Album of the Day

Joni Mitchell's songs were already popular with the likes of Tom Rush and Judy Collins when David Crosby saw her potential as a performer and brought her to Reprise Records. Released on this day in 1968, Mitchell's Crosby-produced debut features relatively simple instrumentation, but the dense, sophisticated songwriting showed Joni was already looking beyond the folk idiom for inspiration (hints of classical composition can be heard here). The ten originals on SONG TO A SEAGULL are split conceptually into two sides: “I Came to the City,” which sketches such melancholy urban characters as “Nathan la Franeer,” and “Out of the City and Down to the Seaside,” whose odes to the freedom of nature soar beautifully. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's career would soon soar as well, and we'll give this underrated album another spin in honor of International Women's Month.