Joni Mitchell will perform at next week’s Grammy Awards, organizers announced Sunday, marking the beloved singer-songwriter’s first performance at music’s highest-profile awards show and her latest step in a public comeback after a debilitating brain aneurysm in 2015.
Mitchell, 80, is nominated for best folk album at the Feb. 4 ceremony. “Joni Mitchell at Newport” is a live recording of a surprise gig she played at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival.
The singer’s first full concert since her aneurysm, the Newport set grew out of the so-called Joni Jams that Mitchell has held at her Bel-Air home in recent years with an assortment of friends and admirers. At Newport, she was joined by artists including Brandi Carlile, Wynonna Judd, Marcus Mumford and Allison Russell; among the dozen or so classics she performed were “Carey,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Help Me,” “The Circle Game” and “Both Sides Now.”
Last year Mitchell brought a similar show to the Gorge Amphitheatre near Quincy, Wash.
Mitchell has won nine Grammys — her most recent came in 2022, when she took the historical album prize with “Joni Mitchell Archives — Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967)” — as well as the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She appeared on the 2022 show alongside Bonnie Raitt to introduce a performance by Carlile.
Other acts set to perform at the 66th Grammys, which will take place at Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles, include Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa, U2, Travis Scott, Billy Joel, Burna Boy and Luke Combs.
