“This was her great gift”: Joni Mitchell’s favourite singers of all time
Like many of her peers, Joni Mitchell developed a strong distaste for most modern music because it no longer felt authentic or original. As she once put it, the “muse” had been removed from the music, leaving nothing but the “ic”, with a meaningless style and not enough substance. Of course, such observations pushed her more fervently into the arms of her classic favourites.
Throughout her career, Mitchell’s prioritisation of honesty and openness has felt like a double-edged sword. While it enhanced the credibility and reputability of her artistic vision, it sometimes landed her in hot water, not just how outsiders perceived her, but often among those at her record label. After all, any woman standing up for herself during that time would have likely been called “difficult”, even if the fight centred around greater artistic freedom.
But Mitchell was never one to appease for no good reason, and her issues with the music industry have pushed her to entertain the idea of quitting entirely on more than one occasion. Sometimes, these difficulties arose during pivotal moments for Mitchell, like the Both Sides, Now, record, which would gain her widespread approval across the board despite the recording itself occurring from mere contractual obligation.
Still, all of these experiences mean that Mitchell can always spot realness and authenticity from the outside, making her favourites the ones she had cherry-picked as the more impactful roundup of her time. While there are plenty to choose from when removing the more commercial-leaning figures, the three names she continues to hold dear are Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, and Édith Piaf.
“By the end of the 20th century, it seemed to me that the muse had gone out of music and all that was left was the ‘ic’. Nothing sounded genuine or original. Truth and beauty were passé,” Mitchell explained during her Artist’s Choice. This is why it’s particularly interesting that she adored “all phases” of Holiday—there was no room for artistic pretence or commercial pandering when it came to Holiday, according to Mitchell; she was the real deal, through and through.
“No one I know could express hurt and loss with such a good-hearted tone, not a trace of self-pity or melodrama in it,” she said. “This was her great gift, and with it, she could make all those beautiful melodic ‘doormat’ sound (written by men for women to sing) sound wise. Billie’s voice here is pristine, and again I am delighted by the horn arrangement.”
Similarly, Mitchell first discovered Piaf as a young and impressionable seven-year-old. She hadn’t known whose voice she was hearing at the time, just that she was immediately entranced. “I heard an extraordinary sound,” she recalled. “A men’s choir began to sing, and up from the bottom of it bubbled a voice like I had never heard before – a woman’s voice. Captivated by the sound of it, I was drawn up from the table and out to the kitchen to listen closer.”
Gaye was also someone who was “so influential to my music and my singing”, like Holiday and Piaf, he taught her the power of emotional vocal delivery and storytelling, and how the voice could be an instrument just as much as anything else, like a gateway into the soul before it’s even clear who is singing or what they’re singing about. Mitchell found magic in all three of these influences, cherishing their ability to authentically soar above the rest and cut through the endless wilderness of artifice.
