A Joni Mitchell Interview

"WHAT DO I THINK of the new Joni Mitchells?" Joni Mitchell grins, sucks appreciatively on another cigarette and thinks hard, as she often does, before speaking. "Well, Dylan spawned his imitators right at the outset. I guess it's just taken 20 years for mine to come along. Remember that there weren't that many women in the business when I started out. There was maybe Laura Nyro and myself. There were plenty of women. But there weren't any women writers. Sure, they came up with a coupla songs now and then, but you couldn't really call Joan Baez or Judy Collins a writer."