Joni Mitchell Archives β Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963β1967) is a five-disc box set by Canadian singer-songwriter
Joni Mitchell, released on October 30, 2020, by
Rhino Records.[1][2] The box set is the first release of the
Joni Mitchell Archives, a planned series of releases containing remastered material from the singer's archives. Formatted in chronological order, the first volume of the series includes the archived material that was recorded in the years preceding the release of Mitchell's debut studio album, Song to a Seagull (1968).[3][4] The album won the
Grammy Award for Best Historical Album at the
64th Annual Grammy Awards.
Background and recording
In 1963, now-retired radio
DJ Barry Bowman of CFQC 600 lived with three of his friends in downtown
Saskatoon,
Canada.[5] During that summer, Bowman and his friends met and befriended Joni Mitchell, who at the time was still going by her birth name of Joni Anderson. The group would frequently congregate with Mitchell at the large house they were renting, the local swimming pool, or the
South Saskatchewan River, where they "drank beer and ate hot dogs."[5] One of Bowman's friends and co-tenants, Danny Evanishen, referred to that period of time as being "the summer that Joni came to [them]."[5] Evanishen is also attributed as being the person who encouraged Mitchell to take up playing the guitar, loaning her his guitar to play in lieu of her ukulele. Encouraged by Mitchell's budding talent, Bowman invited her to the radio station to record nine traditional folk songs over the course of two nights. He gave her a copy of the audition tape and kept the masters, which were later unearthed by his ex-wife in 2015.[5]
In addition to Bowman's rediscovered master tapes, the box set also contains a number of recordings from Mitchell's personal archive, including an expansive, three-set recording captured at the Canterbury House student missionary in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967.[5] The Canterbury House recording made headlines when it was unearthed with lost
Neil Young recordings in 2018 by the Michigan History Project.[6] Young ended up being a consultant during the assemblage of the Archive Collection's inaugural release, having had experience with the release of
his own extensive archival series, though the project was ultimately spearheaded by Mitchell and Young's late manager
Elliot Roberts, who died during the process of planning the release, and to whom the release is dedicated.[5] Planning for the release continued throughout the
COVID-19 pandemic, with in-person meetings between Mitchell and label personnel transitioning to telephone and video calls.[5]
In the press release announcing the creation of the
Joni Mitchell Archives and the release of the first volume, Mitchell included a statement that emphasized the introspective importance of the revisitation of her earliest recordings:
The early stuff, I shouldnβt be such a snob against it. A lot of these songs, I just lost them. They fell away. They only exist in these recordings. For so long I rebelled against the term, βI was never a folksinger.β I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. I didnβt think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened andβ¦it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings. And I had this realization... I was a folksinger![1]
Upon release, Joni Mitchell Archives β Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963β1967) received critical acclaim from music critics. At
Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 87 based on 6 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[7]
A condensed version of Joni Mitchell Archives β Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963β1967), subtitled Highlights, was released on June 12, 2021, by Rhino Records.[21][22] The sampler album was released exclusively as a
vinyl LP for
Record Store Day 2021 Drop 1. Highlights is the fourth overall release and second auxiliary release of the Joni Mitchell Archives, and like the album its material is derived from, features a track listing that is in chronological order. The 180 gram vinyl was limited to 5,500 copies in the United States and 15,000 copies worldwide.[21][22]
Track listing
Side one
No.
Title
Writer(s)
Length
1.
"House of the Rising Sun" (Radio Station CFQC AM / Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, ca. 1963)
Joni Mitchell Archives β Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963β1967) is a five-disc box set by Canadian singer-songwriter
Joni Mitchell, released on October 30, 2020, by
Rhino Records.[1][2] The box set is the first release of the
Joni Mitchell Archives, a planned series of releases containing remastered material from the singer's archives. Formatted in chronological order, the first volume of the series includes the archived material that was recorded in the years preceding the release of Mitchell's debut studio album, Song to a Seagull (1968).[3][4] The album won the
Grammy Award for Best Historical Album at the
64th Annual Grammy Awards.
Background and recording
In 1963, now-retired radio
DJ Barry Bowman of CFQC 600 lived with three of his friends in downtown
Saskatoon,
Canada.[5] During that summer, Bowman and his friends met and befriended Joni Mitchell, who at the time was still going by her birth name of Joni Anderson. The group would frequently congregate with Mitchell at the large house they were renting, the local swimming pool, or the
South Saskatchewan River, where they "drank beer and ate hot dogs."[5] One of Bowman's friends and co-tenants, Danny Evanishen, referred to that period of time as being "the summer that Joni came to [them]."[5] Evanishen is also attributed as being the person who encouraged Mitchell to take up playing the guitar, loaning her his guitar to play in lieu of her ukulele. Encouraged by Mitchell's budding talent, Bowman invited her to the radio station to record nine traditional folk songs over the course of two nights. He gave her a copy of the audition tape and kept the masters, which were later unearthed by his ex-wife in 2015.[5]
In addition to Bowman's rediscovered master tapes, the box set also contains a number of recordings from Mitchell's personal archive, including an expansive, three-set recording captured at the Canterbury House student missionary in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967.[5] The Canterbury House recording made headlines when it was unearthed with lost
Neil Young recordings in 2018 by the Michigan History Project.[6] Young ended up being a consultant during the assemblage of the Archive Collection's inaugural release, having had experience with the release of
his own extensive archival series, though the project was ultimately spearheaded by Mitchell and Young's late manager
Elliot Roberts, who died during the process of planning the release, and to whom the release is dedicated.[5] Planning for the release continued throughout the
COVID-19 pandemic, with in-person meetings between Mitchell and label personnel transitioning to telephone and video calls.[5]
In the press release announcing the creation of the
Joni Mitchell Archives and the release of the first volume, Mitchell included a statement that emphasized the introspective importance of the revisitation of her earliest recordings:
The early stuff, I shouldnβt be such a snob against it. A lot of these songs, I just lost them. They fell away. They only exist in these recordings. For so long I rebelled against the term, βI was never a folksinger.β I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. I didnβt think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened andβ¦it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings. And I had this realization... I was a folksinger![1]
Upon release, Joni Mitchell Archives β Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963β1967) received critical acclaim from music critics. At
Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 87 based on 6 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[7]
A condensed version of Joni Mitchell Archives β Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963β1967), subtitled Highlights, was released on June 12, 2021, by Rhino Records.[21][22] The sampler album was released exclusively as a
vinyl LP for
Record Store Day 2021 Drop 1. Highlights is the fourth overall release and second auxiliary release of the Joni Mitchell Archives, and like the album its material is derived from, features a track listing that is in chronological order. The 180 gram vinyl was limited to 5,500 copies in the United States and 15,000 copies worldwide.[21][22]
Track listing
Side one
No.
Title
Writer(s)
Length
1.
"House of the Rising Sun" (Radio Station CFQC AM / Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, ca. 1963)