Joni Mitchell is my dream woman. And I don't mean Joni the person, I mean Joni the narrator, Joni the young woman who ventures around the world in search of beauty; the woman who hangs out in sandy bars on Mediteranean islands and makes love with all manner of poets and wanderers. Ever since I first heard "Blue" I cannot get this woman out my head. She's coy, intelligent, hip, sincere, sexy, she invades my dreams! And this woman is totally divorced from Joni Mitchell the singer/songwriter. I know her songs are autobiographical, but I'm far more interested in the idealized woman I have in my imagination rather than her specifically. Joni's songs are confessionals in the best sense of the word. Her songs are like vignettes that look in on this beautiful young woman at all these wonderful times of her life. We catch her waking up on a sunny New York day in "Chelsea Morning", we see her sitting on park bench in Paris in "California", we hear about the bittersweetness of her loves in songs like "Big Yellow Taxi" or "Carey". She's never overly self-depricating or whiny, she's strong, independent, and genuine. The run of albums from "Songs For A Seagull" through "Court And Spark" is not only one of the strongest set of records in modern music, but an amazing evolution of a human being. You can hear her growing up from album to album, and you get this wonderful set of moments captured and preserved through these seemingly bare-boned yet experly arranged songs. She transcends the usual trappings of folk music to really create a universal language of music where you feel like you're having a conversation with a friend, like she's confiding tiny secrets with you with each song.Her later work delves into progressive jazz and other genres, and becomes less personal but still incredibly interesting. But it's those first 6 albums between 1968 and 1974 are what I'll always think of when I think of Joni. She'll always be this amazing woman I admire who I feel managed to stay more true to herself than most of her contemporaries. Always searching, always experiencing, never for a moment taking any of it for granted. For me, she, along with Van Morrison (that's a whole other essay), are THE singer/songwriters. No one else will ever come close.