Traveling

*An Observer Best New Biographies of 2024*

Celebrated NPR music critic Ann Powers explores the life and career of Joni Mitchell in a lyrical style as fascinating and ethereal as the songs of the artist herself in a definitive biography.

“What you are about to read is not a standard account of the life and work of Joni Mitchell. Instead, it’s a tale of long journeying through a life that changed popular music: of a homesick wanderer forging ahead on routes of her own invention, and of me on her trail, heading toward the ringing of her voice.”

—From the introduction

For decades, Joni Mitchell’s life and music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, the iconic singer-songwriter has inspired countless musicians—from peers like James Taylor, to inheritors like Prince and Brandi Carlile—and authors, who have dissected her music and her life in their writing. At the same time, Mitchell has always been a force beckoning us still closer, as—with the other arm—she pushes us away. Given this, music critic Ann Powers wondered if there was another way to draw insights from the life of this singular musician who never stops moving, never stops experimenting.

In Traveling, Powers seeks to understand Mitchell through her myriad journeys. Through extensive interviews with Mitchells peers and deep archival research, she takes readers to rural Canada, mapping the singer’s childhood battle with polio and her beginnings in the Laurel Canyon scene. She charts the course of Mitchell’s musical evolution, ranging from early folk music to jazz fusion to experimentation with pop synthetics. She follows the winding road of Mitchell’s collaborations with other greats, and the loves that emerged along the way, all the way through to the remarkable return of Mitchell to music-making after the 2015 aneurysm that nearly took her life.

Along this journey, Powers’ wide-ranging musings on the artist’s life and career reconsider the biographer’s role and the way it twines against the reality of a fan. In doing so, Traveling illustrates the shifting nature of biography, and the ultimate contradiction of celebrity: that an icon cannot truly, completely be known to a fan.

Kaleidoscopic in scope, and intimate in its detail, Traveling is a fresh and fascinating addition to the Joni Mitchell canon, written by a biographer in full command of her gifts who asks as much of herself as of her subject.

This kaleidoscopic music biography goes beyond the standard account to explore:

A New Kind of Biography: Part criticism, part travelogue, and part memoir, Ann Powers seeks to understand the iconic singer-songwriter through her myriad journeys, both physical and musical. From Folk to Jazz Fusion: Charts the course of Mitchell’s groundbreaking musical evolution, from her early folk roots to pioneering jazz fusion and her influential experiments with pop synthetics. The Laurel Canyon Scene: Through extensive interviews and deep archival research, the book follows the winding road of Mitchell’s collaborations and loves with peers like James Taylor and David Crosby. An Artist and an Icon: A fresh and fascinating addition to the Joni Mitchell canon that reconsiders the biographer’s role and the ultimate contradiction of celebrity—that a fan can never truly know their icon.