- Title: UNITED KINGDOM: SINGER JANIS IAN PROMOTES HER 17TH ALBUM "GOD AND THE FBI"
- Date: 12th June 2000
- Summary: SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) Janis Ian saying: "The odds are so much more against you now, when I was a kid there were two thousand records out a year now there is twenty thousand a month in the States I mean that's a huge difference, there's a lot more media and I think people are a lot more bored and there's a lot more places for people to go."
- Embargoed: 27th June 2000 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LONDON,UK
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Entertainment,General
- Reuters ID: LVABPSUC0YBN3HONQA39LMGG7DXD
- Story Text: In the UK to promote her 17th album 'God and the FBI,' American singing legend Janis Ian is still rocking audiences around the world - after more than 35 years of music making.
Reuters caught up with Ian in London recently - to listen to her unique insights into the crazy world of showbiz.
With a career spanning more than four decades and 17 albums, it comes as no surprise that Janis Ian still has what it takes to hold an audience. The woman who offered 'The Graduate' to Paul Simon, said no to 'You light up my life' and refused to perform at Woodstock is living proof that you can succeed if you follow your instincts. Now Ian is touring the UK with her latest offering, 'God and the FBI' an eclectic album which was written and produced in Ian's house in Nashville, Tennessee.
" I went into this album to make something a lot more muscular than the last couple of albums, we went in and recorded the whole thing in a house. Two of us lived there, the other two spent from seven in the morning till midnight every day there so it was very much just four people flung together in one large living room for the entire experience.
It was really fascinating, it became much more a group vision than just my vision."
Raised on a chicken farm in New Jersey by left wing parents, Ian's interest in music began at just two and a half when she demanded piano lessons. She quit at the ripe old age of ten, moving on to teach herself the guitar.
Janis Ian burst on to the music scene at age 14 with her controversial saga of interracial love, "Society's Child."
Written and recorded by her, it topped the charts and created a storm of discussion that featured Ian in national and international media. Her debut album, 1967's Janis Ian, garnered her the first of her nine Grammy nominations to date.
Since then, there have been seventeen albums, some as close as nine months apart, some as far apart as ten years.
During her lengthy career, Ian has witnessed some major changes taking place within the industry.
One of the things that concerns her most is the mass-produced music which dominates today's charts. She says that amid all the debate over the cloning of animals, you only need look at the music industry to see it in practice. But she agrees that it is a much tougher business now than when she first entered it.
"The odds are so much more against you now, when I was a kid there were two thousand records out a year now there is twenty thousand a month in the States I mean that's a huge difference, there's a lot more media and I think people are a lot more bored and there's a lot more places for people to go."
Ian achieved a new level of popularity in the 1970s with her trio of albums, Stars (1973), Between the Lines (1975) and Aftertones (1976). The first contained "Jesse" which became a pop standard after Roberta Flack topped the charts with it. The second contained "At Seventeen" that sold over a million copies and earned Ian her first two Grammy Awards.
Ian has been equally congratulated and crticised for turning down a succession seemingly golden opportunities.
Among them the opportunity to record 'The Graduate' and the enduring love song 'You light up my life' . She also refused several lucrative offers to appear at Woodstock. But she says she has no regrets about past decisions.
" Turning down ' The Graduate' was remarkably stupid, remarkably stupid. On the other hand I was seventeen years old and I think Paul Simon did a much better job than I would have done because I had no vision of it. So for my money I was right to turn it down because I would have done a bad job.
Turning down "You Light up My Life" was a really good choice because I would still be stuck singing it and its not a song I think I would have enjoyed singing for 20 years."
She later became the first musical guest to appear on Saturday Night Live and was the first female solo artist to land 5 Grammy nominations in one year ( a record which has since been tied by Whitney Houston). During her career, Ian has 'retired' several times, going on to launch an equal amount of remarkable comebacks, much to the delight of fans and audiences around the world.
Ian's career has been as diverse as it has lengthy. She has either scored or contributed title tunes to such movies as Virus (1980), Betrayal (1977), The Bell Jar (1979), Falling From Grace (1992) and Four Rode Out (1969). She has also contributed to such television projects as the ABC Movie of the Week Freedom (1981) and the hit series Murder She Wrote, and her songs have been featured on shows as diverse as The Simpsons and General Hospital.
People who see Janis Ian perform for the first time usually know none of this. Often they know only the voice and a song or two, but they invariably leave her shows stunned by her lead instrumental work on piano and guitar. She was among the guitarists chosen to salute the legendary Chet Atkins at an all-star gala this year that included Mark Knopfler, Larry Carlton, Travis Tritt and Clint Black.
Perhaps the only common denominator in her music is that much of it is 'issue driven'. Ian shies away from writing meaningless songs, relying heavily on past experiences to create her music. Many times she has been labelled a "musician's musician." Her songs have been recorded by everyone from Stan Getz to Bette Midler, from Glen Campbell to Vanilla Fudge, from Cher to Hugh Masakela, from Joan Baez to Etta James.
For the time being, Ian is content touring the world and rewarding the loyalty of her fans. She says she is determined to keep playing for as long as she enjoys it.
And she is in a unique position to offer advice to those attempting to tread the rocky path of a career in the music industry.
"The word of caution would be, whatever they manufacture you into , its a brand of soap you can live with for the next ten years because that's where you will be living You cant get away from your image, you can change it and push the edges of it but you cant get away from it. And I would say if you have any other choice other than going into this industry take the other choice, because its really harsh, its really hard. Most artists live with the door being slammed in their face 4-5 times a day every day and it doesn't matter how big you are, you still get doors slammed in your face."
Ian will be touring with the new album ' God and the FBI', for most of the year.
In between times she is hoping to write the score for a new Broadway musical about the World War concentration camp known as Terezin, where many artists and musicians were incarcerated. She also writes a regular column for Performing Songwriter. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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