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Janis Ian is a singer/songwriter who is best know for radical songs about teenage angst At Seventeen. She won a Grammy for this song and a second Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for her autobiography, Society’s Child. Composer of numerous songs recorded by other artists, including Roberta Flack, Kenny Rogers, and Alabama; Janis has collaborated with country songwriter Rhonda Kye Fleming. Has written songs for motion pictures, motion including The Foxes and The Bell Jar. And to top it all off, Janis Ian attended the High School of Music and Art. 
By age ten, Janis picked up her father’s battered Martin D-18 guitar and mastered the acoustic guitar by eleven years old. Janis wrote her first song Hair of Spun Gold by age twelve, and was performing her songs in school functions. That next year (1964), Janis published her first song in Broadside Magazine. During the same year, she sang for the first time in a Greenwich Village club to praises from the locals. During this time, she changed her name to Janis Ian (her brother Eric's middle name).   On February 12, 1965, thirteen year old Janis signed a record contract with Elektra and recorded her first hit Society’s Child (Baby I’ve been Thinking). The song was about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother. After its debut in 1966, it was banned across the country as subversive (the country had not yet repealed laws against interracial marriage). The single failed to attract much attention until the conductor Leonard Bernstein invited its writer to perform the song on his television special Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. The show was filmed in November 1966 but not aired until early 1967. The publicity from this made the song an overnight sensation and Janis became an instant celebrity. During the fall of 1965, Janis entered the High School of Music and Art as a freshman but because of her hectic work schedule, she found herself at times missing classes. Her parents brokered a deal that Janis could take days off; as long as she pulled an A average on all tests. Unfortunately, she failed every subject on her first report card due to absences. Though some teachers made her life hell (with their attitude about her stardom), Janis stated that, "The kids were alright; they just wanted autographs or to come to recording sessions." (2) Classmate, Beth Parness, remembers Janis Ian: "Janis was in my conducting and voice classes. I remember her trying to sing Nel Co zpiu Non Mi Sento..a light comedic opera piece about being pinched by your lover..in fishnet stocking and tie dye minidress..She was hating every minute .."
During 1967, Janis was singing and playing in Greenwich Village folk clubs and landed a recording contract with Verve Records.
Excerpts from her book, Society's Child: My Autobiography, concerning her time at M&A during the beginning of 1967 (her sophomore year): "Christmas vacation came and went; I struggled to keep my grades up, and fought to maintain my writing output. Going to school was terrifying. The principal asked me to do a show in the auditorium and I refused. He told me I needed to pull up my grades, saying, 'If you can write all those songs, you can be a straight-A student,' What he forgot was that I was being a straight-A student; it was the absences that pulled down my averages." Janis decided to leave Music & Art high school during December 1967 of her junior year. (3) Janis threw herself into her work and produced an album almost every year.
Janis did a lot of touring throughout the country during the next few years. Her albums did well but it was rough for her, not having a hit comparable to the fame of Society's Child. But all of that was about to change.  Janis and Arthur Brooks (producer), working on "At Seventeen."  In March 1975, the album Between The Lines came out to glowing reviews. Within it was the song "At Seventeen." The song was about teenage cruelty and alienation. On September 24, Janis appeared again on The Tonight Show and afterwards, her career exploded. At Seventeen charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart and album went platinum. On October 11, she also performed At Seventeen on the first Saturday Night Live. Janis achieved a high level of popularity in Japan: Ian had two Top 10 singles on the Japanese Oricon charts, "Love Is Blind" in 1976 Ian's 1976 album Aftertones also topped Oricon's album chart in October 1976. Also in 1976, Janis wrote and performed “Flying Too High” for soundtrack of Jodie Foster film Foxes. It also became her first international hit, reaching #1 in many countries. Janis continues to be prolific, as always, so the hits just keep coming.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that in 2008, Janis Ian released her positively-received autobiography Society's Child. An accompanying double CD, The Autobiography Collection, has been released with many of Ian's best loved songs.  1, 2 & 3 - Quotes used by Janis are from: Society's Child: My Autobiography, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2008 eISBN: 978-1-585-42675-1  Janis Ian At Seventeen
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