Shock pregnancy

While suffering polio, Joni had developed a weaked left hand so had to devleop alternative tunings of the guitar to compensate. She dropped out of school in her senior year and began to perform regularly at her local coffee house for $15 a week.

In 1964, Joni discovered that she was pregnant by her ex-boyfriend Brad MacMath. Unable to provide or care for her daughter, Kelly Dale Anderson, the child was given up for adoption and Joni did not speak of the child as she began to build her music career.

She later said: "[He] left me three months pregnant in an attic room with no money and winter coming on and only a fireplace for heat. The spindles of the banister were gap-toothed - fuel for last winter's occupants."