Joni Mitchell has a nearly 60-year history of winning Grammys, but her first actual singing appearance on the awards show didn’t take place till Sunday night, as she sang “Both Sides Now” for her performance debut on the telecast.

Besides being perhaps her best-known song, “Both Sides Now” had some resonance as a performance pick for the Grammys. Her very first Grammy Award 55 years ago, back in 1969, was for the “Clouds” album, on which “Both Sides Now” appeared.

Mitchell performed the song in the format that has brought her back to the stage on just a few occasions since she recovered from a 2015 brain aneurysm: it was done “Joni Jam”-style, with the singer-songwriter seated on a comfortable-looking throne with her recent trademark cane, surrounded by similarly seated all-star accompanists — in this case, Brandi Carlile, Allison Russell, Jacob Collier, Lucius, Sista Strings and Blake Mills.

The performance followed an emotional moment at the pre-telecast Premiere Ceremony when Mitchell won yet another Grammy, picking up best folk album for “Joni Mitchell at Newport [Live],” as that recording’s producer, Carlile, stood beside her. It marked Mitchell’s 10th career Grammy.

In introducing Mitchell on the telecast, Carlile said, “Whether we know it or not, any one of us out here who ever dreamed of becoming a truly self-revealing singer-songwriter did it standing on the shoulders of one Joni Mitchell. Joni is one of the most influential and emotionally generous creators in human history. She redefined the very purpose of a song to reflect the contents of a person’s soul. Before she took this leap, the popular song was observational… But the exhilarating risk that we all now take by turning ourselves inside out for all the world to see, started, as far as I can tell, with Joni Mitchell doing it first. She’s like the first person to strip down at a skinny dipping party, to take that awkward terrifying leap — before everyone else joyfully follows.”

Carlile continued, “In some ways, she didn’t have a choice but to take these leaps. She was too preoccupied with basic survival. Surviving poverty, polio, and, as of 10 years ago, a near-fatal brain aneurysm, she didn’t dwell too much on how her art was received because she was too busy re-learning to speak let alone sing. She’s learned to walk three times. Joni just turned 80, my friends! But we all know she’s timeless. If we are so lucky that history remembers any of us, one thing I know for sure is that it will remember that we lived in the time of Joni Mitchell. Today she just won the Grammy for best folk album… Please welcome the matriarch of imagination, a true renaissance woman, my hero and yours, Joni Mitchell.”