It has been an incredible few years for Joni Mitchell.
The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter will make her debut performance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday as part of a celebrated return for the 80-year-old following a brain aneurysm in 2015.
The music legend, who already has nine Grammy Awards to her name and a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award, is nominated for best folk album for her album “Joni Mitchell at Newport [Live],” which was recorded in 2022 during her surprise performance at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.
Mitchell, who is known for hits like “Both Sides Now” and “Big Yellow Taxi,” was honored as the Grammy’s MusicCares Person of the Year with a show in Las Vegas in 2022, and in 2023, she received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at an event in Washington, D.C.
SINGER-SONGWRITER JONI MITCHELL TO RECEIVE GERSHWIN PRIZE FOR POPULAR SONG
Joni Mitchell retaught herself to play following a brain aneurysm in 2015. (Gary Miller/Getty Images)
“We are living in the time of Joni Mitchell,” friend and collaborator Brandi Carlile said on stage in Las Vegas, according to the Tennessean.
Her Newport set was one of Mitchell’s first live performances in years.
After suffering the brain aneurysm, along with relearning to walk and talk, the folk legend had to relearn how to play music. She taught herself to play by watching videos of other musicians.
“I’m learning. I’m looking at videos on the net to see where to put my fingers,” Mitchell explained to CBS Mornings in 2022. “It’s amazing what an aneurysm knocks out – how to get out of a chair. You don’t know how to get out of bed. You have to learn all these things by rote again.”
JONI MITCHELL PERFORMS FIRST FULL SET IN OVER 20 YEARS AT NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL
Joni Mitchell accepting the 2023 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for American Song. (Shannon Finney/Getty Images)
She added, “There’s a lot of going back to infancy almost. You have to relearn everything.”
She said that her brain surgeon told her she had “will and grit,” noting “I’ve recovered from a lot of things,” including polio.
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Last summer, Mitchell headlined her first show in more than 20 years – in central Washington State – in what has been dubbed a “Joni Jam.” She also performed with other greats like Brandi Carlile and Annie Lennox at Carlile’s Hollywood Bowl show in Los Angeles last October.
This October, Mitchell will head back to the Bowl to headline her first California concert since 2000 with another Joni Jam.
Joni Mitchell, right, and Brandi Carlile at the Grammys in 2022. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
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A second date was recently added to her Bowl set “due to overwhelming demand,” organizers said.
The Joni Jams are similar to the informal sessions Mitchell held at her California house with other musicians like Carlile and Paul McCartney while she was undergoing her rehabilitation.
Joni Mitchell in 1970. (Martin Mills/Getty Images)
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Mitchell hit the height of her fame while working in Los Angeles in the 1970s and was once described in a 1968 article as the “yang” to Bob Dylan’s “yin.”
Other performers at the Grammys on Sunday night will include Billie Eilish, Billy Joel, Burna Boy, Dua Lipa, Luke Combs, Olivia Rodrigo, Travis Scott and U2.
