Editing Joni Mitchell (section)

===1970–1972: ''Ladies of the Canyon'' and ''Blue''===
[[File:Laurel Canyon, 8217 Lookout Mountain Avenue.jpg|thumb|right|Laurel Canyon, 8217 Lookout Mountain Avenue, Joni Mitchell's house from 1969 to 1974; photograph taken in 2022]]
In March 1970, ''Clouds'' produced her first [[Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording|Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance]]. The following month, Reprise released her third album, ''[[Ladies of the Canyon (album)|Ladies of the Canyon]]''. Mitchell's sound was already beginning to expand beyond the confines of acoustic folk music and toward pop and rock, with more overdubs, percussion, and backing vocals, and for the first time, many songs composed on piano, which became a hallmark of Mitchell's style in her most popular era. Her own version of "[[Woodstock (song)|Woodstock]]", slower than the cover by [[Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young]], was performed solo on a [[Wurlitzer electric piano]]. The album also included the already-familiar song "The Circle Game" and the environmental anthem "[[Big Yellow Taxi]]", with its famous line, "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

''Ladies of the Canyon'' was an instant smash on [[FM radio]] and sold briskly, eventually becoming Mitchell's first gold album (selling over a half million copies). She made a decision to stop touring for a year and just write and paint, yet she was still voted "Top Female Performer" for 1970 by ''[[Melody Maker]]'', a leading UK pop music magazine. On the April 1971 release of [[James Taylor]]'s ''[[Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon]]'' album, Mitchell is credited with backup vocals on the track "[[You've Got a Friend]]". The songs she wrote during the months she took off for travel and life experience appeared on her next album, ''[[Blue (Joni Mitchell album)|Blue]]'', released in June 1971. Comparing Joni Mitchell's talent to his own, David Crosby said, "By the time she did ''Blue'', she was past me and rushing toward the horizon".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122575310809894821 |title=A 65th Birthday Tribute to Joni Mitchell |newspaper=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |date=November 4, 2008 |first=Jim |last=Fusilli |author-link=Jim Fusilli |access-date=March 27, 2015 |archive-date=April 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402184143/http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122575310809894821 |url-access=subscription}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

''Blue'' was an almost instant critical and commercial success, peaking in the top 20 of the ''Billboard'' albums chart in September and also hitting the British Top 3. The lushly produced "[[Carey (song)|Carey]]" was the single at the time, but musically, other parts of ''Blue'' departed further from the sounds of ''Ladies of the Canyon''. Simpler, rhythmic acoustic parts allowed a focus on Mitchell's voice and emotions ("All I Want", "[[A Case of You (song)|A Case of You]]"), while others such as "[[Blue (Joni Mitchell song)|Blue]]", "[[River (Joni Mitchell song)|River]]" and "[[The Last Time I Saw Richard]]" were sung to her rolling piano accompaniment. Her most [[confessional poetry|confessional]] album, Mitchell later said of ''Blue'', "I have, on occasion, sacrificed myself and my own emotional makeup,&nbsp;... singing 'I'm selfish and I'm sad', for instance. We all suffer for our loneliness, but at the time of ''Blue'', our pop stars never admitted these things."<ref name="shumway">{{cite book|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781421413938|title=Rock Star: The Making of Musical Icons from Elvis to Springsteen|last=Shumway|first=David R.|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-1-4214-1392-1|pages=159|access-date=July 19, 2015|archive-date=July 22, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722002222/http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781421413938|url-status=live}}</ref> In its lyrics, the album was regarded as an inspired culmination of her early work, with depressed assessments of the world around her serving as counterpoint to exuberant expressions of romantic love (for example, in "[[California (Joni Mitchell song)|California]]"). Mitchell later remarked, "At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong."<ref name="crowe" />