When Janis Ian came from Los Angeles to Nashville, her biggest adjustment was learning the language. “I had to learn what ’meat-and-three’ meant," the 38-year-old singer quips. “Some of the phrases — like ‘low rent’ — I’d never heard before."
As a young girl living in Manhattan, Ian began writing songs for Pete Seeger's mimeographed songsheet Broadside, a forerunner of the ’60s underground press that also published much of Bob Dylan’s earliest material. In 1966, she wrote and recorded “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking),” a story of a doomed interracial affair that was banned on radio stations nationwide, only to become a Top 20 hit when Leonard Bernstein featured her on his Inside the Pop Revolution television show. Nine years later, she recorded her most famous song, the wallflower anthem “At Seventeen."
In recent years, Nashville artists have begun to take a shine to Ian’s tunes. Kathy Mattea recorded “Every Love” — written by lan and Rhonda Kye Fleming, a common collaborator — for her Untasted Honey album, and later sang the song at her wedding. “What About the Love,” a personal favorite that Ian hopes to eventually record and release as a single, was included on Amy Grant’s Lead Me On and topped the gospel charts in March. As her local success increased, trips to Nashville became more frequent.
“I kept coming here and writing, coming here and writing, then I’d go back to LA and sit around,” she says. “I came here in September and ended up staying until the end of November. I said to somebody, ‘I’ve got to go back to LA.’ And they asked why. I looked at them and couldn’t remember. I just thought, ‘Why am I going back to LA?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah, I have a concert there on December 4.’ They asked, ‘Well, why stay?’ I said, ‘’Cause all my stuff’s there.’ What a stupid-ass reason to stay somewhere."
Ian moved to Nashville in December, but didn't really settle in until January when most of her stuff came in from the coast. She knew she was stuck here when she bought a grand piano. “You don’t cart an 8-foot piano around the world,” she says. “I bought the piano, and I figured, ‘I’m here.’”
The move worried Ian’s business people in Los Angeles who felt she wouldn’t be comfortable in a smaller town. But having grown up in small town in New Jersey, Ian already felt comfortable in Nashville. She was quickly accepted in the Nashville music community, finding numerous co-writing opportunities. She also enjoyed seeing trees and plant life once again.
Ian’s local profile has been on the rise recently. Two Sundays ago, she was the featured performer at an AIDS benefit at Slice of Life. She kicks off a tour with her trio on June 30 at the Bluebird Cafe. The trio includes Chad Watson on bass and Jim Brock on drums and percussion. Ian splits her shows — which consist of about two-thirds new material — in two; during the first half she plays guitar, the second she spends at the piano.
Ian is thrilled with the sound of her band, insisting that it doesn’t sound at all like a trio. “There’s a real line of demarcation between older songs like a slowed-down version of early Police records with some jazz and a little bit of Jaco thrown in.”
