Berea concert, exhibit celebrates life, career of singer/songwriter Janis Ian

What greets you upon entering the lobby of Berea College’s Hutchins Library is something of a living scrapbook. To your left: album covers tracing roughly five decades of music summoned by Janis Ian. To the right, anassemblage of artifacts ranging from majestic (a notification of a Grammy Award nomination) to the unexpected (an honest-to-gosh action figure of the artist.)

Ian is eager to explain the latter.

“I would always say at my concerts, ‘You know, we have merchandise outside. We’re selling this, this and this. But I’m really sorry, we’re all out of action figures.’ And it always got a big laugh. It was just a joke. Then, the next thing I knew, people were sending me action figures. And so we put them up. They would say, ‘All figures true to size,’ because I’m so short. And people would offer me a $1,000 donation for an action figure.”

Though the lobby exhibit was still being assembled upon a visit to the college last week, the grander project it is previewing has been in the accumulation and organization stages for roughly three years.

That undertaking is The Janis Ian Archives, a massive donation by the folk-reared artist that covers a music career than opened eyes and ears as far back as 1966 with Ian’s song of an interracial romance, “Society’s Child” (written when Ian was 14,) A vividly vulnerable confession of adolescent social standing, “At Seventeen,” perhaps the artist’s best-known composition, followed in 1974 and won her a Grammy.

But the archive excavates far more than simple memorabilia. It boasts books, letters, music contracts, press articles and any number of artifacts that encompass a career also rooted in activism within the civil rights, women’s rights and LGBTQ movements.

The project reaches fruition — though, definitely not completion — with a weekend-long celebration titled “Breaking Silence” at Berea College that culminates with an all-star tribute concert on Oct. 19.

“This is like when you finish an album, or any big moment,” Ian said. “You’re so involved in the making and the doing that you really don’t get the time to enjoy it. That’s what this is like and it will continue to be like for a while. I think the next time I come, whenever that is, I will get to relax and enjoy everything. This time is all about, ‘Do you remember this? Do remember this? Where is this? Why isn’t this there?’ It’s all of that.

“Also, in terms of fruition, the real goal of the archives, for me, is to get everything digitized and up on line so that people can read a contract from 1966 and compare it to a record contract from 1995. And that’s going to take an infusion of money we don’t have right now. But if anybody with millions to spend is reading this, by all means ... So, it’s going to be an ongoing process, I have a feeling, until I die.

“It’s just weird. Parts of it are really wonderful, because there are books here I’d forgotten about. I was just looking at an Anne McCaffrey privately printed edition. I had number five. And Anne wrote lovely words to me that I had totally forgotten. There are things like the Gibson Les Paul that a couple of people won at auction, the money of which went to Berea. And there are things I had forgotten, like the process of writing certain songs. But in general, it’s just odd. It’s odd to see your life on display.”

Why Janis Ian picked Berea in Kentucky

Perhaps the obvious question to ask as this point is ‘Why Berea?’ How does a storied, Grammy-winning songwriter with a longstanding international fanbase — or, as she also references herself, “a gay, Northern, Jewish person” choose a small liberal arts college in Central Kentucky as the repository of her personal archives?

Turns out Ian already knew about Berea through work with the Pearl Foundation, a charitable organization she co-founded with wife Patricia Snyder that has helped fund numerous scholarships. Its contributions included an endowment to Berea. That, in turn, brought Ian and Snyder into the orbit of Central Kentucky artists and Berea College graduates Bonnie Campbell (who Snyder had taught at Nashville’s Center for Human Development) and Billy Edd Wheeler (a longtime songwriting friend of Ian.)

“Billy Edd heard that we had this foundation,” Ian said. “We were good friends, so he called me up and said, ‘Hey, you’re giving away money. Why don’t you give some to Berea? What’s wrong with you?’ And so we contacted Berea, came up for the weekend and looked at the stats. I think in the end, we endowed $625,000.”

