JANIS IAN ATTENDED M&A

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.

---

---

Janis Eddy Fink was born April 7, 1951, on a farm in Farmingdale, New Jersey to a Jewish couple, Victor and Pearl Fink. Often called a child prodigy, at two years old, Janis insisted on piano lessons from her music teacher father. By age three and a half, Janis was arguing with him over interpretations and fingering concerning her classical piano playing studies.

---

In 1960, when she was nine, Janis heard the singer Odetta on a Harry Belafonte television show. Janis was so enthralled by her sound and style that she convinced her mother to take them to see a Odetta performance at Rutgers. Janis knew from then that she wanted "... to sing, and play the guitar, and perform all over the place." (1)

---

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 After its debut in 1966, it was banned across the country as subversive (the country had not yet repealed laws against interracial marriage).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. 

---

---

---

AUDITION STORIES
I Got Accepted To The
​High School of Music and Art
​

Available on Amazon.com
In paperback and Kindle edition

MORE INFO

---

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 .."

---

Picture of producer, Shadow (George) Morton, sending Janis into her first recording session at age fifteen in 1966. The same year, Janis performed on the Tonight Show hosted by Johnny Carson.

---

During 1967, Janis was singing and playing in Greenwich Village folk clubs and landed a recording contract with Verve Records. 

---

​Janis took a trip to Philadelphia to appear on a college radio station (WRTI-FM). Ed Sciaky was one of the first to display her talents.

Ed Sciaky and Janis Ian

Her first album was titled Janis Ian. By October 1967, she had appeared in fifty live shows plus interviews and television and on Dec. 8th, she played Lincoln Center.

---

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.

---

The Secret Life of J. Eddy Pink - 1968

Who Really Cares - 1969

Present Company - 1971

Stars - 1974

---

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.

---

Aftertones

Miracle Row

Revenge

Hunger

Billie Bones

Working Without A Net

---

DID YOU KNOW?

---

Did you know that Janis Ian was married two times? First to filmmaker Tino Sargo (1979 - 1983) and second to Patricia Snyder. She and Patricia met in 1989 and have been married since 2003.

Did you know that Janis is a science fiction writer? Reader of science fiction since she was young, Janis has published short stories in 2003 and occasionally attends sci fi conventions.

---

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

---