Still breaking silence: checking in with Janis Ian on music, politics, recording with Dolly Parton, and the joys of married life.Many musicians are gifted; Janis Ian is brilliant. Her resume is nearly as long as her life. In 1967, when she had her first hit, "Society's Child," America was almost as shocked by the youth of the teen singer-songwriter as by the audacity of her "lament for a budding black-white romance stifled by hidebound hidebound said of skin that is not easily lifted from the subcutaneous tissue. Occurs in emaciated animals because of the absence of fat and connective tissue rather than absence of fluid. parents. Ian's creativity has been boiling ever since. More than 20 intricate and challenging records later--among them 1975's Between the Lines Between the lines can refer to:
n. Any of the point particles believed to be a constituent of hadrons, now known as quarks. No longer in technical use. [part(icle) + -on1.] and writing with the late Woody Guthrie Noun 1. Woody Guthrie - United States folk singer and songwriter (1912-1967) Guthrie, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie on her latest CD, Billie's Bones. Ian is now touring the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . She e-mailed us from the road. What's it like living in Nashville at a political time like this? We saw what happened to the Dixie Chicks when they expressed their views. I'm not sure anything much happened at the end of the day except a great deal of free publicity, frankly; album sales continued, airplay air·play n. The broadcasting of an audio or audiovisual recording on the air over radio or television. airplay Noun the broadcast performances of a record on radio continued (with the exception of that really stupid move by Clear Channel). I think that anytime you express an opinion that goes counter to a portion of the political beliefs of any country, you're bound to get flak. With "Society's Child," people were fired for playing it, a radio station was burned to the ground, children were grounded for listening to it. Nothing nearly so violent occured with this. In terms of Nashville, it's like any other city; people have opinions, they make them heard, they tend to congregate with others of like minds. I think the diversity of opinion here is much more representative of the country as a whole than, say, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of or Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . Your online account of recording Billie's Bones is a fascinating journey. How did you decide to do this, and what surprised you along the way? I had a few queries from fans wanting to know why I was taking a full year off from touring "just to edit a book, put together a live CD, and record a new CD." Most of them seemed to think making a record consisted of going into the studio and playing through the songs a couple of times. It seemed like they'd be interested in seeing the process from start to finish. The big surprises for me were the sheer amount of man-hours involved and how little "civilians" understood the process. In terms of man-hours, I'd hesitate to even guesstimate guess·ti·mate n. Informal An estimate based on conjecture. [Blend of guess and estimate.] guess the time we all put in, but it's absurdly high compared to going on tour or writing a son--and most of it's in the planning and preparation! In terms of understanding, words I'd grown up with, like star take or edit, had to be explained from square one. The most fun parts were putting together the song drafts so people could actually see the process of writing the song from start to finish, particularly with something like the Woody Guthrie cowrite co·write or co-write tr.v. co·wrote , co·writ·ten , co·writ·ing, co·writes To write jointly or in collaboration with another author. "I Hear You Sing Again." And the Dolly session, which involved three engineers and two editors before we'd finished. You and your partner, Pat Snyder, recently married. Could you tell us a bit about the ceremony? We're both in our 50s and we've been together 15 years, so we decided to keep it very, very simple--and then spent our celebration money on a big party a month later! I had to be in Toronto for a science fiction convention Science fiction conventions are gatherings of the community of fans (called science fiction fandom) of various forms of speculative fiction including science fiction and fantasy. , so we went up three days early. Mike and Carol Resnick Carol Resnick is a science fiction author and collaborator with her husband Mike Resnick. They have been married since 1961 and together have bred and exhibited collies, gone on African safaris, and participated in science fiction fandom since the 1960s. agreed to be our "best man and woman" and spent the morning trying to convince Pat that she wasn't going to lose her voice or forget her lines (which consisted solely of "I do"). We chose the Apache wedding ceremony for our rites because it seemed to sum up everything we felt, and the minister (tall, distinguished, with a great voice--we lucked in) added a few blessings of his own. Dress was casual: subdued Hawaiian shirts and slacks. Afterward we all went back to the hotel and had a big lunch. When you're not making music, what makes you happiest these days? Being with Pat. How do you two like to spend your time together? We spend a fair amount of time talking, sitting on the porch reading, and watching videos. We take breaks for gardening or walking. It's all pretty normal. |
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