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Joni Mitchell’s creative peak stretched from the release of ‘Blue’ (1971), through ‘For the Roses’ (1972), ‘Court and Spark’ (1974) and ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’ (1975), to the pared and broodingly atmospheric ‘Hejira’ (1976). And what about that three-octave voice? In the morning of her career it was a thing of wonder, swooping and rising like an exotic bird riding the thermals. Having smoked from the tender age of seven, her mellifluous instrument was never going to endure, eventually morphing into a jazzy, husky sound at once world-weary and defiant.

In all honesty, her innovative use of ‘open tunings’ on the guitar interested me more than the majority of her compositions but who cares, least of all anybody who isn’t me? Now retired and far from in the best of health – a brain aneurysm in 2015 nearly proved fatal – her artistic legacy still divides opinion. After nearly fifty years, I’ve still to encounter anyone who’s ambivalent about her.

She habitually pisses people off – a trait I find amusing in certain individuals, especially when they’re incapable of seeing the funny side to their rantings. “To enjoy my music, you need depth and emotionality,” she told one interviewer in 2007. “Those two traits are bred out of the white, straight males who control the press.” That’s not to say she has much time for feminists either. In the same interview she called them “amazons,, adding that the women’s movement “created an aggressive-type female with a sense of entitlement that’s a bit of a monster.” Oh, and she hates Bob Dylan too!