NAHANI REIMANN
Creative Research Project
Ladies of the Canyon is an album written by Joni Mitchell and released in 1970 (Mitchell). Mitchell is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is often classified into genres such as: folk, jazz, and pop. She grew up in a small town in Alberta but once her music career began to gain traction, she moved to Los Angeles, California. (Biography.com Editors)
The cover art for Ladies of the Canyon was done by Joni Mitchell herself. She studied at art school and has said that she was a painter first and then a musician and that, “I have always thought of myself as a painter derailed by circumstances”(Mitchell). This album was Joni’s third studio album and both of her former works featured her paintings as well, she has since released many albums, several of which have cover art created by her. Many of her artworks that have been used alongside her music have been self portraits, some simple such as Ladies of the Canyon, and some much more detailed such as her work for Both Sides Now or Clouds. While several of Mitchell’s artworks have become well known and tied to her music, a much larger portion of her work is available to view on her website and spans her entire lifetime, ranging from the 1940s to the 2020s (Mitchell).
The cover art of this album depicts Joni herself in a very simplistic style with her skirt filled with a painting she has done of the view from the window of her Laurel Canyon home (Mitchell). In the 1960s Laurel Canyon, a neighbourhood in Los Angeles, was where many well known musicians lived and would get together. Aside from Joni Mitchell, some of these musicians included Jim Morrison, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Frank Zappa. Throughout the 60s and 70s a lot of very important and influential music was made here (Robinson). In Mitchell’s case, the music was directly affected by her neighbourhood as this third album of hers pays tribute to it and the other people who lived there at the time.
The fourth song on the album is also named Ladies of the Canyon and in it Joni Mitchell describes three women who live in her neighbourhood. The first woman mentioned is Trina Robbins, an American cartoonist, who is described through her second hand fur coat (Robbins). The second woman Mitchell sings about is Annie, whose husband designed album covers and was put in contact with Mitchell, she is described as very welcoming and surrounded by cats and babies (Burden). The last woman Joni speaks of in this song is Estrella Berosini and her Romani descent and the Banyan trees that she climbed. At the end of each of these verses, Joni Mitchell repeats that these are the ladies of the canyon (Berosini). It is clear that these three women had an important impact on Mitchell that made her feel the desire to write Ladies of the Canyon.
During the mid to late 1960s, environmental issues began to gain traction, especially in California, where Mitchell lived and where the hippie counterculture was rapidly growing. Because of her interest in these issues, she wrote a song which eventually came to be one of her most well known songs, named Big Yellow Taxi. The song talks about how ‘paradise’ is being torn away from us so that we can ruin the space with things such as parking lots. Joni Mitchell also references DDT, a chemical pesticide which garnered a lot of criticism and controversy at the time for destroying wildlife around the farms where it was used (Pruitt).
I have been listening to Joni Mitchell for a large part of my childhood thanks to my dad and therefore while listening to Ladies of the Canyon again for this project, it brought a lot of comfort. This being said, I do not necessarily connect with the Laurel Canyon theme but I can relate to valuing the environment as it is an issue that has only increased in severity since this album was written. I like this album, and Joni Mitchell in general, a lot because of her simple and mellow sound.
More of Joni Mitchell's art
Sources
Robinson, Lisa. An Oral History of Laurel Canyon, the Sixties and Seventies Music Mecca. 8 Feb. 2015, www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/02/laurel-canyon-music-scene.
Biography.com Editors. “Joni Mitchell Biography.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 14 Dec. 2020, www.biography.com/musician/joni-mitchell.
Mitchell, Joni. “Joni Mitchell Paintings.” Joni Mitchell, 9 June 2015, https://jonimitchell.com/library./view.cfm?id=4201
Mitchell, Joni. “Ladies of the Canyon 1.” Joni Mitchell, https://jonimitchell.com/paintings/view.cfm?id=17
Mitchell, Joni. “Paintings.” Joni Mitchell, https://jonimitchell.com/paintings/byyear.cfm?y=198 .
Robbins, Trina. “Joni Mitchell Library - Trina Talks about the Song Ladies of the Canyon.” Joni Mitchell, 19 Apr. 2008, https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=1864 .
Burden, Annie. “Joni Mitchell Library - Thoughts on the Song Ladies of the Canyon and the Time.” Joni Mitchell, 4 May 2008, https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=1867.
Berosini, Estrella. “Joni Mitchell Library - Estrella Talks about the Song Ladies of the Canyon.” Joni Mitchell, 25 Mar. 2008, https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=1872.
Pruitt, Sarah. “How the First Earth Day Was Borne From 1960s Counterculture.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 21 Apr. 2020, www.history.com/news/first-earth-day-1960s-counterculture.