Ladies of the Canyon Tracks
1. Morning Morgantown
2. For Free
3. Conversation
4. Ladies of the Canyon
5. Willy
6. Arrangement
7. Rainy Night House
8. Priest
9. Blue Boy
10. Big Yellow Taxi
11. Woodstock
12. Circle Game
Ladies of the Canyon Review
Joni Mitchell's third album offers a bridge between the artful but sometimes dour meditations of her earlier work and the more mature, confessional revelations of the classics that would follow. Voice and guitar still hew to the pretty filigree of a folk poet, but there's the giggling rush of rock & roll freedom in "Big Yellow Taxi," and the formal metaphor of her older songs ("The Circle Game," already oft-covered by the time of this recording) yields to the more impressionistic images of the new ones ("Woodstock"). The dark lyricism of her earliest ballads is intact (on "For Free" and "Rainy Night House"), yet there's a prevailing idealism here that sounds poignant alongside the warier, more mature songs to come on Blue and Court And Spark. --Sam Sutherland
"By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation."
This is a simply delightful listen. Highly recommended.