Joni stunned the Newport Folk Festival audience last summer when she gave a surprise performance – her first in 20 years – delivering a heartfelt set filled with some of her greatest songs.

Mitchell’s triumphant return to the stage on July 24, 2022, will be featured on a new live album from Rhino, AT NEWPORT, available on July 28, 2023 on CD and 2-LP black vinyl. Produced by close collaborator Brandi Carlile, along with Mitchell, the music will also be released the same day on digital and streaming services and Dolby Atmos. A clear-vinyl version of the 2-LP set will be available exclusively from Indie Retail and Barnes & Noble. Mitchell’s Newport performance of her classic song “Both Sides Now” is available today digitally.

Although they rarely appeared together on the same bill, Gordon Lightfoot and Joni moved in many of the same circles early in their careers- most notably, each appearing often at the Riverboat, the famous Toronto coffeehouse. This was the premier area club at the time, and Joni and Gordon (along with Neil Young) were the top talents.

For Canadians, Mr. Lightfoot was a national hero, a homegrown star who stayed home even after achieving spectacular success in the United States and who catered to his Canadian fans with cross-country tours. “Sometimes I wonder why I’m being called an icon, because I really don’t think of myself that way,” Mr. Lightfoot told The Toronto Globe and Mail in 2008. “I’m a professional musician, and I work with very professional people. It’s how we get through life.”

Gordon died Monday night. He was 84.

Text adapted from William Grimes at the NYT.

On the horizon... Cary Raditz' new memoir "Carey: Genesis of the Song" to be released in June. An excerpt:

Ahhh. “California.” I heard it first in London with James’s guitar backing her dulcimer. And then Henry Lewy played it for me at A&M. It’s a great song, although I’m not flattered with “Redneck on a Grecian Isle . . . ,” and “ . . . he kept my camera to sell.” That goddamn camera. People are always asking me about it. She gave me the camera to film Matala, to film its fragile presence like Brassaï had captured an essence of Paris in 1930—but that would be a flattering comparison—it was about recording a point in time and space. Joni had witnessed the fragility of Matala, how the police had closed down the caves while she was there. She knew Matala and its cultural lifestyle were bound to change and disappear, not unlike Paradise in “Big Yellow Taxi.”

Stay tuned for more information!

The PBS broadcast of Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song will be available in Canada as well as the USA. The program can be viewed on PBS.org or with the PBS App - available for Roku, Apple TV 4, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV in Canada.

Also, the broadcasts from these PBS border stations will be available to Canadian viewers:

WMED-TV (available in New Brunswick)
KFME-TV Fargo (available in Winnipeg/Northwestern Ontario in high-definition)
KGFE-TV Grand Forks (available in Winnipeg)
KTCI Minneapolis (available in Thunder Bay)
WCFE-TV Plattsburgh (available in Montreal)
WPBS-TV Watertown (available in Ottawa)
WNED-TV Buffalo (available in Southern Ontario)
WQLN-TV Erie (available in London)
WTVS Detroit Public Television (Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Halifax, St. Johns and Ontario. Well watched in Québec and have wonderful reach in communities of all sizes, from the Atlantic Provinces to the Yukon.)

More information here.

Musical artists joined the national library and American leaders to honor music legend Joni Mitchell in the nation’s capital on Wednesday, March 1, as she was awarded the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song during an all-star tribute concert.

The lineup included performances by James Taylor, Brandi Carlile, Annie Lennox, Herbie Hancock, Cyndi Lauper, Marcus Mumford, Graham Nash, Angelique Kidjo, Diana Krall, Celisse, Lucius and Ledisi.

PBS stations will broadcast the concert — “Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song” — at 9 p.m. ET on Friday, March 31 (check local listings) and on PBS.org and the PBS App as part of the co-produced Emmy Award-winning music series. It will also be broadcast to U.S. Department of Defense locations around the world via the American Forces Network. More information.