Joni Mitchell has announced an incredible new archival series that will be released in instalments over the coming years; beginning with Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963 – 1967) which debuts next month (pre-order here). The 5xCD collection will feature some incredible rarities – unreleased home, live and radio recordings from the years leading to her 1968 debut Song to a Seagull.
“The early stuff, I shouldn’t be such a snob against it,” Mitchell said in a statement. “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, ‘I was never a folk-singer.’ I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. I didn’t think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened and … it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings. And I had this realization … I was a folk singer!”
Opening her vault for the first time to create the Joni Mitchell Archives, the series of boxed set releases will span the next several years and take deep dives into unreleased content from different eras of her storied career. Mitchell has been very much at the helm of the archival series, lending her vision and personal touch to every element. The collection begins in 1963 with her earliest-known recording as a 19-year-old Mitchell performs “House Of The Rising Sun” at CFQC AM, a radio station in her hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The box set closes with a stirring, three-set 1967 nightclub performance recorded at the Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Listen to Joni Mitchell’s angelic version “House of the Rising Sun” below (stream here).
Joni Mitchell | “House Of The Rising Sun”
Both of these performances will also be available separately on 180-gram vinyl on October 30th. The first, Early Joni – 1963, will be released as a single LP on vinyl. In tradition with Mitchell’s past albums, the cover for features a self-portrait and marks her first new art in many years. The other, Live at the Canterbury House – 1967, is a 3-LP and includes Mitchell’s entire three-set performance from October 27, 1967. Production of this vinyl set is limited to 10,000 copies. See here.
The 5-CD collection includes 29 previously unreleased recordings, a 40-page booklet featuring a stack of unseen photos from Mitchell’s personal collection, along with new liner notes and conversations between writer/filmmaker Cameron Crowe and Mitchell, who recently spent Sunday afternoons together discussing her archives. See here.
Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963 – 1967) will be released October 30th. Head over to Joni Mitchell’s new website – JoniMitchell.com – to check out the tracklisting all the options available to pre-order, here.
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