St. Clair Productions presents “From Society’s Child to Folk Legend: An Intimate Evening of Memories and Music” with Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter Janis Ian at the Unitarian Fellowship, 87 4th St., Ashland, 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 3. Diana Jones opens the show. Tickets are $25 in advance, $28 at the door, $10 for teens 12-17 and free under 12 and available at www.stclairevents.com, 541-535-3562 or at the Music Coop in downtown Ashland.
Ian won the 2013 GRAMMY award for "Best Spoken Word Album"! Up against Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, Ellen Degeneres and Rachel Maddow, Janis' autobiography Society's Child took home the award. Over the years, Ian was nominated for numerous Grammy awards and this is her second win. Her songs “Society’s Child” and “At Seventeen” are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
At age 14, Ian wrote the song that charted her life's course. “Society's Child” rocked the nation at a time when the Supreme Court had yet to repeal the laws against interracial marriage, and when civil rights unrest was cresting. The song went to #1 and the teenager was suddenly hanging out with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, appearing on television shows, and getting hate mail.
Ian wrote “At Seventeen” when she was 24. This was her first "comeback" with what would be become a classic anthem for disaffected teenagers. Not only did the song win Ian two Grammys, selling over a million copies; it led to a seven-year period of unbridled success that gave her #1 records in every Western country. Ian sang “At Seventeen” as the first musical guest on the inaugural broadcast of Saturday Night Live.
Shortly after her time in the spotlight, Janis Ian disappeared for what would turn out to be almost 10 years. She studied acting with Stella Adler, married, and had plans to start a family, but the marriage ended in a painful divorce. Her accountant duped her, and the IRS came after her for seven years of back taxes that had never been paid. She sold every thing to pay.
Ian moved to Nashville in 1988 and began writing songs for other artists such as Bette Midler, whose cover of "Some People's Lives" was the title track of the album, selling over 2 million copies worldwide.
Her next dramatic comeback in 1993 was with Breaking Silence, that not only earned her a ninth Grammy nomination, but announced her sexual orientation to the world. She began talking openly of her lesbianism on controversial radio and TV shows like Howard Stern, and became a champion for issues of the 90's like spousal abuse and AIDS.
In 1998, Ian formed the Pearl Foundation to raise money for scholarships for older women returning to college. She became a science fiction writer with the release of the Stars anthology, a book of science fiction stories by her favorite authors, based on her songs, co-edited with Mike Resnick, in 2000. In 2010, Ian received the Berklee College of Music’s first Liberal Arts award “Janis Ian—an artist for all time.”
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