Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is well-known to lovers of mid-20th-century folk (or late 20th-century jazz rock, depending on where in Mitchell’s discography you prefer to stay), but she admittedly doesn’t have the star power of, say, the Beatles or Elvis Presley. As Mitchell outlined in a revealing 1986 interview with Joe Smith, that less-than-Elvis level of celebrity was precisely what she wanted.
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Anything else? “Horrifying.”
Joni Mitchell Shares Thoughts On Her Career, Music Industry
Joni Mitchell has always marched to the beat of her own drum. Famously rubato musicians like Bob Dylan have marveled at her ability to write and play music in a world entirely her own, one where she firmly dictates the rhythm, timing, and meaning of her eccentric creations. And while this type of abstractness lends itself nicely to a cult following, it tends to perform more poorly in commercial settings. As her popularity declined further into the latter half of the 20th century, Mitchell was keenly aware that her music wasn’t what radio stations and label execs wanted.
“I don’t know how to sell out,” she said in a 1986 interview. “If I tried to sell out, I don’t think I could. By that, I mean to make an attempt to make a commercial record. I just make them and think, ‘If I was a kid, I would like this song.’ You have to have a certain amount of grab-ability initially, and then something that wears well that you’ll love for years to come. That’s what anything fine is. It’s recognized in painting. It’s not recognized [in music]. I’ve been working in a toss-away industry. I’m a fine artist working in a commercial arena. That’s my cross to bear.”
But as she suggests in that same interview, even if she did enter the highly sought-after realm of her commercially successful contemporaries like, say, Linda Ronstadt or Fleetwood Mac, she likely wouldn’t stick around for very long, regardless of whether her records sold.
The Songwriter Had A Paradoxical Aversion To Fame
With her delicate frame and crystalline soprano voice, many viewed Joni Mitchell as a naive ingénue when she first burst onto the music scene in the mid-1960s. However, it didn’t take long for her to wise up to the parts of the industry she could tolerate (and the parts she absolutely couldn’t). As her manager, David Geffen, once said, Mitchell was the “only star [he’d] ever met that wanted to be ordinary.” And indeed, that’s exactly what Mitchell wanted—so much so that she would frequent wig stores around the country just so she could avoid recognition.
In her 1986 interview, Mitchell said she preferred playing to attentive audiences in small clubs. “I’d never liked the roar of a big crowd,” she said. “I didn’t like the sound of people gasping at the mere mention of my name. It horrified me.” She added, “I knew people were fickle, and I knew that they were buying an illusion. I didn’t want there to be such a gulf between who I presented and who I was. You know, I never really wanted to be a star. I didn’t like entering a room with all eyes on me.”
Mitchell described talking to a man at a rock concert where she was sitting with the rest of the audience. He became visibly perturbed that she would be sitting there and not in a box office or VIP area. “Some people are upset to see you doing ordinary things. Those people, if they were a celebrity, they would have an entourage type, you know. If you see yourself as a kingly type, then you need serfs and your army.”
Mitchell didn’t need serfs or an army—just a few wigs and pseudonyms to get her further down the road incognito.
Photo by Ts/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
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