Made a record at 14, had a hit at 15, and was a hasbeen at 16. She has continued to place creativity first, saying of her early career, “”I wrote my first song at 12.
She was subjected to hate mail and death threats, all of which she details in her critically acclaimed book and Grammy-winning audiobook Society’s Child: My Autobiography. “Society’s Child” focused on an interracial couple in an era when tempers flared at even the mention of such a relationship. Most adults could not have survived the scorn and controversy that surrounded her debut single. That led to her first “real” show, at New York’s venerable Village Gate, where she shared a stage with Tom Paxton (with whom she recently toured the east coast of the U.S.), Lou Gossett Jr., Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, and a host of other singer-songwriters.įrom Janis’ first headlining show at Greenwich Village’s Gaslight Café at age 15, her life was fraught with challenges.
CHARLIE DANIELS GAY BAR SONG PROFESSIONAL
Janis Ian began her mostly stellar, sometimes stormy, professional life at the age of 12 when she wrote her first song and was published by Broadside Magazine. It also marks forty years since she received two Grammys for her work on “At Seventeen” and Between the Lines.
Some months later, in collaboration with producer Shadow Morton (The New York Dolls, The Shangri-las, “In a gadda da vida” with Iron Butterfly), she recorded “Society’s Child” and then her first album, Grammy nominee Janis Ian. She wrote “Society’s Child”, her first hit, fifty years ago, at the age of fourteen. We sell dreams.”Ģ016 marks a year of anniversaries for Janis. On a more serious note, she said, “We artists are the last alchemists, pulling your dreams, your hopes, your deepest desires out of thin air, and turning them into something you can hear, and play, and sing. An ex-president, a First Lady and three lesbians go into a bar…” When she won, she sincerely considered it to be a “stunning upset.” With her inimitable sense of humor, she went on to say “There must be a joke in here somewhere. She had stiff competition - President Bill Clinton, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rachel Maddow and Ellen DeGeneres. I’m in competition to be better tonight than I was last night and to be better tomorrow than tonight.”ĭaniels said his favorite place to play was “anywhere with a good crowd and a good paycheck.Now her fifth decade of writing songs and performing, Janis Ian received her most recent Grammy nomination in 2016, making a total of 10 nominations over the years in 8 categories! (She lost to President Jimmy Carter.) Her last Grammy Award, presented at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony, was for Best Spoken Word Album for her audio book “Society’s Child” (). He said in 1998 that he kept touring so much because “I have never played those notes perfectly. He was inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eugene Fodor and Woody Herman.ĭaniels, a native of Wilmington, N.C., played on several Bob Dylan albums as a Nashville recording session guitarist in the late 1960s, including “New Morning” and “Self-Portrait.”Įventually, at the age of 71, he was invited to join the epitome of Nashville’s music establishment, the Grand Ole Opry. Entertainers at thes shows included Don Henley, Amy Grant, James Brown, Pat Boone, Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band, Alabama, Billy Joel, Little Richard, B.B. He hosted regular Volunteer Jam concerts in Nashville in which the performers usually were not announced in advance. “I told you once you son of a gun, I’m the best that’s ever been.” “Johnny said, `Devil just come on back if you ever want to try again. “He laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny’s feet. “The devil bowed his head because he knew that he’d been beat. It was voted single of the year by the Country Music Association. Gordon Liddy radio show and on C-Span taking comments from viewers.
Such tough talk earned him guest spots on “Politically Incorrect,” the G. His “In America” in 1980 told this country’s enemies to “go straight to hell.” His “Simple Man” in 1990 suggested lynching drug dealers and using child abusers as alligator bait. Otherwise, though, he rarely backed down from in-your-face lyrics. “I guess I’ve mellowed in my old age,” Daniels said in 1998. In his 1980 hit “Long Haired Country Boy,” he used to sing about being “stoned in the morning” and “drunk in the afternoon.” Daniels changed it to “I get up in the morning. In “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a 1979 song about a fiddling duel between the devil and a whippersnapper named Johnny, Daniels originally called the devil a “son of a bitch,” but changed it to “son of a gun.” Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu