The life and hard times of Janis Ian.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

The great jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald once called Janis Ian, "The best young singer in America today."

Guitar legend Chet Atkins said: "She runs rings around me."

And for a more contemporary comparison, consider Rolling Stone magazine, which proclaimed in its own backwards way: "Before there was Jewel, there was Janis Ian."

The range of different musicians who have been touched by Ian tells you something about the veteran folk singer's artistic longevity. Her 37-year music career has had more ups and downs than a pack of overstimulated kids on pogo sticks, which is why it's comforting to see her steering a more level course these days.

Her latest album, "Billie's Bones," recalls a more peaceful period in her career, she says.

"I've spent this past year at home, so it wasn't the typical go-on-tour-for-eight-months-slam-out-an-album-and-go-back-on-tour recording process," Ian said in a news release. `Because of that, there's a calmness to it that I haven't had since (the albums) `Stars' (1974) and `Between the Lines' (1975).'

Although Ian didn't rush the creative process, she says the recording was done in just three days. The album draws inspiration from a number of different sources that reflect the different styles of music that inform Ian's kind of folk.

Collaborative efforts

The namesake for the record and the title track is the jazz singer Billie Holiday, and Ian `collaborates' with the late Woody Guthrie, her co-writer on the song "I Hear You Sing Again." One of the highlights is her duet with Dolly Parton, "My Tennessee Hills."

"I have always thought that Janis Ian was one of the greatest writers and singers in the whole wide world," Parton said, adding one more celebrity musician's endorsement to Ian's file.

Ian is just as effusive in her praise of Parton, someone she calls a hero of hers.

"Nashville is a small town," Ian said. "You hear gossip and bad news about everyone. Everyone, that is, except Dolly. No one's ever got a bad word to say there."

Ian sent her song to Parton, who felt the tune sounded like something she herself would have written. So she agreed to sing the harmony.

With its easy tempo and nostalgic tone, "Tennessee" definitely has a Parton-esque feel to it. And Ian's sultry singing and Parton's fluttery background vocals work well together.

Two other songs on the new album, the sparkling "Mockingbird" and the ethereal "Forever Young," also are influenced by Tennessee. Ian's interest in the state has more to do with her own personal struggles than with it being the capitol of the country music industry.

The city became her adopted home in 1988, at a time when she arrived with little more than a guitar and the clothes on her back. Her marriage had recently ended in a painful divorce, her accountant had duped her and the IRS wanted seven years of back taxes.

"They (the people of Tennessee) took me in when no one would, and I'm grateful," Ian says.

Prior to moving to Nashville, Ian already had enjoyed a long but tumultuous career. A child prodigy who picked up the piano at age 2, she soon learned the organ, the flute and the French horn.

At 10, she discovered her father's Martin D-18 guitar. And at 12, she wrote her first song.

At age 15, Ian penned her first No. 1 hit, the controversial "Society's Child," which was about an interracial relationship. It was briefly banned from the radio after its release in 1966, and composer Leonard Bernstein became one of the song's strongest defenders.

As the controversy swelled, Ian sold more and more copies. She soon found herself rubbing elbows with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and other music luminaries.

In explaining her controversial song, Ian pointed to the household she grew up in. The daughter of a New Jersey chicken farmer, she came from a family that attended civil rights marches and embraced socialist ideas.

"My parents never punished me for telling the truth, no matter how awful it was," Ian has said. "I was only punished for lying."

Arlene Levinson of The Associated Press described "Society's Child" as "a white teenager indicting America for its racism and hypocrisy." She called Ian's eloquent honesty her chief legacy to contemporary music.

Ian's self-titled 1967 debut earned her nine Grammy nominations, but within several years, she was nearly broke. She had given away most of her money to friends and to charities, and she was branded a has-been by music critics.

The comeback kid

In the 1970s, Ian launched her first of many comebacks, releasing the Grammy-winning song "At Seventeen," which became an anthem for disaffected teens. It sold more than a million copies.

The album that spawned the single, "Between the Lines" earned her two Grammy awards. And her follow-up release, "Aftertones," was a critical favorite that gave rise to the Japanese hit, "Love Is Blind."

Ian was the first musical guest on "Saturday Night Live." She created a minor buzz when she appeared on "The Tonight Show" wearing - gasp - pants.

During the 1980s, Ian took on a number of film projects, including writing a disco hit that appeared on the soundtrack to the Jodie Foster movie "Foxes." Her albums went gold and platinum in a number of different countries, and she teamed up with Mel Torme for the Grammy-winning duet "Silly Habits."

Ian's career dried up in the 1980s as she took time out to focus on other interests. She studied dance at the Royal Ballet company, and she took acting classes with the famous theater coach Stella Adler.

"They were both things that kept me involved in the arts, but gave me a break from my own work," Ian says.

After a difficult period in her life, Ian moved to Nashville, where she launched a songwriting career. She penned songs for other artists, including Bette Midler, whose version of Ian's "Some People's Lives" appeared on her twice-platinum album of the same name.

Ian re-emerged as a solo artist in 1993 with "Breaking Silence." The album title referred to her new openness about her lesbian sexual orientation, and the record earned her another Grammy nomination.

In recent years, Ian has continued to release albums, while also becoming involved in social causes such as AIDS and domestic violence prevention. In 2003, she married criminal defense attorney Patricia Snyder, in Canada, and she has been been vocal in her support of same-sex marriage.

"It's important that people are made aware, because at the end of the day it (same-sex marriage) is a civil rights issue," Ian said. "How can you arbitrate someone else's right to civil rights."

Of course, the music is still primary to Ian, which brings to mind another quote about her, this one from the country music historian Robert Oermann.

"Only a handful of the great American troubadours is still creating vital music," Oermann writes. "Some of them are dead, some are in creative eclipse, some are forgotten, and better, some are rich and retired.

`But Janis Ian endures."

Lewis Taylor can be reached at 338-2512 or ltaylor@guardnet .com.

CONCERT PREVIEW

Janis Ian

When: 8:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave.

How much: $18 in advance, $20 at the door

CAPTION(S):

Janis Ian has a scrapbook full of accolades and a career marked by musical hits and awards, but her life still might define the word struggle. She will play the WOW Hall on Wednesday in her first Eugene appearance since playing the Cuthbert Amphitheater in 2001 as part of Judy Collins' Wildflower Festival tour, which also featured Richie Havens and Roger McGuinn. Ian's new CD is `Billie's Bones.'