In 1969, Joni Mitchell missed the Woodstock festival to go on The Dick Cavett Show, only to be joined by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and the entire Jefferson Airplane, who regaled the world with their tales of peace, love, and music. It didn’t take long for Joni to write “Woodstock” and have the last word.
More than half a century has passed. The world is, in ways that matter to Joni, less stardust and golden than anyone could have imagined when Hendrix blasted “The Star-Spangled Banner.” After “Woodstock,” every Joni Mitchell album was another discovery. She continued to stay ahead of everyone else and created a body of work better than we deserve. She survived a near-fatal aneurysm in 2015, but she didn’t just recover; she was Lazarus.
