Books

Joni Mitchell releasing collection of early lyrics and drawings in Oct. 2019

100 copies of Morning Glory on the Vine were originally published in 1971 for personal friends. A re-release of the book is set for fall 2019.
Folk singer Joni Mitchell plays to a sold out crowd at General Motors Place in Vancouver in 1998 in this file photo. (The Canadian Press/Nick Procaylo, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Joni Mitchell is releasing a collection of early lyrics and drawings on Oct. 22, 2019.

Morning Glory on the Vine, which she created in 1971, features more than 30 original pieces of artwork as well as poetry and lyrics. The book collects materials the singer-songwriter assembled in the early 1970s. She originally created only 100 copies and gave them to friends as gifts.

The 2019 edition will include a new introduction by Mitchell and new artwork. 

"The lively, full-colour watercolour paintings depict a superb array of landscapes, still-lifes, portraits of friends, self portraits, innovative abstractions and more," the publisher of the book, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, said on their website. "Morning Glory on the Vine is a gorgeous and intimate keepsake and an invitation to explore anew the dazzling, visionary world of Joni Mitchell."

Mitchell's paintings have been accessible to fans on her album covers, including her albums Song to a SeagullCloudsLadies of the Canyon and Court and Spark.

As Mitchell told CBC's The National in a February 2000 interview, "I'm a painter, I just kind of lost my way."

Mitchell, who grew up in Saskatchewan, is one of Canada's most influential singer-songwriters. Over the course of her five-decade career, she released 19 studio albums. Her last album, Shine, came out in 2007.

Mitchell has won nine Grammys, has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 1996, received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for lifetime artistic achievement.

Her 1971 album, Blue, is widely considered to be one of the best albums ever recorded.

A biography of Joni Mitchell, Reckless Daughter by David Yaffe, was released in 2017.

A collection of interviews with Mitchell, titled Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words, was compiled by Malka Marom and came out in 2014.