“I didn’t like the sound of people gasping at the mere mention of my name. It horrified me.”
– Joni Mitchell in 1986, as told to Joe Smith
This interview is from the Joe Smith Collection at the Library of Congress and has never been heard before. Roberta Joan Anderson sat down for a personal, reflective interview in November 1986. The interviewer, Joe Smith, was a longtime record executive who interviewed hundreds of music legends as part of his book, Off The Record. In this extended conversation with Joni we hear an artist come to grips with both her rise to fame and the price that she felt she paid for experimenting in her career and not seeking hits and fame alone.
