Joni Mitchell’s Two Earliest Musical Influences Spanned From 1930s Orchestral Music to This Famous 1950s Rocker

The best, most singular artists take a wide array of musical influences and combine them with their own creative vision to make something wholly unique and distinct to themselves, and Joni Mitchell is certainly no exception. The Canadian singer-songwriter has always composed by her own rules, with even Bob Dylan famously remarking that she was in her “own world.”

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Some of her eccentricities have been more functional than fashionable. For example, the alternate tunings that came to define her style were originally adaptations for making the fretboard more accessible after polio affected her hand’s dexterity. But other quirks and singularities of Mitchell’s music came from the sheer scope of her musical influences.

Separately, these inspirations couldn’t seem more different. But within the context of Mitchell’s prolific and varied musical catalogue, it makes sense.

Joni Mitchell Cites Two Opposing Influences in Early Childhood

As a young child growing up in Saskatoon, Joni Mitchell discovered two musical passions at about the same time: the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Chuck Berry. Speaking to Guitar Player, Mitchell called Rachmaninov’s “Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini”, specifically the Db-major 18th variation, “the most beautiful melody I ever heard.”

She continued, “I used to go down to the store where you could take a 78 and go into a glass listening booth, play it, and decide if you wanted it or not. Well, I couldn’t buy it because I was a child. But I used to go in and listen to music from time to time. So, that love of melody made me want to create music.”

Her next passion, Mitchell said, was Chuck Berry. “That took a different form,” she explained. Her introduction to rock ‘n’ roll naturally led to her becoming a “really serious dancer, doing the Lindy hop and swing dances.” Mitchell said that when she decided to pick up the guitar and become an instrumentalist instead, “nobody knew who I was anymore.”

Regardless, her choice appeared to be the correct one. Mitchell took her childhood influences of Rachmaninoff, Chuck Berry, and “harmonically wide and rich” music like Frank Sinatra and melded them with her own intrinsic artistry. The result was a distinct, highly influential sound that boasts the same genre-defining quality as the musicians Mitchell was listening to as a kid in Canada.

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