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For decades, Joni Mitchell’s life & music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Mitchell has inspired countless musicians—from peers like James Taylor, to inheritors like Prince & Brandi Carlile—and authors, who have dissected her music & her life in their writing. At the same time, Mitchell has always been a force beckoning us still closer, as—with the other arm—she pushes us away. Given this, music critic Ann Powers wondered if there was another way to draw insights from the life of this singular musician who never stops moving, never stops experimenting.

In Traveling, Powers seeks to understand Mitchell through her myriad journeys. Through extensive interviews with Mitchell's peers & deep archival research, she takes readers to rural Canada, mapping the singer’s childhood battle with polio. She charts the course of Mitchell’s musical evolution, ranging from early folk to jazz fusion to experimentation with pop synthetics. She follows the winding road of Mitchell’s collaborations with other greats, & the loves that emerged along the way, all the way through to the remarkable return of Mitchell to music-making after the 2015 aneurysm that nearly took her life.

Along this journey, Powers’ wide-ranging musings on the artist’s life & career reconsider the biographer’s role & the way it twines against the reality of a fan. In doing so, Traveling illustrates the shifting nature of biography, & the ultimate contradiction of celebrity: that an icon cannot truly, completely be known to a fan.
Kaleidoscopic in scope, & intimate in its detail, Traveling is a fresh & fascinating addition to the Joni Mitchell canon, written by a biographer in full command of her gifts who asks as much of herself as of her subject.