Janis Ian (born Janis Eddy Fink; April 7, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter who was most commercially successful in the 1960s and 1970s. Her signature songs are the 1966/67 hit " Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)" and the 1975 Top Ten single " At Seventeen", from her LP '' Between the Lines'', which in September 1975 reached no. 1 on the '' Billboard'' album chart.
Born in
Farmingdale, New Jersey
Farmingdale is a borough in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 1,329,folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
scene while still a teenager in the mid-1960s. Most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century. She has won two Grammy Awards, the first in 1975 for "At Seventeen" and the second in 2013 for Best Spoken Word Album, for her autobiography, ''Society's Child'', with a total of ten nominations in eight different categories.
Ian is also a columnist and
science fiction author
This is a list of noted science-fiction authors (in alphabetical order):
A
*Dafydd ab Hugh (born 1960)
*Alexander Abasheli (1884–1954)
*Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838–1926)
*Kōbō Abe (1924–1993)
* Robert Abernathy (1924–1990)
*Dan Abn ...
.
Early life
Born in
Farmingdale, New Jersey
Farmingdale is a borough in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 1,329,East Orange High School
East Orange High School was a comprehensive community public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from 1891 to 2002 in East Orange, in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. For most of its existence, the school ...
in
East Orange
East Orange is a city in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 69,612. The city was the state's 20th most-populous municipality in 2010, after having been the state's 14th most-po ...
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Kyi ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
;
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous ...
; and Poland) lived in the New York-New Jersey area, having emigrated via England in about 1918. Her parents, Victor, a music teacher, and Pearl, a college fundraiser, were Jewish-born liberal atheists who ran several summer camps in upstate New York.
As a child, Ian admired the work of folk musicians such as
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
and
Odetta
Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...
. Starting with piano lessons at the age of two (at her own insistence), Ian, by the time she entered her teens, was playing the organ, harmonica, French horn and guitar.''Life Magazine'', October 27, 1967, p. 53. At the age of 12, she wrote her first song, "Hair of Spun Gold", which was subsequently published in the folk publication ''
Broadside
Broadside or broadsides may refer to:
Naval
* Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare
Printing and literature
* Broadside (comic ...
'' and was later recorded for her eponymous debut album. In 1964, she legally changed her name to Janis Ian, taking her brother Eric's middle name as her new surname.
Music career
At the age of 14, Ian wrote and recorded her first hit single, " Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)", about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother and frowned upon by her peers and teachers. Produced by George "Shadow" Morton and released three times from 1965 to 1967, "Society's Child" became a national hit upon its third release after Leonard Bernstein featured it in a late-April 1967 CBS TV special titled '' Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution''.
The song's theme of interracial relationships was considered taboo by some radio stations, who withdrew or banned it from their playlists accordingly. In her 2008 autobiography ''Society's Child'', Ian recalls receiving hate mail and
death threat
A death threat is a threat, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or group of people. These threats are often designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behaviour, in which case a de ...
s as a response to the song and mentions that a radio station in Atlanta that played it was burned down. In July 1967, "Society's Child" reached no. 14 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The single sold 600,000 copies and the album sold 350,000 copies.
At the age of 16, Ian met comedian
Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric ...
backstage at a
Smothers Brothers
The Smothers Brothers are Thomas ("Tom" – born February 2, 1937) and Richard ("Dick" – born November 20, 1938), American folk singers, musicians, and comedians. The brothers' trademark double act was performing folk songs (Tommy on acoustic gu ...
show where she was promoting "Society's Child". Since she was underage, she was accompanied by a chaperone while touring. After her set, Ian had been sleeping with her head on the lap of her chaperone (an older female family friend). According to Ian in a 2015 interview, she was told by her then manager that Cosby had interpreted their interaction as " lesbian" and as a result "had made it his business" to warn other television shows that Ian wasn't "suitable family entertainment" and "shouldn't be on television" because of her sexuality, thus attempting to blacklist her. Although Ian would later come out, she states that at the time of the encounter with Cosby she had only been kissed once, by a boy she had a crush on, in broad daylight at summer camp.
Ian relates on her website that, although "Society's Child" was originally intended for Atlantic Records and the label paid for her recording session, Atlantic subsequently returned the
master
Master or masters may refer to:
Ranks or titles
* Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans
*Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...
to her and quietly refused to release it. Ian relates that years later, Atlantic's president at the time, Jerry Wexler, publicly apologized to her for this. The single and Ian's 1967 debut album (which reached no. 29 on the charts) were finally released on Verve Forecast. In 2001, "Society's Child" was inducted into the
Grammy Hall of Fame
The Grammy Hall of Fame is a hall of fame to honor musical recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Inductees are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of ...
