Joni Mitchell made a surprise appearance for a full set Sunday at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival, joining Brandi Carlile. Two ladies were joined by Blake Mills, Taylor Goldsmith, Marcus Mumford, Wynonna Judd, Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, and others. Over 13 songs, Mitchell sat around on couches on-stage playing a mix of her favorite oldies ('Why Do Fools Fall in Love', 'Love Potion No. 9') as well as an array of her masterpieces. Rolling Stone reports from the fest.

Billboard calculates losses Neil Yung and Joni Mitchell are going to have due to their withdrawal from Spotify: "At an estimated $2.8 million in streaming royalties last year, Young’s decision will forego about $1.2 million each year for him and his label, Warner Music/Reprise (Spotify accounted for about 43%). Of that, Young likely received half — $600,000. On top of that, Young earned $308,000 in publishing revenue from Spotify last year. Half of that — $154,000 — he would receive for the songwriter share with the other half going to Hipgnosis Songs. For Young, personally, the decision to pull his music from Spotify will cost him about $754,000 annually. In 2021, Mitchell’s recording catalog earned $373,000 from Spotify revenues. Like Young, Mitchell’s heritage contract likely earns her half of those revenues, adding up to about $186,500 in artist royalties she is foregoing. Her publishing, including her songwriting share, earned about $702,000 annually, of which about 11% — $79,000 — came from Spotify. Mitchell’s personal annual loss, based on her catalog’s performance for 2021, would be about $257,000 in total artist and publishing royalties", Billboard estimates.

Joni Mitchell has announced on her blog that she intended to remove “all my music” from Spotify, MBW reports. Her reason are “irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives”. Mitchell added: “I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue”. Neil Young pulled his albums from Spotify due to his belief that the podcaster Joe Rogan has been spreading untruths about Covid vaccinations on the service.

Joni Mitchell has been named the 2022 Person of the Year by the Recording Academy’s MusiCares organization, Variety reports. Mitchel is being honored "for breaking down barriers for women in the music industry; for tenacity in creating and following her own voice and for her ability to bring comfort, joy and inspiration to countless listeners and artists alike".

Two shades of blue
June 26, 2021

Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' 50 years later

A great read in the NPR about the 1971 Joni Mitchell album 'Blue', and women who helped make it, as well as about Miles Davis' 1959 album 'Kind Of Blue' and all the men who contributed to it. The bottom line of the article: "It's interesting to think about why people decide some works of art can change their lives".

"The words to the song are your script. You have to bring the correct emotion to every word. You know, if you sing it pretty – a lot of people that cover my songs will sing it pretty – it’s going to fall flat. You have to bring more to it than that" - Joni Mitchell told Cameron Crowe in an interview about a release of a box set of her earliest recordings. She also talked about her musical identity - "For so long I rebelled against the term: 'I was never a folk singer'. I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. I didn’t think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened, and – it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings. And I had this realisation… I was a folk singer!".