Introducing Legend: The Joni Mitchell Story

10/26/23 • 2 min

How did the greats become the greats? And what did it cost them to get there? Legend is a musician biography series from BBC Radio 4 exploring the life and music of the pioneering artists who shaped modern music.

Series one tells the story of Joni Mitchell and explores her incomparable body of work – from her earliest home recordings to masterpieces like Blue, Court and Spark, and Hejira.

It’s a story that takes us from the remote prairie towns of Saskatchewan to the bohemian idyll of Laurel Canyon; through the hippie dreams of the Woodstock generation and into the dog-eat-dog world of 1980s LA.

Her path has not been straightforward. There have been lonely roads and wrong turns. Road rage, and car crashes – symbolic and real. Joni walked away from fame many times. She gave up a daughter and found her again. She came close to death more than once. And now, she’s back on stages again at the age of 80.

Jesca Hoop – Presenter Mair Bosworth – Producer Eliza Lomas – Producer

Series one tells the story of Joni Mitchell and explores her incomparable body of work – from her earliest home recordings to masterpieces like Blue, Court and Spark, and Hejira.

Jesca Hoop – Presenter Mair Bosworth – Producer Eliza Lomas – Producer

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1. Urge for Going

Joni Mitchell’s songs have soundtracked our lives and her pioneering work changed music forever. Jesca Hoop explores her extraordinary story to reveal the life behind the legend.

In the first episode, we hear how young Joni loves to watch the trains go by from the window of her house in a Saskatchewan prairie town. Even as a child, there is a desire to see what's around the next bend. She's a tomboy and an athlete, until polio forces her into a period of convalescence; she's no longer picked first for sports teams but when she gets the use of her legs back she rock 'n' roll dances her way through her teens. Her childhood ambition is to be a painter, but when she finally makes it to art school everything changes....

“I’ve always been a creature of change” – Joni Mitchell

Through archive, fresh interviews, narration, immersive sound design and an original score, we trace the story of an extraordinary life and explore what makes Joni Mitchell a singular artist: the genius of her lyrics; her incredible talent as guitarist, painter and producer; and her restless drive for innovation.

In Legend, we follow Joni from her ‘flatlander’ childhood on the Canadian prairies, through the folk clubs of Toronto and Detroit, to a redwood cottage in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, to a cave in Crete, to a deserted desert highway, to recording studios and stages around the world. From her earliest home recordings to masterpieces like Blue, Court and Spark, and Hejira, we explore some of the stories behind her best-loved songs and celebrate her remarkable return to live performance in 2023: “like seeing, in the wild, a rare bird long feared extinct” (Lindsay Zoladz).

Our guide through the series is the California-born, Manchester-based musician, Jesca Hoop. Jesca speaks to musicians like Blake Mills, Allison Russell, Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe, who have played alongside Joni, and we hear tributes from those, like musician John Grant, who have been inspired and influenced by her music. We also hear from friends, including Larry Klein and Graham Nash; and from music critics and biographers, including Ann Powers, David Yaffe, Lindsay Zoladz, Kate Mossman, Barney Hoskyns, Miles Grier and Jenn Pelly.

The Joni Mitchell Story comes from the production team behind BBC Radio 4’s award-winning podcast Soul Music – “... the gold standard for music podcasts...” (Esquire).

Producers: Mair Bosworth and Eliza Lomas Production Coordinator: Andrew Lewis Editor: Chris Ledgard Story Editor: Emma Harding Story Consultant: John Yorke Sound Design and Original Music: Hannis Brown Studio Engineers: Ilse Lademann and Michael Harrison Commissioning Editor: Daniel Clarke