Joni at the Pacific Coliseum - photo courtesy of Alan Katowitz
"They paved paradise, put up a parking lot" sang music icon Joni Mitchell presciently in one of her earliest hits, 1970's Big Yellow Taxi. And right from the start she showed a willingness to put her money where her mouth was in support of her environmental concerns.
So much so that later that year, when Canadian peace activist Irving Stowe announced plans for a benefit concert to raise funds to send a ship to oppose US nuclear testing in Alsaka, she was one of the first to sign up. On October 16, together with fellow rising star James Taylor and the legendary protest singer Phil Ochs, she put in an astonishing performance for an audience of 10,000 at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum, raising over $16,000 - enough to send a boat and crew to the Amchitka nuclear testing site.
