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  7599274502CD  £6.00

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Reprise

Joni Mitchell

Ladies of the Canyon

back in stock joni mitchell's third release found her moving away from the wistful folk of her debut and 'clouds' branching out into the progressive pop and jazz elements that would define her best work the bright poppy 'big yellow taxi' the album's single is here as is her epochdefining 'woodstock' a soulful stirring song about the 1969 rock festival that was later covered by crosby stills nash and young but the material on 'ladies of the canyon' is uniformly strong demonstrating the mature style and vision that made her one of the leading voices of the '70s on songs like 'conversation' and the title cut mitchell's lyrics begin to turn toward to the quirky personal poetry of interior landscapes focusing with a writer's eye on scene detail and the dynamics of human relationships her instrumental palette is broadened too with colorful textured arrangements that make greater use of piano as well as strings reeds electric keyboards and percussion some songs like the sweet chiming 'the circle game' seem a bit nave but these are counterbalanced with darker songs like 'the arrangement' a stark ballad in all ladies of the canyon was mitchell's first classic album one that helped pave the way for its watershed successor 'blue'