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 watercolour painting she made for the record's cover – the Canadian icon turned to her immediate surroundings for inspiration all the while taking the pulse of national affairs, corporate enterprise, celebrity, and her relationship with Graham Nash.

 The rather upbeat Ladies of the Canyon also 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. Deemed "powerful and brilliant" upon release by The New York Times, this 1970 set marks the first of six consecutive masterworks Mitchell made.