Most of the established girl singers have an important songwriter tucked in their back-pockets (as it were) - Tony Hatch for Sandie Shaw, Clive Westlake for Dusty Springfield and so on.

A girl singer-songwriter is a great rarity, and Joni Mitchell is without doubt the best.

As a singer, she has a perfect technique and diction, but unlike Joan Baez, she does not let technical perfection rid the singing of conviction and emotion, and above all she never sounds boring. Her second LP "Clouds" (Reprise) utilises double-tracking, to make the album sound even better in stereo, but her voice stands on its own without embellishments, and one track is unaccompanied.

For dustmen on strike, two of the best numbers are also released by Reprise as a single, the bright and cheerful "Chelsea Morning" and the contrasting "Both Sides Now", her best known song, with a typical theme of disillusion.