Joni Mitchell has been making history again and again. The 2024 Grammy Awards were held on Sunday, February 4, and saw 80-year-old Mitchell win Best Folk Album, celebrating Joni Mitchell at Newport (Live). It won against contenders like Paul Simon’s Seven Psalms, Traveling Wildfire by Dom Flemons, and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Jubilee.
The live album Joni Mitchell at Newport was released on July 28, 2023, by Rhino Records. It includes her entire 2022 Newport Folk Festival performance, during which Mitchell was joined by a group of other artists nicknamed the Joni Jam, including Wynonna Judd, Brandi Carlile, and Marcus Mumford. The 2024 Grammys represented a huge night for Mitchell in terms of health and a big career first.
Joni Mitchell wins big at the 2024 Grammys
Even before Joni Mitchell at Newport won the Grammy for Best Folk Album, the collection was a big deal. The Newport Folk Festival represented Mitchell’s first public performance since suffering an aneurysm in 2015. Its success also represents Mitchell’s 10th Grammy win overall, in a career spanning six decades and counting.
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Mitchell ascended the stage accompanied by singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, who emceed for the Newport Folk Festival two years prior. For the occasion, Mitchell was dressed in a rich black and gold ensemble accented by vibrant gold jewelry, and with her bright blonde hair stylized into a set of tight braids framing her face, which was subtly made up and positively glowing from her big triumph.
She’s not done yet
Mitchell has had on-and-off spurts of being active on stage and in the studio, with periods lasting from 1964 to 2002, 2006 to 2007, all of 2013, and from 2022 to the present day. After her health scare, it took Mitchell some time to get back into music again.
“I’m learning,” she explained. “I’m looking at videos that are on the net to see where I put my fingers, you know. It’s amazing what an aneurysm knocks out – how to get out of chair!… You have to relearn everything.”
But all her efforts have been paying off and over the years she’s not only regained momentum but also collected new honors, too, to add to her Lifetime Achievement Award from the 44th Annual Grammy Awards in 2002.
With a career as celebrated as hers, it’s hard to believe, but this was also her very first time singing at the Grammys! For the special occasion, Mitchell sang “Both Sides Now,” which was ushered in by a heartfelt tribute by Billy Porter who said of Mitchell, “We are all better artists because of the lines you dared to cross.”
Congratulations on the many wins, Joni Mitchell!
