Joni Mitchell: The Reprise Albums (1968-1971) review – Essential listening

In September of 2020, Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol 1: The Early Years (1963-1967), a five-CD box set of previously unreleased material, was issued. At the time, an announcement was made that a comparable release format would continue on a yearly basis, with each release focusing on Mitchell's recording career in chronological order.

While …The Early Years… outlined the early evolution of Mitchell as a songwriter, this four-CD box set itemizes her creative graduation from pavement to penthouse. And so here we are: four albums that are the building blocks of Mitchell as the pre-eminent songwriter of not only her peers but also guiding lights for future generations of hopefuls. That the box set also acts as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Mitchell’s peerless fourth album, Blue, is as much coincidental as serendipitous.

The Reprise Albums… picks up from where …The Early Years… stopped by focusing on four consecutive studio records. Mitchell’s 1968 debut, Song to a Seagull, is a concept album tracing a path from urban to rural life via a suite of charming, slightly guileless songs, the highlight of which is Cactus Tree, one of those wise-before-their-time compositions about the balance between self-absorption and open-handedness.

Clouds (1969) was Mitchell's commercial breakthrough, winning a Grammy for Best Folk Performance. It also marked a natural transition from hippie sensibilities to more grounded worldviews, with songs touching on the Vietnam War (The Fiddle and the Drum) and mental illness (I Think I Understand). Mitchell's third album, 1970's Ladies of the Canyon, was another transitional work that drew a line from carefree to burdened (quite a number of the songs relate to her relationships with Graham Nash, David Crosby, et al).

The record’s level of musical/lyrical sophistication and richness would be further applied, with assured classic album status forever hanging around its neck, on 1971’s Blue.

Not many artists can successfully crack open the hard shell that protects them from themselves, but Blue is genuinely one of a kind, an album throughout which, said Mitchell herself, “I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes… like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong.”

For better or worse, Blue is emblematic of the wounded, acutely confessional singer-songwriter, as Mitchell's songs directly and truthfully reference the conclusion of her relationship with Nash and her ill-fated love affair with James Taylor. The box set - essential listening, as if it really needs to be said - comes with liner notes and pristine remixes of each album.

[ jonimitchell.com ]