In “blast from the past news,” veteran singer-songwriter Janis Ian has penned one of the more remarkable autobiographies of recent years. Titled Society’s Child, after the controversial song that kickstarted her career in the mid ’60s, the book chronicles an extraordinary life ready-made for a Hollywood film treatment. Ian’s richly rendered portraits of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin―both of whom she befriended as they were at the cusp of fame―are especially revealing, as is her front-row seat in the entire ’60s music phenomenon.
“People always ask what I remember most about that,” she said, in a recent interview. “What I remember most is how colorful it was. The British Invasion brought all that Renaissance-style clothing―the types of clothes Brian Jones and the Stones were wearing. There was also an incredibly heady atmosphere of cross-fertilization between all the different genres. A bill at the Fillmore East might include the Doors, B.B. King, Taj Mahal, and me. You could see all different types of music and all different types of writers and performers interacting. It made for an incredible bloom of astonishing music." — Russell Hall