The Songs of Joni Mitchell

How great and influential a songwriter is Joni Mitchell? Take a look at these Essentials and you'll quickly appreciate the sheer variety and brilliance of the artists who surveyed her catalogue, picked out a diamond, and said to themselves: "I'm going to record that." Let's start with Crosby, Stills & Nash's anthemic, era-defining treatment of "Woodstock" — which first appeared on her 1970 masterwork, Ladies of the Canyon — and Judy Collins' gorgeous 1968 hit "Both Sides Now." The girl from Alberta feeds the creative appetite of Elvis Costello, Prince, and others . . . in Next Steps.

It's no great surprise to find the work of Mitchell — the original Laurel Canyon-dwelling folk-rock queen — interpreted by such a storied group of folk-rockers as Fairport Convention ("Eastern Rain"), but her songwriting skills are so honed and universally affecting that they shine even in the hands of funkster Prince ("A Case of You") and classical violinist Nigel Kennedy ("Urge for Going"). And when Barbra Streisand gets hold of "I Don't Know Where I Stand," the belter in Babs gives way to the butterfly. Joni's jazz projects attract the cover treatment, in Deep Cuts.

In the late '70s Mitchell collaborated with jazz great Charles Mingus on a musical interpretation of T.S. Eliot's complex poems, Four Quartets, and although the jazzman would die mid-project, Mitchell completed and released the work as Mingus — a couple of tracks from that album are covered here by Vancouver-based Kate Hammett-Vaughan ("Sweet Sucker Dance") and the Rafael Jung Trio ("Dry Cleaner from Des Moines") featuring Britta Rex on vocal.

You can't call Joni Mitchell the most innovative and influential woman in pop . . . simply because "pop" is far too narrow a definition of the endlessly experimental, beautifully constructed music she gave us — and for that very reason, these Essentials, drawn from those artists who still praise the day they picked up her songbook, make up a genre-spanning collection for the ages. Think we've let hyperbole get the better of us? Then check out Neil Diamond doing "Chelsea Morning" (Bill and Hillary Clinton named their daughter after that song), Chaka Khan laying the smooth funk on "Ladies' Man" and Sufjan Stevens jazz-rockin' his way through "Free Man In Paris." Joni, we — and all the artists here — humbly salute you.