LADIES OF THE CANYON

★★★★ (Reprise, 1970)

With piano shouldering guitar out the way on Rainy Night House and Willy, For Free’s clarinet coda and Conversation’s wild-side fade, Ladies Of The Canyon expands Mitchell’s singersongwriter palette. Closing with counterculture hits Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock and The Circle Game, it decisively boxed up ’60s folk utopia: by Blue’s California, peace “was just a dream some of us had” and the Me Generation was in full introspective flight.