02/11/11

Story by Peggy Graham

Janis Ian

Janis Ian is a voice re-mastered

High resolution photo

High resolution photo

High resolution photo

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Janis Ian catapulted to fame as a 15-year-old with her controversial song Society’s Child about interracial romance. That was 1966, and Ian is still making headlines. The singer, guitarist and songwriter will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 12, in Polsky Theatre of the Carlsen Center as part of the Performing Arts Series at Johnson County Community College.

Born in 1951, Ian has been the voice of a generation in two different periods of her life. Fans who grew up during the early rock years already know the artist, her early hits and soulful voice. A great American songwriter of the 1960s and ’70s, she wrote Jesse, a song recorded by so many others that few remember Ian wrote it, and Stars, recorded by artists as diverse as Mel Torme and Cher.

A new generation is discovering her formidable talent through her 2008 two-CD autobiography of songs, Best of Janis Ian, and book, Society’s Child, in which she candidly discusses her roller-coaster life.

With her family under surveillance by the FBI during the Cold War era, Ian grew up looking over her shoulder. By the age of 16, she was a regular performer at the Gaslight in Greenwich Village, had played to a sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall and was nominated for a Grammy — all while living with her parents and younger brother in their Upper West Side apartment. A versatile and talented performer, known for her “substance, depth and musicality” (New York Times), Ian refused to be pigeonholed as a “protest singer.” Her 1975 hit At Seventeen, an anthem about teenaged angst, would garner her five Grammy nominations and two Grammy awards. She performed it on the first-ever episode of Saturday Night Live that October.

While her counterparts, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, met early deaths, Ian survived despite challenges — unsuccessful abusive relationships with both men and women, health crises, financial problems and a nine-year hiatus from the music business. In 1992, she staged her musical comeback with Grammy-nominated Breaking Silence. Since then she has enjoyed CDs, a book, tours and speaking engagements.

Ian is still touring in cabaret-style venues and haunting people with a voice that stands alone or with her guitar. (Chet Atkins once said, “Singer? You ought to hear that girl play guitar; she gives me a run for my money.”) She also shares short stories.

For those “who learned the truth at 17,” Ian is a champion of “ugly duckling girls,” a woman whose spirit and soul have triumphed over beauty queens.

Tickets are $35, available by calling the PAS box office at 913-469-4445 or online at www.jccc.edu/TheSeries.

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