Blue

Recorded in A&M's Studio C, the smallest and most intimate of its rooms, home to a red Steinway that Mitchell and Carole King both wanted. Mitchell used it most. The sessions ran on 8-track Scully machines. Henry Lewy engineered and urged the players to keep things simple, and James Taylor said he was free to substitute whatever chords he liked. Little Green dated from 1966, Carey came from a 1970 trip to Greece, and California from homesickness in France. An early running order with Hunter and Urge for Going was halted at the pressing stage and replaced.

Rolling Stone's Timothy Crouse noted in 1971 that Blue was both a mood and Mitchell's name for her lover, and Robert Christgau heard an exploration of buy-now, pay-later love. Carey was the first single, and California the second, with A Case of You on its B-side. The album reached 15 on the Billboard 200 and 3 in Britain, and is in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Nazareth took This Flight Tonight to number one in Germany in 1973. In 2021 Bernie Grundman remastered it for The Reprise Albums (1968-1971) box, and a digital EP of demos and outtakes, Blue 50, followed that June.