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Joni Mitchell

Steve Matteo, CD Review, July 1991

BACK IN 1975, Rolling Stone mercilessly slammed Joni Mitchell's The Hissing of Summer Lawns, charging the singer/songwriter with adapting styles of music – jazz and African – with which she had no right to tinker. Years later, in the same magazine Prince cited The Hissing of Summer Lawns as the last album he bought, and he went on to say how much of an influence Mitchell's music had on him. Further vindication came in the mid 1980s when Sting and Paul Simon received wide critical acclaim for their forays into jazz and African music, respectively.

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