Inside Joni Mitchell's Tragic Story

As detailed by Biography, Joni Mitchell, then Roberta Joan Anderson, met folk musician Chuck Mitchell in the spring of 1965. Just 36 hours after meeting at Toronto's Penny Farthing Coffee House, the couple married. Soon after, they began performing as a duo, singing in Detroit-area folk music venues such as Chess Mate and The Raven

As detailed by Biography, Joni Mitchell, then Roberta Joan Anderson, met folk musician Chuck Mitchell in the spring of 1965. Just 36 hours after meeting at Toronto's Penny Farthing Coffee House, the couple married. Soon after, they began performing as a duo, singing in Detroit-area folk music venues such as Chess Mate and The Raven Gallery.

However, the marriage was on shaky ground from the start. Joni has since described her time with Chuck Mitchell as a "marriage of convenience" that existed solely as a means for gaining custody of her daughter. In 1997, she told the Los Angeles Times, "One month into the marriage, he chickened out, I chickened out. The marriage had no basis, except to provide a home for the baby."

Yet, Chuck Mitchell's failure to follow through with helping Joni reunite with her baby wasn't their only source of marital strife. Chuck, a well-educated man several years Joni's senior, often made her feel intellectually inadequate. As recounted by The Ringer, citing from David Jaffe's 2017 biography of the singer Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell, Joni once lamented that she was "illiterate" in comparison to Chuck. "My husband's given me a complex that I haven't read anything," Joni once said. However, there's little doubt that Chuck Mitchell's condescending attitude toward his young wife was born from insecurity and the fact that she was rapidly outshining and outgrowing him as a musician and songwriter. By 1968, the marriage was over.

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