When Joni Mitchell released Blue in 1971, she revealed herself to the world as a poet with a hard-boiled interior life. The album, writes Rolling Stone, challenged the image many had of her as an innocent flower child. “The West Coast feminine ideal” was a role “Mitchell hadn’t asked for and did not want.” Of her writing of the album, she said in a 2013 interview, “They better find out who they’re worshipping. Let’s see if they can take it. Let’s get real.”

Get real she did, shocking the men around her, some of whom she’d written about candidly, including Graham Nash, Leonard Cohen, and James Taylor, who played on several tracks. She wrote about the heartbreak of leaving her daughter and rewrote the breakup song as a confessional on “River.” The album’s cultural impact, 50 years after its release, has much to do with Mitchell as a lone female protagonist in a male-dominated industry. “Along with its romantic melancholy,” Rolling Stone writes, “Blue was the sound of a woman availing herself of the romantic and sexual freedom that was, until then, an exclusively male province in rock.”

We listen to Blue now and hear the voices of later generations of singer-songwriters, from Tracy Chapman and Tori Amos to Phoebe Bridgers, who seized their own power. By the time of Blue’s release, Mitchell had become a powerful voice of her generation, penning “Woodstock” just the year before. “Blue is Mitchell’s first song cycle whereby all the songs interrelate in their themes of loss and transformation,” writes Classic Album Sundays. “The album reflects the disillusionment and disenchantment felt by a generation during the closing of The Sixties.”

“It’s a description of the times,” Mitchell attests. “There were so many sinking but I had to keep thinking I could make it through the waves. You watched that high of the hippie thing descend into drug depression. Right after Woodstock, then we went through a decade of basic apathy where my generation sucked it’s thumb and then just decided to be greedy and pornographic.”

As if capturing the feelings of her own personal losses and those of millions of others weren’t enough, Mitchell’s songwriting and musicianship on the album are consistently astonishing, each word married to a suspended note, an unexpected chord voicing, a pregnant breath. “My words and music are locked together,” she says. She proved on Blue that she was a talent to be reckoned with and never underestimated. On the 50th anniversary of Blue’s release, Mitchell is releasing a five song EP, Blue 50 (Demos & Outtakes), which you can hear above (see tracklist below).

1. A Case Of You (Demo) 0:00:00
2. California (Demo) 0:04:00
3. Hunter (Outtake) 0:07:30
4. River (Outtake with French Horns) 0:10:25
5. Urge For Going (Outtake with Strings) 0:14:27

It’s a document of a different album, one that might have included “Hunter” — a country-like strummer  — and might have had french horns on “River,” perhaps the album’s best-known song and one of the most beloved Christmas songs of the past 50 years. Look for the next release celebrating a half-century of Blue on October 29th. Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971) “will explore the period leading up to Blue,” notes her official YouTube, “through nearly six hours of unreleased home, studio, and live recordings.” Or, you could just listen to Blue over and over. It seems to reveal something different every time.

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How Joni Mitchell’s Song of Heartbreak, “River,” Became a Christmas Classic

How Joni Mitchell Wrote “Woodstock,” the Song that Defined the Legendary Music Festival, Even Though She Wasn’t There (1969)

Watch Joni Mitchell Sing an Immaculate Version of Her Song “Coyote,” with Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn & Gordon Lightfoot (1975)

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

Mention the Martin D-28 and you need say no more to fans of folk, country, rock and roll, country-rock, folk-rock, country-folk, etc. Elvis, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Neil Young… all played one. (Neil, in fact, owns Hank’s guitar, and calls it “Hank.”) It is the standard against which all “Dreadnought”-style guitars are measured, because it was the first, and is still, arguably, the best. Named after the Royal British Navy’s HMS Dreadnought, a famous vessel that “spawned a new class of battleships around the world,” writes Daryl Nerl, the larger-bodied D-28 (D for “Dreadnought”), first arrived in 1917, at a time when small parlor guitar and ukuleles were the norm.

The D-28 has lived up to its name, says Jason Ahner, C.F. Martin & Co.’s archivist. “If you were on that ship, you wouldn’t fear anything else and if you were playing that guitar you wouldn’t fear not being heard over a banjo or another instrument.” Built like battleships, D-28s don’t only take up space in an ensemble, they fill a room perfectly well on their own, with delicate fingerpicked figures or big booming strums. The D-28 flopped on arrival but exploded in popularity after it was advertised in 1935 as a “bass guitar,” before such things as bass guitars existed.

As more and more folk and country players fell for the D-28’s square shoulders, broad waist, and rich, almost symphonic, tonal range, the guitar became an object no player, once they got their  hands on one, would part with easily, or ever. Repairing and maintaining vintage Martins, however, is a delicate business that requires an intimate understanding of the guitar’s construction. Not every luthier is up to the task, but as you can see in the video above, Norwegian guitarmaker Lars Dalin has the experience, patience, and know-how to disassemble and restore one head (and neck) to tail.

Dalin’s D-28 restoration video should not only interest students of guitar repair. In it, we learn about the special features of Martin’s build that give the instrument its special tonal qualities, those we’ve been dancing and crying to for over a century. For those more interested in electric guitars, Dalin presents a refret and restoration of another American classic — one that also didn’t get its due at first, but has since become an icon: the Fender Jazzmaster. Introduced in 1958, the guitars didn’t catch on until the 1970s when they could be picked up cheaply at pawn shops by punk and new wave pioneers like Television and Elvis Costello. The 1960 model above is a joy to behold, and a lesson in guitar building, repair, engineering, like no other. See more of Dalin’s guitar restoration projects on his Instagram.

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Repairing Willie Nelson’s Trigger: A Good Look at How a Luthier Gets America’s Most Iconic Guitar on the Road Again

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness