The "comeback" (every artist, it seems, must have one) came a decade later with her 17th album, "Turbulent Indigo," in 1994. Released on Reprise, the album earned her two Grammys and a new outpouring of accolades. The title cut was a response to the Canadian Council of the Arts, which had invited her to speak at its annual conference, whose self-described goal was to "make van Goghs." With characteristic candor, Mitchell had told the group, "A lot of great art comes out of mental disturbance. How are you gonna teach that?" ("You wanna make van Goghs/Raise 'em like sheep ... What do you know about/Living in turbulent indigo?")

In 1997 Mitchell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and reunited with her long-lost daughter, Kilauren Gibb, whom she hadn't seen since putting her up for adoption in 1965. In a typically confessional moment, Mitchell had already memorialized Kilauren in "Little Green," written in 1967 but revised on "Blue":

Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you are sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed
Little Green have a happy ending.

Today Mitchell is revered by the countless female artists whose careers she enabled -- especially the recent proliferation of confessional singer-songwriters. But whatever their angst level, few can hope to equal Mitchell's command of her instruments -- guitar, piano, voice -- not to mention her facility with lyrics, melody and arranging. "In many ways she is as influential as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie," Bonnie Raitt told VH1 in the network's 100 Greatest Women of Rock 'n' Roll, where Mitchell came in fourth. Male songwriters and even guitar gods are equally enamored of her skills. "She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say?" Jimmy Page has said. Elton John's songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, once noted, "On her level, there is nobody who can touch her."

These days, the icon of 1960s wanderlust spends her time in Bel Air, Calif., New York and a stone farmhouse in the wilderness north of Vancouver, British Columbia. At 51, Mitchell said her "bleeding years" were behind her. "Now I have rich people's problems, and you can't make songs out of rich people's problems ... I feel lighter than I ever have right now. I want to write some songs that are less dramatic ... I want to sing with a smile on my face."

Mitchell's latest album, "Both Sides Now," finds her coming at jazz from a new angle, trading the beret for the chanteuse's dark lipstick and cigarette. She takes on standards like "Stormy Weather" with pop arrangements far more lush than the spare sounds of her early career. If anyone has earned the right to cover, it's Mitchell, who has rarely done so in the past, though countless hundreds of artists have covered her songs.

It must be said that Mitchell's voice does not soar to the heights she routinely reached 30 years ago. The original "A Case of You," from "Blue," is an exquisite piece of guitar arrangement topped with the glissandi of a vocalist at the top of her game; Mitchell lets her voice linger over the many syllables, creating an elegant languor. The new version begins noticeably lower -- an octave lower, adequately demonstrating the shift in her range. Mitchell's voice is occasionally off the mark, and you miss the old heights and delicate precision. But in its edgy, clipped delivery -- Mitchell sounds like the lifelong smoker she is -- we discover that her lower timbres now have the most resonance.

Mitchell's new version of "Both Sides Now" (covered more than 50 times) has a new authenticity. The ambivalence of her lyrics, composed when Mitchell was in her 20s, now seems laced with apt weariness and hard-earned wisdom: "I've looked at life from both sides now ... It's life's illusions I recall/I really don't know life at all," she sings, and what comes through is the sound of a voice deepened, in every way, by time.

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