Editing Joni Mitchell (section)

===1975–1977: ''The Hissing of Summer Lawns'' and ''Hejira''===
[[File:Joni Mitchell (1975).png|thumb|right|Mitchell in 1975|231x231px]]
Mitchell went into the studio in early 1975 to record acoustic demos of some songs that she had written since the ''Court and Spark'' tour. A few months later she recorded versions of the tunes with her band. Her musical interests were diverging from both the folk and the pop scene of the era, toward less structured, more jazz-inspired pieces, with a wider range of instruments. The new song cycle was released in November 1975 as ''[[The Hissing of Summer Lawns]]''. On "The Jungle Line", she made an early effort at [[sample (music)|sampling]] a recording of African musicians, something that became more commonplace among Western rock acts in the 1980s. "In France They Kiss on Main Street" continued the lush pop sounds of ''Court and Spark'', and efforts such as the title song and "Edith and the Kingpin" chronicled the underbelly of suburban lives in Southern California.

During 1975, Mitchell also participated in several concerts in the [[Rolling Thunder Revue tours]] featuring [[Bob Dylan]] and [[Joan Baez]], and in 1976 she performed as part of ''[[The Last Waltz]]'' by [[the Band]]. In January 1976, Mitchell received a nomination for the [[Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance]] for the album ''The Hissing of Summer Lawns'', though the 1976 Grammy for that category went to [[Linda Ronstadt]].

In early 1976, Mitchell travelled with friends who were driving cross country to Maine. Afterwards, she drove back to California alone and composed several songs during her journey which featured on her next album, 1976's ''[[Hejira (album)|Hejira]]''. She stated that "This album was written mostly while I was traveling in the car. That's why there were no piano songs&nbsp;..."<ref name="crowe" /> ''Hejira'' was arguably Mitchell's most experimental album so far, owing to her ongoing collaborations with jazz virtuoso bass guitarist [[Jaco Pastorius]] on several songs, namely the first single, "[[Coyote (song)|Coyote]]", the atmospheric "Hejira", the disorienting, guitar-heavy "Black Crow", and the album's last song "Refuge of the Roads". The album climbed to No. 13 on the Billboard Charts, reaching gold status three weeks after release, and received airplay from album-oriented FM rock stations. Yet "Coyote", backed with "Blue Motel Room", failed to chart on the Hot 100. ''Hejira'' "did not sell as briskly as Mitchell's earlier, more 'radio-friendly' albums, [but] its stature in her catalogue has grown over the years".<ref name="ottawa">{{cite news |last=Fischer |first=Doug |url=http://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=1459 |title=The trouble she's seen: Doug Fischer talks to Joni Mitchell about her seminal album, Hejira |work=The Ottawa Citizen |date=October 8, 2006 |access-date=March 9, 2007 |archive-date=December 8, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208145005/http://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=1459 |url-status=live }}</ref> Mitchell herself believes the album to be unique. In 2006 she said, "I suppose a lot of people could have written a lot of my other songs, but I feel the songs on ''Hejira'' could only have come from me."<ref name="ottawa" />