Nine years ago, Joni Mitchell fans wondered if they would ever hear her perform again, after Mitchell, the Canadian singer-songwriter and folk movement icon, suffered an aneurysm that initially left her unable to speak.
But in recent years he has been gradually recovering and in 2022 he surprised the music world with a performance at the Newport Folk Festival. And on Sunday, at age 80, Mitchell will perform at the Grammy Awards for the first time. Show organizers did not offer details about her appearance, including whether she is expected to perform alone or with guests.
Mitchell, who received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2002 and has won nine competitive Grammy Awards throughout her career (since best folk performance in 1970 for “Clouds”), is up for best folk album this year with “Joni Mitchell at Newport.” She was joined by Brandi Carlile, Wynonna Judd and Marcus Mumford, and she sang classics like “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Both Sides Now,” and even George Gershwin’s “Summertime.”
The Newport appearance, an unannounced set facilitated by Carlile, sparked Mitchell's first live performance with an entrance in more than 20 years. The show, which headlined Carlile's Echoes Through the Canyon festival at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington, in June 2023, was a nearly three-hour marathon and “a resurrection,” Lindsay Zoladz wrote in The New York Times. “Hearing Mitchell play certain notes again with that inimitable voice was like glimpsing, in the wild, a magnificent bird long feared to be extinct.”
Other artists announced at the Grammys this year include Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Travis Scott and Burna Boy, along with U2, making an appearance from the Sphere in Las Vegas, and Billy Joel, who will release his first single this week new pop in almost 20 years, “Turn the Lights Back On.”
