Joni Mitchell has a couple of things in common with Bob Dylan.
Both are folk rock icons. Both, too, have stage names. Mitchell used to be known as Roberta Joan Anderson, while Dylan’s given name was Robert Zimmerman.
Interestingly, Joni was being interviewed by the Los Angeles Times when the name change comparison was brought up. She responded by labeling Dylan a “fake” and a “plagiarist.”
“Bob is not authentic at all,” Mitchell said. “He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.”
She insists that she is nothing like the minstrel of Malibu. “We are like night and day, he and I,” Joni said.
She chalked up the difference between her original surname and the stage version to her marriage.
“As for my name, my parents wanted a boy, so they called me Robert John; when I came out a girl, they just added two letter ‘A’s to that. Then I married Chuck Mitchell; I wanted to keep my maiden name – I had a bit of a following as Joni Anderson – but he wouldn’t let me,” Mitchell said.
Wasn’t there another famous person whose original name was Barry Soetoro?
