CELEBRATING JONI

It was a big night on March 1, when Joni Mitchell received an all-star tribute in Washington, D.C. The 10-time Grammy Award winner, 79, received the nation’s highest award —The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song—for inĥuence, impact and achievement in popular music. She joined the ranks of previous recipients Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Carole King, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, Garth Brooks and Lionel Richie.

Tune in to PBS on March 31 for the broadcast of the tribute and to see Mitchell sing “Summertime” and be serenaded by James Taylor, Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper and others.

Here are some essential facts about the Canadian-born singer-songwriter of songs such as “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Help Me.” Go to Parade.com/joni-mitchell for more.

Part of the Laurel Canyon crowd in Southern California, Mitchell was a frequent poker player at a weekly game run by Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey in the 1970s.

Mitchell’s first album, Song to a Seagull, produced by David Crosby (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), was dedicated to her 7th-grade English teacher, who Mitchell has said, “taught me to love words.”

“Little Green” is a song written about the baby daughter that Mitchell gave up for adoption in 1965. Mitchell and her daughter met in 1997.

Mitchell, who was hospitalized with polio as a child, suffered a brain aneurysm rupture in 2015, at age 72. She had to learn how to walk again.

Mitchell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and received the Order of Canada in 2004.

Graham Nash, David Crosby, Leonard Cohen, and James Taylor are among the fellow musicians with whom she collaborated and became romantically involved.

Despite writing the classic song *Woodstock," Mitchell wasn't able to attend the festival because of a conflicting engagement.

She plays guitar, piano, oboe and autoharp.

John Mayer's Queen of California is a reference to Mitchell's Blue, which is considered by many to be her greatest album.