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Also in the last few weeks of 2022, David Grohl’s 16-year-old daughter Violet, with acoustic guitar in tow, performed Ian’s iconic hit “At Seventeen” at a secret show at Largo in Los Angeles. Ian, who recently announced her retirement from performing due to vocal cord scarring, said “this morning I woke up and thought ‘How strange. I'll never be able to sing “At Seventeen” again.’ And I don't mind admitting that it was really depressing. But what better antidote could there be than to hear my work, 47 years after I wrote it, beautifully and sincerely sung by Violet Grohl? What a perfectly happy day this turned out to be. Thank you, Violet. Thank you, Dave. Thank you.”
The performance was recorded as the third annual installment of Grohl’s (Foo Fighters, Nirvana) and GRAMMY-winning producer Greg Kurstin’s (Foo Fighters, Adele) beloved Hanukkah Sessions in which they perform songs by Jewish artists, writers, and/or producers to combat the rise of antisemitism. Both Ian and her “At Seventeen” producer, the recently passed Brooks Arthur, are both Jewish.
The event, which was the first-ever live edition of their Hanukkah Sessions project, raised money for the Anti-Defamation League and also featured P!nk, Beck, Jack Black, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O. The Hanukkah Sessions were first released as a video series on YouTube in 2020 and 2021. For this fourth night of Hannukah, the video for “At Seventeen” was posted with a caption that stated, “one of the all-time classic coming-of-age anthems.” Watch the performance here youtu.be/QrVL3g4iS1c
“At Seventeen” is one of Ian’s biggest hits. The song earned the Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female GRAMMY Award in 1975 and hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and No. 3 on the Hot 100. It is from her seventh studio album Between the Lines, a five-time GRAMMY nominee, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart.
The song was in The Simpsons and covered by a variety of artists including Celine Dion and Jann Arden; and a Hong Kong pop group even named themselves after it, as at17, in 2022. In mid-December, Vernon Reid of Living Colour tweeted: “Sad Songs BONUS TRACK. At Seventeen - written & sung by Janis Ian. This broken-hearted Bossa Nova, with its fabulously sophisticated jazz arrangement, scores a landscape of such desperate emotional devastation - is ruthless in its excoriation of the traumatic hierarchies of youth.”
Just released is an album of Ian’s songs, including versions of “Love Will Never Say Goodbye,” “Under a Different Sun,” “Gloss,” and from The Light at the End of the Line “Better Times Will Come,” covered by young Japanese singer, Kaya Saito who rose to the #1 spot in a 2019 television program “Music Champ” in Japan. For Kaya Sings Janis, now available here www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/TEJI-55068, Ian worked diligently with Saito, producer Igarashi-san, and lyricist Takahiro Maeda to create Japanese translations that held the same intention as her original lyrics to go with the melodies of the songs.
Here is what the media has to say about Janis Ian’s influence and legacy…
Jim Farber for the New York Times: "There's no denying that Janis Ian has often served as a cultural clairvoyant.”
WNYC’s All of It with Alison Stewart: “Each generation has that artist who writes a song that when people hear it, they feel that the songwriter has looked into their soul and expressed their most intimate and vulnerable feelings. The person who was the first, the original, who touched listeners' hearts and heads was Janis Ian with this song in 1975 from her #1 album, Between the Line (play ‘At Seventeen’). More than 50 years later, Janis Ian has a new album…and it seems full of songs that both young feminists will be excited to discover and those who found her to pivotal in their youth will feel seen again (play ‘I’m Still Standing’).”
Cleveland Plain Dealer: “After more than 50 years, singer-songwriter Janis Ian is still making waves.”
The San Diego Union-Tribune: “Ian proved at that young age that she wasn’t afraid of taking risks in her career.”
NPR’s World Cafe: “Janis Ian is a one-of-a-kind songwriter. Just like her music, she's honest, incisive, and fearless. She's also very funny and exudes the sort of confidence that comes from a lifetime of breaking down barriers and speaking her mind – even when the powers that be tried to keep her quiet.”
PopMatters: “The best Janis Ian albums are among the finest in the singer-songwriter sphere. Her touching, emotionally revealing lyrics burst with memorable turns of phrase.”
Albuquerque Journal: “Through her decades-long career, Ian has been a trailblazer when it comes to honesty.”
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