Joni Mitchell signs with Starbucks for 2-album deal

Last Updated: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 9:56 AM ET

CBC Arts

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell will release her next album through Starbucks' new record label, the second artist to sign with the coffee chain after Paul McCartney.

Mitchell will release Shine, an album for which she has written nine of the 10 tracks, with Hear Music on Sept. 25.

Joni Mitchell reacts as she is inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in Toronto in January. She has written new work that will be released through Starbucks' label.
(Aaron Harris/Canadian Press)

It is her first album of new compositions since 1998. She said it is "as serious a work as I've ever done."

Mitchell has signed a two-album deal with Hear Music.

McCartney's album Memory Almost Full came out in June with the label, set up in a partnership between Starbucks Corp. and Concord Music Group.

Memory Almost Full was played relentlessly at Starbucks franchises and has sold 447,000 copies, 45 per cent of them in Starbucks stores.

For veteran artists, the new label offers a chance to reach consumers while they stand in line waiting for a coffee.

Mitchell expressed her discontent with the music industry in a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone, saying she couldn't recall what she liked about music.

Albums she released in the early part of the century, Both Sides Now, recorded in 2000, 2002's Travelogue and 2003's four-box set, The Complete Geffen Recordings, had no new compositions.

Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, said Mitchell's interest in recording was rekindled when she worked with Hear Music two years ago to release a disc of her songs selected by various artists.

Earlier this year, Mitchell had creative input into The Fiddle and the Drum, a ballet with choreographer Jean Grand-Maître that debuted in Calgary.

Tribute album

Two songs from The Fiddle and the Drum —  If, based on Mitchell's favourite poem by Rudyard Kipling, and If I Had a Heart — are recorded in Shine. A new version of Big Yellow Taxi also will be included.

Mitchell, 63, is also planning an exhibit of her paintings in New York this fall.

Herbie Hancock is working on a tribute album to Mitchell, titled In My Solitude, with various artists, including Norah Jones and Tina Turner, covering her songs.

Mitchell, who began her career as a folk music icon before branching out into jazz and pop, was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in January. She has been a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 1997.