, which honors recordings considered timeless and important to
music history
Music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is a highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies music from a historical point of view.
In theory, "music history" could refer to the study of the history o ...
. Her first four albums were released on a double CD entitled ''Society's Child: The Verve Recordings'' in 1995.
"Society's Child" stigmatized Ian as a one-hit wonder until her most successful US single, " At Seventeen", was released in 1975. "At Seventeen" is a bittersweet commentary on adolescent cruelty, the illusion of popularity and teenage angst, from the perspective of a narrator looking back on her earlier experience. The song was a major hit as it charted at no. 3 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, hit number one on the Adult Contemporary chart and won the 1976
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pr ...
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American ...
,
Olivia Newton-John
Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was a British-Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included 15 top-ten singles, including 5 number-one singles on the ...
and Helen Reddy. Ian appeared as the first musical guest on the series premiere of ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock. ...
'' on October 11, 1975, performing "At Seventeen" and "In the Winter". The album '' Between the Lines'' was also a smash and reached number one on ''Billboard''′s album chart. The album would be certified
platinum
Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver".
Pla ...
for sales of over one million copies sold in the US. Another measure of her success is anecdotal: on
Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, thr ...
1977, Ian received 461 valentine cards, having indicated in the lyrics to "At Seventeen" that she never received one as a teenager.
"Fly Too High" (1979), produced by disco producer Giorgio Moroder, was Ian's contribution to the soundtrack of the
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster (born November 19, 1962) is an American actress and filmmaker. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and the hono ...
film ''
Foxes
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
'' and was also featured on Ian's 1979 album ''Night Rains''. It also became another international hit, reaching number one in many countries, including South Africa, Belgium, Australia, Israel and the Netherlands, and going gold or platinum in those countries and others. Another country where Ian has achieved a high level of popularity is Japan: Ian had two Top 10 singles on the Japanese
Oricon
, established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in ...
charts, "Love Is Blind" in 1976 and "You Are Love" in 1980. Ian's 1976 album ''
Aftertones
''Aftertones'' is the eighth album by American singer/songwriter Janis Ian, recorded 1975 in various New York studios and released 1976 by Columbia Records. "Love Is Blind" was a #1 single in Japan for six months. It was the highest-selling album ...
'' also topped Oricon's album chart in October 1976. "You Are Love (Toujours Gai Mon Cher)" is the theme song of
Kinji Fukasaku
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Known for his "broad range and innovative filmmaking," Fukasaku worked in many different genres and styles, but was best known for his gritty yakuza films, typified by the ''Battles Without Honor ...
's 1980 movie ''
Virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Since Dmitri Ivanovsk ...
''. Ian cut several other singles specifically for the Japanese market, including 1998's "The Last Great Place".
In the US, Ian did not chart in the Top 40 on the pop charts after "At Seventeen", though she had several songs reach the
Adult Contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...
singles chart through 1980 (all failing to make the Top 20).
Ian started Rude Girl Records, Inc., and its publishing arm, Rude Girl Publishing, on January 2, 1992. Since then, RGR has steadily grown, with its current ownership of more than twenty-five Janis Ian albums and DVDs overseas, as well as hundreds of unreleased recordings and videos, including unreleased songs, concerts, demos, and rehearsal tapes. The Rude Girl label oversees the production of Janis' newer work, and in the case of older work, its re-mastering and the re-creation of the original artwork.
From 1982–92, Ian continued to write songs, often in collaboration with then songwriting partner
Kye Fleming
Rhonda Kye Fleming (born October 9, 1951) is an American singer/songwriter and music publisher working in Nashville, Tennessee. She was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009 and has won more than 42 BMI Awards, including B ...
, some of which have been covered by
Amy Grant
Amy Lee Grant (born November 25, 1960) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She began in contemporary Christian music (CCM) before crossing over to pop music in the 1980s and 1990s. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christia ...
Marti Jones
Marti Jones is an American singer and visual artist known for her albums (solo and with husband Don Dixon) and her paintings. She sings, records, and performs as "Marti Jones" and exhibits visual art as "Marti Jones Dixon."
