>>Joni Mitchell, while I'm not the biggest fan in the world of her singing, is one of the great songwriters of all time. I think King and Simon are terrific too, but Mitchell, as a songwriter, absolutely eclipses them both - no contest. I should qualify what I said about Mitchell as a singer though. I'm not a huge fan of her singing as a folk singer, but oddly enough, it turns out that she's a superb jazz singer.
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>Agreed. It was too bad that a lot of her audience abandoned her when she moved in a jazzier direction. I think some people had her permanently pegged as a hippie chick folkie songwriter.

That's the trouble with the segmented market, you get stuffed into a drawer and you never get a chance to do anything else but what the sticker on the drawer says. Just curious, do the hard rock bands still do a few acoustic things on their albums, like the Zeppelin used to do?

And now I remember I have Joni Mitchell's "Mingus" album over there at home. Time to get it again.