Ladies of the Canyon can be viewed as Joni Mitchell’s coming-out party. Having recently moved to Lookout Mountain in Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon area — her house is depicted in a watercolor painting she made for the record’s cover — the Canadian icon turned to her immediate surroundings for inspiration the while taking the pulse of national affairs, corporate enterprise, celebrity, and her relationship with Graham Nash. The 1970 album finds the singer-songwriter morphing into the groundbreaker who would shed folk music’s constructs and wade into pop, jazz, soul, and poetry with a combination of depth, sophistication, self-examination, and acumen no one had ever heard.