Joni Mitchell Granted Us 5 Minutes To Ask About Her Early Influences

This short but blunt and powerful interview with the great folk, pop, country, rock, classical, jazz singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell was made in 1989. My team and I were recording interviews with mostly unknown “ordinary“ people about their memories and experiences during the 1960s. The television series I was making was called making sense of the 60s. At the time, Joni Mitchell had stopped performing but had attended a Woodstock reunion event. She granted my team five minutes for an interview. Eventually at the time, she wasn’t speaking publicly about her activities, personal or professional. This interview is the result. I first came across Joni Mitchell in 1965, introduced to her music by Buffy St. Marie. I was working as a young filmmaker and had made a contact with Buffy about whom I was desperate to make a documentary film. Her music wanted me. I spent time with her in New York City and in Maine and unfortunately, the documentary I wanted to make never got made. But she t