By the time Joni Mitchell’s debut album came out in March of 1968, her songs had already been recorded by the likes of Judy Collins, Dave Van Ronk, and Fairport Convention. Produced by David Crosby, Song To A Seagull is mostly Joni with just her acoustic guitar. The albums starts with a highlight in “I Had a King” that looks back at the breakdown of her marriage to Chuck Mitchell, “I can’t go back there anymore/You know my keys won’t fit the door”.
The album is broken up into two sides, the first being “I Came to the City” and the second side being, “Out of the City and Down to the Seaside”. On the first side, “Michael From the Mountains” can barely contain Mitchell hitting the high notes and “Night In The City” has swooping vocals in the chorus with the added bass playing of Stephen Stills to help uplift the tune.
The second side is mostly made up of pleasant folk songs with the ambitious lyrics of “The Dawntreader” being a standout and later concludes with the heavier “Cactus Tree” that sees the guitar get strummed a little bit harder. Noted as not being the best recorded album, Mitchell would later take over the producer chair as her songs and career start to take off.
7/10
The Light Appears 