for adoption and a failed marriage, but this is her time. Joni Mitchell is about to step onto the stage, and into the limelight. I am not a big fan of Joni Mitchell’s but I still enjoyed the book. It’s a well-researched analysis of her career and her personal relationships. I was a big fan of some of her boyfriends, including Graham Nash James Taylor and Jackson Browne, so I especially enjoyed the story of the song, “Our House.” Joni Mitchell’s biography is really like reading a potted history of the era with so many other stars apoearing in it, such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and the protest movements relating to major events of the time. I haven’t listened to many of Joni Mitchell’s songs and the book covers them in great detail so I’ll have to go through them and ...
