A few months ago it was reported that Joni Mitchell had collapsed in her home and been rushed to the hospital. Today I read a more recent news report saying that she is still in the hospital, though there were conflicting accounts of how bad her condition is. In any case, as a sort of tribute to her I thought I’d post the track listing from a rather rough compilation of her songs as recorded by other artists. It’s not necessarily one of my best compilations, because I did it rather quickly and included pretty much every Joni Mitchell cover I had or could get ahold of, without taking a lot of time to select the very best recordings. Also, for many of these songs I prefer Mitchell’s own versions. But there are definitely some great classic recordings here, such as CSNY’s “Woodstock” (very different from Mitchell’s own version, and just as good) or Judy Collins’s “Both Sides Now” (a song that was even covered by singers like Frank Sinatra and Doris Day), and a lot of very interesting versions of some excellent songs (such as Dylan's version of "Big Yellow Taxi", a song more famously covered by Counting Crows and Amy Grant, Neil Diamond's version of "Free Man in Paris", or Nazareth's hard rock version of "This Flight Tonight"). The great variety of artists shows how widespread Mitchell’s impact has been, an impact that goes beyond the world of music (just to take one example, Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former US President Bill Clinton and prospective future US President Hillary Rodham Clinton, was named for Mitchell's song "Chelsea Morning"). Someday it’d be nice to do a more comprehensive overview of Mitchell’s songs, but I’d have to listen to a lot more of her albums first (at present I only have a compilation album and Blue, though I’ve heard parts of other albums elsewhere), but for now, I will just wish her a quick recovery.
The Joni Mitchell Songbook (1967-2004)
1 The Circle Game Buffy Sainte-Marie (1967)
2 Both Sides Now Judy Collins (1968/01)
3 Song To A Seagull Buffy Sainte-Marie (1967)
4 Urge For Going Tom Rush (1968)
5 Michael From Mountains Judy Collins (1968/01)
6 I Don't Know Where I Stand Fairport Convention (1968/06)
7 Chelsea Morning Judy Collins (1969/07)
8 Eastern Rain Fairport Convention (1969/01)
9 Big Yellow Taxi Bob Dylan (1970[1973])
10 Woodstock Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970/03)
11 All I Want Keith Jarrett (1971)
12 (He Played Real Good) For Free The Byrds (1973)
13 That Song About the Midway Bonnie Raitt (1974)
14 This Flight Tonight Nazareth (1974)
15 Dreamland Roger McGuinn (1976)
16 Free Man In Paris Neil Diamond (1977)
17 Blue Sarah McLachlan (1994)
18 A Case Of You Tori Amos (1994)
19 River Travis (1999)
20 California Wilson Phillips (2004)
21 Black Crow Diane Krall (2004)
