When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as one of the most important and influential female recording artists of the late 20th century. Her music evolved from deeply personal folk stylings into pop, jazz, avant-garde, and even world music.

Born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort McLeod, Alberta, Canada, Joni was stricken with polio at the age of nine. She began her performing career by singing to the other patients during her recovery in a children's hospital. Joni later taught herself to play the guitar and became a fixture on the folk-music scene around Alberta while attending art school. She married folksinger Chuck Mitchell in 1965 and relocated to Toronto where she began performing under the name Joni Mitchell. A year later the couple moved to Detroit, MI, and separated shortly thereafter. Joni continued performing in the U.S. and eventually won significant press acclaim for her burgeoning songwriting skills and smoky, distinctive vocals.

A string of high-profile performances in New York City caught the attention of David Crosby and a record deal with Reprise followed in 1967. Crosby produced her debut record, Joni Mitchell (Song to a Seagull), which appeared the following year. Meanwhile her songs found great success with other singers: in 1968, Judy Collins scored a major hit with the Mitchell-penned "Both Sides Now", while Fairport Convention covered "Eastern Rain" and Tom Rush recorded "The Circle Game". Joni earned a strong cult following and her 1969 sophomore effort, Clouds, reached the Top 40 and earned the Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance or Best Folk Recording. Her 1970 release, Ladies of the Canyon, sold even better on the strength of the single "Big Yellow Taxi". It also included her anthemic composition "Woodstock", a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Still, it was her landmark record, Blue, released in 1971 that established Joni as one of pop music's most remarkable and insightful talents.

In the first of the many major stylistic turns Joni took over the course of her career, she turned away from Blue's incandescent folk with her 1972 recording, For the Roses. Backed by rock-jazz performer Tom Scott, Joni's music began moving into more pop-oriented territory, a change typified by the single "You Turn Me On (I'm a Radio)", her first significant hit. The follow-up, 1974's classic Court and Spark, was her most commercially successful outing: a sparkling, jazz-accented set, it reached the #2 spot on the U.S. album charts and launched three hit singles - "Help Me", "Free Man in Paris", and "Raised on Robbery". The album also earned Joni her second Grammy Award in 1974 for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)/Best Background Arrangement for the song "Down To You".

Never afraid to experiment with her sound, Joni went on to release chart topping albums as the decades passed by, including the Grammy Award winning albums, Turbulent Indigo, released in 1995 which earned the Grammy Award for Best Album Package and for Best Pop Vocal Album, and the 2000 release, Both Sides Now, which earned the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. In 2002, Joni received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award with the citation describing her as "one of the most important female recording artists of the rock era" and "a powerful influence on all artists who embrace diversity, imagination and integrity".

In other recognition of her musical achievement, Joni was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 1995, Billboard magazine presented Joni with their highest honor for creative achievement, the Century Award. The award has been presented annually since 1992 "to an artist to acknowledge the uncommon excellence of a still-unfolding body of work". Past winners of the Billboard Century Award include George Harrison, Buddy Guy, and Billy Joel. In 2003, Rolling Stone named her the 72nd greatest guitarist of all time (she was the highest-ranked woman on the list). Joni received an honorary doctorate from McGill University in 2004 for her contributions to the arts. In addition to her career as a musician, Joni is an accomplished visual artist. Through photography or painting she created the artwork for each of her albums, and has described herself as a "painter derailed by circumstance". Joni now focuses mainly on her visual art while her music continues to inspire new generations of listeners.