Riverboat, Toronto
Toronto, April 16.
Joni Mitchell; $1.75 cover

Canadian singer-composer Joni Mitchell, who now makes her home in California, has blossomed and matured into the ranks of young performers who these days are creating their own song-poems to capture audiences.

At her two-week engagement in Canda's best-known coffeehouse the Riverboat in Toronto's Yorkville Village, Miss Mitchell produces a clutch of new songs, each of them elaborated poems that carefully build a character within song. Her poetic images and her guitar accompaniment go well together.

Much in the vein of another Canadian poet, Leonard Cohen, Miss Mitchell has a strong appeal to young people. Her songs go back to roots. They talk of the countryside and they deal with movement to either the city or the sea. They talk of more innocent days without bitterness and they leave an optimism that is rare from today's youthful talents.

With these songs now being recorded on her first album by Ms.Mitchell herself and by Judy Collins and others, the lanky blonde is making her mark to the applause of the large crowds jamming the Riverboat to hear her. (Adil.)