Polio, dropping out of school, studying painting: Joni Mitchell, the only true poetessa of rock’n’roll, is 80 years old.
There is no second act in American lives, says F. Scott Fitzgerald, with appropriate desperation, but Joni Mitchell is not American either, but comes from Canada. Her second act began in 2020. An aneurysm almost killed her, but she recovered, was able to pick up the strings on the guitar again and sang again. Deeper than before, much deeper, the cigarettes had already taken care of that, but she sang. Brandi Carlile brought the recovered woman on stage at the Newport Festival last year so that she could be properly celebrated. Joni Mitchell sat on a throne, looking out upon her hosts, and then the queen sang of angel hair and castles of ice and feathery ravines.