Portrait of Canadian musician Joni Mitchell seated on the floor playing acoustic guitar, November 1968. This image is from a shoot for the fashion magazine Vogue. Mitchell wears a loose-fitting white dress. (Photo by Jack Robinson/Getty Images)
Portrait of Canadian musician Joni Mitchell seated on the floor playing acoustic guitar, November 1968. This image is from a shoot for the fashion magazine Vogue. Mitchell wears a loose-fitting white dress. (Photo by Jack Robinson/Getty Images)
Joni Mitchell and Brandi Carlile at the 66th Annual Grammys Awards, Premiere Ceremony, Los Angeles, USA – 04 Feb 2024 (Photo by Rob Latour/Shutterstock)
Despite its fantastical origin story of surviving a shrapnel attack in the Vietnamese jungle, the D-28 met its demise on a flight to Hawaii. Not only did the turbulent flight damage the instrument in storage; someone later stole the guitar from the luggage carousel. Mitchell was never able to find her long-lost instrument, something she’s lamented for years.
Aside from the sentimental connection guitarists typically have to their first ax, Mitchell was particularly fond of her Martin for functional reasons. After a bout of childhood polio affected Mitchell’s ability to form chord shapes in standard tuning, the singer-songwriter had to adapt with eccentric tunings that allowed her to create rich harmonic structure with limited mobility.
Whether open, an octave below, or otherwise, Mitchell’s unique tunings placed stress on the guitar neck that it wasn’t originally made to endure. Moreover, to ensure the dissonance within her tunings was purposeful and not merely off-pitch, Mitchell needed a guitar with pristine intonation—something she frequently lauded the D-28 for having.
“I need really good intonation,” she explained to Acoustic Guitar. “One of the signs of really good intonation is how flashy the harmonics are with a light touch. You should be able to get them to bloom like jewels.” While Mitchell has found other guitars that come close in that department, as she put it in her 1996 magazine interview, “I’ve never found an acoustic that could compare with it.”
Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – MAY 19: (EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE) Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks perform a duet of “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” at Nissan Stadium on May 19, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Myrna M. Suarez/Getty Images for ABA)
