Joni Mitchell to receive prestigious songwriting prize

Joni Mitchell, the pioneering singer-songwriter behind poignant hits including "A Case Of You," was set Wednesday to receive a national lifetime achievement award at a star-studded gala celebrating her vast contributions to popular song.

The Canadian-born artist joins an elite coterie of composers including Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett and Carole King in receiving the US Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize, which is named for the brothers behind American standards such as "I Got Rhythm" and "Rhapsody In Blue."

A-listers including James Taylor, Annie Lennox, Herbie Hancock and Graham Nash were primed to pay homage to Mitchell's life and work at the concert ceremony, which will be broadcast on March 31.

The trailblazing Mitchell, 79, has experienced something of a renaissance over the past year, making a return to public life after she suffered a brain aneurysm in 2015 that left her temporarily unable to speak.

She has since undergone extensive physical therapy that's allowed her even to return to performance, which at one point seemed a long shot.

Last summer she delivered her first full set in more than 20 years, surprising attendees at the Newport Folk Festival alongside folk-rocker Brandi Carlile, who was also on deck to perform Wednesday.

That show followed Mitchell's stage cameo earlier in 2022, when she joined other artists as they performed a moving tribute to her life's work at the MusiCares pre-Grammy gala.

Mitchell had last appeared at Newport, an annual festival in Rhode Island, in 1969.

She's slated to headline a "Joni Jam" show this June at Washington state's Gorge Amphitheatre, again alongside Carlile.

'Deeper'

Born in a small town in western Canada, Mitchell had her start playing small clubs and eventually moved to Los Angeles, where she became a pivotal figure in the 1960s Laurel Canyon music scene and beyond.

She punctuated her deceptively simple songs with a distinctive, wide-ranging voice and open-tuned guitar, which lent an idiosyncratic sound to the standard rock and folk of the era.

Mitchell's defining album was 1971's "Blue," which saw her explore romantic grief and musically go deeper into folk.

She mined her own heartache, including breakups with fellow artists Taylor and Nash, to produce the record that's a regular on critics' all-time-best lists.

As it hit its 50th anniversary in 2021, "Blue" charted number one on iTunes -- outperforming even pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo's "Sour."

Even Mitchell voiced astonishment at the resurgence. Asked to explain her return to the top at the MusiCares red carpet last year, Mitchell pointed to her lyricism: "Maybe people want to get a little bit deeper."

© 2023 AFP