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MARTIN THEATRE
JANIS IAN
JANIS IAN
An introspective folk songwriter since before
her teens, Janis Ian rst appeared on the folk
scene of her native New York at the Village
Gate at age , sharing the stage with the likes
of Tom Paxton, Lou Gossett Jr., Judy Collins,
and Phil Ochs. She headlined her rst show
at Greenwich Village’s Gaslight Café at age ,
and not long a er that she became an over-
night cultural sensation when she talked about
and performed her song “Society’s Child (Baby
I’ve Been
inking),” an eye-level view of how
interracial romance was treated at the time, on
the
Leonard Bernstein–hosted TV special
Inside Pop:
e Rock Revolution
.
e attention
allowed her eponymous debut album, recorded
a year earlier, to reach a wider audience and as-
cend into
Billboard
’s top albums. ree more
discs soon followed:
For All the Seasons of Your
Mind
(
),
e Secret Life of J. Eddy Fink
(
;
a reference to her birth name—she adopted her
brother’s middle name as her surname in the
early ’ s when she started performing), and
Who Really Cares
(
). Ian took a brief hia-
tus and refocused her writing, returning in
with
Stars
. In between the album’s writing and
release, its song “Jesse” had become a hit for Ro-
berta Flack; consequently, the disc saw Ian re-
turn to
Billboard
’s charts at number . at suc-
cess would soon be eclipsed by
’s
Between
the Lines
, Ian’s Album of the Year Grammy–
nominated disc featuring her Grammy-win-
ning, trademark song “At Seventeen,” a re ec-
tion upon the trials of adolescence.
is led to
her performance on the very rst broadcast of
Saturday Night Live
. Ian made waves again in
with
Breaking Silence
, its title a reference to
her recent public revelation about her sexuali-
ty. Around the same time, she started her own
record label and publishing company under the
name Rude Girl, having long been a critic of the
RIAA. She has since released over a dozen discs
herself, including her
Grammy-winning
autobiography,
Society’s Child
. Janis Ian previ-
ously appeared at Ravinia in
and
.
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