Early life
Marti ...
and other artists. She released ''
Breaking Silence
''Breaking Silence'' is an album by singer-songwriter Janis Ian, released in 1993 on Morgan Creek Records in the United States and Europe and on Columbia in Canada and the Netherlands.
History
Although Ian was outed as a lesbian in 1976 by the ' ...
'' in 1993 and also came out as a lesbian.
Other artists have recorded Ian's compositions, including
Roberta Flack
Roberta Cleopatra Flack (born February 10, 1937) is a retired American singer. She topped the ''Billboard'' charts with the No. 1 singles "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song", " Feel Like Makin' Love", "Wher ...
, who had a hit in 1973 with Ian's song "Jesse", which peaked at #19 on the Billboard pop charts on November 3, 1973. Ian's own version is included on her 1974 album ''Stars'' (the title song of which has also been oft-covered, including versions by
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone (), was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blu ...
and
Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook (October 25, 1927 – August 8, 2017) was an American actress and singer who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals '' Plain and Fancy'' (1955), ''Candide'' (1956) and ''The Music Man'' ( ...
). "At Seventeen" is Ian's most covered composition with 50 versions by artists including
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion ( ; born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Noted for her powerful and technically skilled vocals, Dion is the best-selling Canadian recording artist, and the best-selling French-language artist of all time. Her ...
,
Miki Howard
Alicia Michelle "Miki" Howard (born September 30, 1960) is an American singing, singer and actress who had a string of Top 40, top 10 hit songs in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, including "Baby, Be Mine (Miki Howard song), Baby, Be Mine" (1987) ...
and
Julia Fordham
Julia Fordham (born 10 August 1962) is a British singer-songwriter. Her professional career started in the early 1980s, under the name "Jules Fordham", as a backing singer for Mari Wilson and Kim Wilde, before signing a recording contract of h ...
. Ian's song "In The Winter" has also been covered many times by singers including
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, pop and dram ...
and
Sheena Easton
Sheena Shirley Easton (; born 27 April 1959) is a Scottish singer and actress. Easton came into the public eye in an episode of the first British musical reality television programme '' The Big Time: Pop Singer'', which recorded her attempts to ...
.
Richard Barone
Richard Barone is an American rock musician who first gained attention as frontman for the Bongos. He works as a songwriter, arranger, author, director, and record producer, releases albums as a solo artist, tours, and has created concert event ...
recorded Ian's song "Sweet Misery" on his album ''Sorrows & Promises: Greenwich Village in the 1960s'' in 2016. She continues to tour worldwide, though she stated that her 2022 North-American tour which was cancelled when a laryngitis diagnosis became severe would be her "last full tour".
In August 2018 Ian performed at the UK's
Cambridge Folk Festival
The Cambridge Folk Festival is an annual music festival, established in 1965, held on the site of Cherry Hinton Hall in Cherry Hinton, one of the villages subsumed by the city of Cambridge, England. The festival is known for its eclectic mix o ...
.
Criticism of the RIAA
Ian is an outspoken critic of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which she sees as acting against the interests of musicians and consumers. Consequently, she has released several of her songs for free download from her website. "I've been surprised at how few people are willing to get annoyed with me over it," she laughs. "There was a little backlash here and there. I was scheduled to appear on a panel somewhere and somebody from a record company said if I was there they would boycott it. But that's been pretty much it. In general, the entire reaction has been favorable. I hear from a lot of people in my industry who don't want to be quoted, but say 'yeah, we're aware of this and we'd like to see a change too.'" Along with science fiction authors
Eric Flint
Eric Flint (February 6, 1947 – July 17, 2022) was an American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his main works are Alternate history (fiction), alternate history science fiction, but he also wrote humorous fantasy adventures. ...
and
Cory Doctorow
Cory Efram Doctorow (; born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog '' Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of ...
, she has argued that their experience provides conclusive evidence that free downloads dramatically increased hard-copy sales, contrary to the claims of RIAA and
NARAS
The Recording Academy (formally the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; abbreviated NARAS) is an American learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals. It is famous for its Grammy A ...
.
Writing and acting
Ian writes science fiction. A long-time reader of the genre, she became involved in
science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or fandom of people interested in science fiction in contact with one another based upon that interest. SF fandom has a life of its own, but not much in the way of formal organization (although ...
in 2001 by attending the Millennium Philcon. Her short stories have been published in anthologies and she co-edited, with
Mike Resnick
Michael Diamond Resnick (; March 5, 1942 – January 9, 2020) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He won five Hugo awards and a Nebula award, and was the guest of honor at Chicon 7. He was the executive editor of the defunct ma ...
