folk

Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell CC (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her starkly personal lyrics and unconventional compositions, which grew to incorporate pop and jazz influences.[1] She has received many accolades, including ten Grammy Awards and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Rolling Stone called her "one of the greatest songwriters ever",[2] and AllMusic has stated, "When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century".[1]

Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and throughout western Canada, before moving on to the nightclubs of Toronto, Ontario. She moved to the United States and began touring in 1965. Some of her original songs ("Urge for Going", "Chelsea Morning", "Both Sides, Now", "The Circle Game") were recorded by other folk singers, allowing her to sign with Reprise Records and record her debut album, Song to a Seagull, in 1968.[3] Settling in Southern California, Mitchell helped define an era and a generation with popular songs like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock". Her 1971 album Blue is often cited as one of the best albums of all time; it was rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time",[4] rising to number 3 in the 2020 edition.[5] In 2000, The New York Times chose Blue as one of the 25 albums that represented "turning points and pinnacles in 20th-century popular music".[6] NPR ranked Blue number 1 on a 2017 list of Greatest Albums Made By Women.[7]

Mitchell switched labels and began exploring more jazz-influenced ideas, by way of lush pop textures, on 1974's Court and Spark, which featured the radio hits "Help Me" and "Free Man in Paris"[8] and became her best-selling album. Mitchell's vocal range began to shift from mezzo-soprano to more of a wide-ranging contralto around 1975.[9][10][11] Her distinctive piano and open-tuned guitar compositions also grew more harmonically and rhythmically complex as she melded jazz with rock and roll, R&B, classical music and non-Western beats. In the late 1970s, she began working with noted jazz musicians including Jaco Pastorius, Tom Scott, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Pat Metheny as well as Charles Mingus, who asked her to collaborate on his final recordings.[12] She later turned to pop and electronic music and engaged in political protest. She was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards in 2002[13] and became a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2021.[14]

Mitchell produced or co-produced most of her albums. A critic of the music industry, she quit touring and released her 17th and last album of original songs in 2007. Mitchell has designed most of her own album covers, describing herself as a "painter derailed by circumstance".

CMAT, who had aspirations to become a professional musician from a young age, relocated to Manchester, England, to pursue a career in music with her then boyfriend, performing together as Bad Sea. She has since described their relationship as toxic and isolating, and she stopped pursuing a music career, living a partying lifestyle. She attended an in-person listening session at a London studio with the English electropop singer Charli XCX, who advised CMAT to reimagine her approach.

Breaking up with her boyfriend and returning to Ireland, she began self-releasing her music online to considerable attention and received radio play from RTÉ Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6 Music. Her debut studio album If My Wife New I'd Be Dead was released in February 2022. Metacritic, which aggregates review scores, gives the album a score of 85 based on 9 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Hot Press magazine wrote that the album was "undoubtedly one of the most thrilling Irish pop debuts of the century".[16] In a four-star review, DIY wrote, "If My Wife New... feels like a more well-rounded, modern proposition than one solely indebted to the oldest style going could suggest." The album entered the Irish Albums Chart at number one. In June 2022, she released a single called "Peter Bogdanovich", which came with a music video which featured CMAT dressing as the late director. On 19 August 2022, "Peter Bogdanovich" charted at number 20 on the Irish Homegrown Top 20. In March 2023, If My Wife New I'd Be Dead won the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year.

In June 2023, CMAT announced her next studio album, Crazymad, for Me, which was released in October 2023. Like her previous album, this album debuted at number one on the Irish Albums Chart. Her album was later nominated for the Best Album Ivor Novello Award on Thursday 23 May 2024.

CMAT has been noted for her large fanbase among Irish LGBTQ+ people, once telling an NME interviewer "I'm making music for the girls and the gays, and that's it."

In May 2024, the BBC were forced to disable comments on a video on its Instagram page of CMAT's performance at the Radio 1 Big Weekend festival, following a spate of comments labelled "fat-shaming." Later that month, CMAT pulled out of a performance at that summer's Latitude Festival due to the festival's sponsorship by Barclays, and the company's financial involvement in the Israel-Hamas war.

The "...melancholia of wide open plains and corrugated iron, caressed by occasionally passing heavenly choirs of grievous angels and chain gangs"
Clem Bastow's description of Jo's single of the week 'I Loved You More That Day' in Beat magazine in 2010.

Jo's first solo album 'A Handful of Smoke' was awarded Australian Album of the year on the highly respected radio show Outpost on 2SER.
It was recorded over 2 years in France, Sydney and Melbourne involving members of Charles Jenkins and the Zhivagos, French pianist Lisa Barel and what were to become his band the Honeyriders...

“Jo Meares’ music is unique with a truly original sound. He is a wonderful singer-songwriter and incredible live performer.
His 3 albums released to date (‘A Handful Of Smoke’, ‘One More Time’ and ‘King Of The Crystal Mountain’) are all classic Australian recordings.
Part Neil Young, part Lou Reed, part Nick Cave – but with a uniquely Australian twang!”
- Vinny Ramone, Outpost show 2SER

“In over 35 years in the music industry, 15 of them running the independent record label Laughing Outlaw, I’ve been lucky enough to have heard more music than most people.
The only downside to that is that it takes a real lot to impress me.
I’d been aware of Jo Meares but not listened to him until his ‘King Of The Crystal Mountain’ album was released.
It’s an album I now consider one of the finest Australian singer songwriter albums of the past decade and in fact it would be better to say that it’s a world class album created by an Australian.
I’ve subsequently heard all Jo’s previous albums and admire them too.
Not only are the albums magnificent, he is a truly exceptional live performer who deserves to be much better known than he currently is. That will happen.
I’m part of the Jo Meares fan club!”
- Stuart Coupe, writer, manager Laughing Outlaw records, DJ 2FBI and 2SER

Jo's second solo album 'One More Time' was made with the Honeyriders and involves a sixteen piece string section, beautiful backing vocals and lush guitar sounds.

All Jo's albums are available for digital download or a hard copy can be ordered through this website. Also limited vinyl pressings.

Jo has toured and recorded frequently in France, Spain, Finland and Germany

A tuneful, uplifting pop trio of Oregon-based siblings, We Three rose to national attention in 2018 after making the semi-finals on the NBC show America's Got Talent. Already a seasoned band with several independent releases to their credit, they parlayed their newfound success into a full-length album that same year, marking their highest-profile release yet. Poignant themes related to stigmas about mental health informed their 2020 follow-up, Dear Paranoia, Sincerely, Me.

The three Humlie siblings -- guitarist Manny, bassist Bethany, and drummer/keyboardist Joshua -- grew up in McMinnville, Oregon, learning to sing and play from their musical parents. Under the name We Three, the trio began gigging regionally, developing their melodic, heartfelt pop songs over a series of independent EPs including Neverland (2016) and Celebrate the Struggle, Pt. 1 (2017). The band vaulted to national attention in the summer of 2018 when they made a successful run on NBC's talent contest America's Got Talent, reaching the semi-finals in September of that year. While they were eventually voted off before reaching the finals, they made a significant impression on both fans and judges by playing only original material, including the emotional ballad "Heaven's Not Too Far," a song they wrote for their mother, who'd died of cancer in 2015. Riding the wave of exposure they received from appearing on the show, We Three released their self-titled debut album in December 2018. Included on the album "Heaven's Not Too Far" became a streaming hit and the trio followed up in 2019 with the motivational We're All Messed Up - But It's Okay, a five-song EP that contained another widely streamed track in "Sara." We Three continued to use their hopeful style to explore difficult subjects on second their full-length, 2020's Dear Paranoia, Sincerely, Me.