“There’s no denying that Janis Ian has often served as a cultural clairvoyant,” – New York Times

Iconic Janis Ian Earns 10th GRAMMY Nomination

For The Light at the End of the Line

Ian is referring to her complications from a non-Covid virus earlier this year. After hoping she would recover, specialists found there was scarring on her right vocal cord, forcing her to cancel what was to be her valedictory tour. “I can’t hold my notes, and since it takes more air to get past the scarring, my phrasing is also way off. Even speaking, I get hoarse and raspy without warning. There are no effective treatments or cures, unfortunately. It is most unlikely that I’ll ever sound like myself again,” she explains.

The trailblazing artist doesn’t want fans to feel sorry for her. While there is sadness in her heart for this monumental change in her life and career, she looks back on it fondly, and with much gratitude. “I consider myself lucky that this is not life-threatening, though the loss in my own small world is staggering. I cannot begin to tell you how painfully hard this is, but as I’ve sung before, ‘I’m still standing.’ I will confess this much: it’s the little things that bring me to tears. Asking my webmaster to remove ‘Concerts’ from my website. Looking at the brand-new suitcases I bought when my fifteen-year-old bag finally gave way and cutting the ‘Janis Ian’ luggage tags off them,” she states.

Ian’s proud to have her swan song be The Light at the End of the Line, which was released in January 2022 on Rude Girl Records, her own independent label she formed in 1992. “I love this album,” she says. “To me, it says ‘This is the absolute best I can do over the span of 58 years as a writer. This is what I’ve learned.’” On moving on with grace, she adds, “The idea of not being held hostage by your legacy lets you move forward. You don’t have to be held hostage to those memories. You have to acknowledge them, but you don’t have to stay there.”

Critics and fans love this album as well. Pop Matters describes various songs as “stunning,” “thrilling,” and “clever.” No Depressionwrites, “Janis Ian moves seamlessly between activistic declarations and descriptive verse, her melodies crystalline, her voice imbued with hard-won wisdom. If The Light at the End of the Line is indeed Ian’s final release, she retires on elevated ground, affirming her stylistic and perspectival legacies while exhibiting once more how she has continued to evolve artistically and, more importantly, as a human being.”

Meanwhile, fans flooded Amazon with reviews calling The Light at the End of the Line “her most powerful album yet,” “a spectacular swan song,” and an album “to die for,” while declaring “Janis Ian to be one of the most brilliant singer-songwriters of my generation” and “a fearless, if not peerless singer-songwriter.”

To give back to the fans, she’s having a massive website sale running through December 20 at store.janisianstore.com — just in time for your holiday shopping! Items include signed (and unsigned) albums and merchandise, a new vinyl release version of The Light at the End of the Line, a brand-new, definite CD version of her 1975 release, Between the Lines, and “most of what I have left from touring – signed laminates, VIP passes, you name it. As I continue unpacking, we’ll keep adding items.” A large percentage of all sales will go tofund the Janis Ian Archives Fund at Berea College, which will include not just the standard memorabilia but contracts dating back to 1963, negotiations, master classes, correspondence with other artists, tax returns, and her family’s FBI files. You can see the early steps of the archives, which will eventually also be available on line, at www.berea.edu/give/jiaf .

 

 

 

Ian wrote her breakthrough hit, “Society’s Child,” at the young age of 14 in 1965. The song broke ground by being the first charted songs to speak about interracial romance, and marked her first Top 20 hit. It went on to be certified Gold in the US. A few years later, in 1966, Ian again paved the way by becoming the first female artist to write every track on her debut album (“Janis Ian”) long before Joni Mitchell or Carole King did.

She continued her fearless journey by becoming one of the first gay pop stars to come out in the early 1990s and by championing free downloads of her music back when the industry fought hard against it. She’s also known for other evergreen songs such as “Jesse,” “Stars,” and “At Seventeen,” which hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and No. 3 on the Hot 100. Between the Lines, a five-time GRAMMY nominee, was No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, and her album Aftertones topped the charts in Japan for a stunning six months. Her songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Celine Dion, Nina Simone, Hugh Masekela, Bette Midler, John Mellencamp, Glen Campbell, Cher… the list, along with their gold and platinum status, goes on.

“It takes a certain amount of maturity to realize that you don’t have to keep proving you can write. I’ve already created a body of work I’m proud of, and I’m old enough to realize that it’s the light at the end of the line that matters. And I’m not calling this retiring. It’s rewiring,” she adds.

The 2023 GRAMMYs will be held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023, and will be broadcast live on CBS and stream live and on-demand on Paramount+ at 8-11:30 p.m. ET/5-8:30 p.m. PT.

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