[Drumbo]

I can't be sure, but I believe the first Joni Mitchell song I ever heard was "Michael From The Mountains" in 1968. I was a pre-freshman in High School (we had no middle schools in those days) and it was one of the most awkward years of my life, at least to that point. Something about Joni's music helped releive my stress of changing voice, changing responsibilities and overall growing pains. My best friend from elementary school was a girl who played guitar and set my juvenile lyrics to music, and it was she who first played me Joni's "Songs For A Seagull" album. I can honestly say that I fell in love with that mousey folk-singer who sang soprano and wrote charming melodies for her well crafted song-poems. "Charming" is a word with magical properties, it means to enchant or bewitch. It's been over 44 years now since I fell under Joni's spell and while she still portrays the folk-singer, her career has spanned rock, country, blues, jazz and pop and she continues to expand her palette of artistry. Her collaborations with Crosby, Stills & Nash, Johnny Cash, James Taylor, Tom Scott, Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorious, Charles Mingus, Herbie Handcock and Pink Floyd's Roger Waters are all legend.

By far, her biggest songwriting success has come from other artists covering her work, but she's continued to grow as a performing artist with an endless string of albums and a relentless touring schedule. She has evolved as a lyricist and performer of such reknown and a composer with a cornicopia of such rich ideas that she has become an American icon, a poet laureate of an era, known and loved worldwide.

From humble beginnings in Saskatchewan, she moved to California in 1965 and was instantly recognized as a songwriting phenom, first on the folk scene but soon expanding into jazz in the 70's and eventually becoming uniquely ensconced in a catagory all her own, repected by her peers, adored by her fans and "stoking the starmaker machinery behind the popular song."

Michael From The Mountains
~ Joni Mitchell ~

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[Publius]

I was the music director of a college radio station in Philly when her first disk came out. I had gone into the station on a Saturday, when the place was deserted, to listen to that week's albums for our playlist. I put this disk on the turntable and was amazed by what I heard. This very song was the one that caught my ear.

I can still feel that moment in a darkened studio, listening to this disk while freezing in the air conditioning.

It's amazing what memories a simple song can bring back.