Mitchell knows no borders at all

Lethbridge Herald
July 14, 1983

TORONTO (CP) - Although she remembers her childhood days spent on the Canadian Prairies with nostalgia, Joni Mitchell doesn't feign any allegiance to her home soil.

"I definitely still feel Canadian," said Mitchell, in town Tuesday for her first local concert in eight years at the Canadian National Exhibition Bandshell. "But I have no nationality, no race, no class. I'm a mutt."

That revelation should come as no surprise to followers of the 39-year-old singer-songwriter. It's been almost 20 years since the small-town Alberta girl left the coffee houses of Canada with guitar in hand and crossed the border to make a name for herself.

And time has been good to her. With 13 albums to her credit - 9 of which have gone gold - a spot in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and an almost-perennial place on the Nomination list for the Canadian Juno Awards. Mitchell's star is still rising.

Her current round of concerts - the final leg of a seven-month tour - includes most of the music from her latest album, Wild Things Run Fast, and a smattering of old favorites.

Mitchell said the show is "a lot of retrospect with a facelift."

By some "Mundane Magic," Mitchell said, she has found a niche in each of her musical directions from the early, folk days when she was a "confessional poet" to the funky, jazz-rock flavor on Miles of Aisles and the blatant jazz orientation of Mingus, written by using melodies by jazz great Charlie Mingus.

Nothing is static, she said. The personal changes she has experienced are reflected in everything she does musically as well as in her paintings - a talent that has found expression on many of her album covers.