, the anthology ''Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian'', published in 2003 (). She continues to occasionally attend
science fiction conventions
Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of the speculative fiction genre, science fiction. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expre ...
. Ian performed at the 2009 Nebula Award Conference in Los Angeles, where she sang "Welcome Home," a version of her song "At Seventeen" with the lyrics changed to talk about the acceptance she found by reading science fiction.
Ian was a regular columnist for the
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term ...
news magazine '' The Advocate''"Revenge is sweet for Janis Ian" by Jeff Walsh, March 1, 1996 and contributed to ''Performing Songwriter'' magazine from 1993 to 2006. On July 24, 2008, Ian released her positively-received autobiography ''Society's Child'' (published by Penguin Tarcher). An accompanying double CD, ''The Autobiography Collection'', has been released with many of Ian's best loved songs.
Ian took acting lessons and script interpretation classes from
Stella Adler
Stella Adler (February 10, 1901 – December 21, 1992) was an American actress and acting teacher. ''
HBO comedy series '' Getting On'' playing a patient who refused to stop singing.
Personal life
Ian's mother Pearl Yadoff Fink was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1975. Because of this, Ian and her brother persuaded their mother to pursue her lifelong dream of going to college. Fink eventually enrolled in
Goddard College
Goddard College is a progressive education private liberal arts low-residency college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. The college offers undergraduate and gra ...
's adult education program and ultimately graduated with a master's degree. After Fink's death in 1997, Ian decided to auction off memorabilia to raise money to endow a scholarship at Goddard specifically for older continuing education students, which became the Pearl Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity. At the end of each year, 90% or more of funds raised from sale of merchandise, donations from fans and contributions from Ian herself are disbursed to various educational institutions to fund scholarships.Ian, Janis. 2008. ''Society's Child: My Autobiography.'' New York City: Tarcher. By 2020, it had endowed more than $1,250,000 in scholarship funds at four schools.
Ian married Portuguese filmmaker Tino Sargo in 1978 and the two divorced in 1983. Accusations of Sargo's physical and emotional abuse were discussed in Ian's autobiography. After moving to Nashville, she met Patricia Snyder in 1989. Ian
came out
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...
as a lesbian in 1993 with the worldwide release of her album ''
Breaking Silence
''Breaking Silence'' is an album by singer-songwriter Janis Ian, released in 1993 on Morgan Creek Records in the United States and Europe and on Columbia in Canada and the Netherlands.
History
Although Ian was outed as a lesbian in 1976 by the ' ...
''. Snyder and Ian married in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
on August 27, 2003. Ian has a stepdaughter and two grandchildren with Snyder.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
* '' Remember...'' (1978) (orig. JVC Japan, now Rude Girl)
* ''Live on the Test 1976'' (1995) (BBC World Wide)
* ''The Bottom Line Encore Collection'' (1999) (Bottom Line Records)
* ''Live: Working Without a Net'' (2003) (Rude Girl)
Compilation albums
Singles
DVDs
* Janis Ian: Live From Grand Center (2008)
* ''Live at Club Cafe'' (2005) (Rude Girl)
* ''Janismania'' (2005) (Rude Girl)
* ''Through the Years: A Retrospective'' (2007) (Rude Girl)
* ''Janis Ian '79: Live in Japan & Australia'' (2008) (Rude Girl)
Bibliography
* ''Who Really Cares: Poems From Childhood and Early Youth'', 1969 (2002 re-release),
* ''Songbook'', 1999,
* ''Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian'', 2003, (ed., with
Mike Resnick
Michael Diamond Resnick (; March 5, 1942 – January 9, 2020) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He won five Hugo awards and a Nebula award, and was the guest of honor at Chicon 7. He was the executive editor of the defunct ma ...
)
* "Prayerville", 2003, in Mike Resnick and
Martin H. Greenberg
Martin Harry Greenberg (March 1, 1941 – June 25, 2011) was an American academic and anthologist in many genres, including mysteries and horror, but especially in speculative fiction. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned ov ...
(eds), ''Women Writing Science Fiction As Men'',
* ''Society's Child: My Autobiography'', 2008, Tarcher/Penguin; ;