Wheeler died on Sept. 16 at the age of 91.

Among the more curious items in the Ian Archives, one that now sits in the Hutchins Library lobby possesses an unexpected link to one of the more intriguing chapters of the artist’s career. It’s a notification letter for a Grammy nomination (one of the 10 Ian received) for a non-music related work — specifically, a reading of Isabel Miller’s historical novel “Patience & Sarah” with Emmy/Golden Globe winning actress Jean Smart.

Her connection to Saturday Night Live

Okay, let’s follow the trail. Last month, Smart — currently starring in the HBO Max series “Hacks” — recently hosted the debut episode in the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live.” Ian, however, was of two musical guests on the very first broadcast of “SNL” in October 1975. Pop/R&B keyboardist/singer Billy Preston was the other guest. Comedian George Carlin served as host.

“To be honest, I don’t remember much of it,” Ian said. “I had strep throat and a fever of 104, so I remember bits and pieces. I remember everybody was freaked out that it was live except for me, Billy and George Carlin, because all three of us had performed live all our lives. They had the old Ed Sullivan crew there, because they’d done live, but everybody else was freaking out. People kept saying, ‘You know what the red light means, right? You what the red light means?’

“In fact, I had a great compliment the other day from Paul Shaffer (long time bandleader and stage foil for David Letterman who was part of the first SNL house band.) Somebody was interviewing people about ‘SNL.’ He said one of the things he had learned from that first episode was watching me and the way I behaved for my soundcheck. It made him understand how a professional behaved. He said, ‘She got there, was prepared, was polite to everyone, she knew the business, did her job and then she got out of everyone’s way.

“People like us grew up in an era where you get there, you’re polite and you do your job. If anyone screws with you, you get in their face, but if they let you do your job, you do it and you get out. It’s like what Stella Adler (the actress/educator Ian studied with during the 1980s) used to say, ‘There is no such thing as a walk through. You’re on your game all the time.’”

The Saturday tribute concert winding up the “Breaking Silence” celebration will see an entire new generation of artists interpreting Ian’s songs. Performers include Kentucky natives S.G. Goodman and Senora May (the latter a Berea graduate), Tennessee singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah, Irish songstress Aoife Scott and Nebraska singer/bassist/song stylist Melissa Carper. Author and Kentucky Poet Laureate Silas House will emcee.

Though flattered and excited at the prospect of hearing younger artists perform her work, Ian admits there will be a “happy/sad” element to the event. Ian will be in attendance, but won’t be singing. A virus damaged her vocal cords in 2022, robbing her of the ability to sing. That brought a career Ian had already planned to retire from to a halt that was “grinding and miserable.”

“The plan had been that I was going to tour for two more years. I was going to get to see all of my friends overseas, go to Japan, Australia and all of these places that I hadn’t been to for years. I got the diagnosis on a Friday and I was planning on leaving the following Wednesday, so it was brutal. I don’t mind telling you, it was brutal.

“Today, I think I’ve come to terms with it, if you ever come to terms with something like that. I’ve been singing since I can remember sitting on my dad’s lap at Workmen’s Circle meetings when I was two, so I’ve always sung. Now I’m at the point where I can stand singing in the shower, but not for a long time. And it’s hard.

“On the other hand, I’ve always said everyone should sing, whether you sound good or not. My dad said, ‘You sing because it makes your heart feel good, not because you sound good.’ That’s a lesson that I’m learning.”

Janis Ian – “Breaking Silence”

When: Oct. 17-20

Where: Berea College, 101 Chestnut St. in Berea

Schedule and info: berea.edu/janisian

If you go: Janis Ian “Breaking Silence” Celebration Tribute Concert

Performers: Amythyst Kiah, Aoife Scott, S.G. Goodman, Melissa Carper, Senora May and emcee Silas House

Where: Phelps Stokes at Berea College, 161 Chestnut St. in Berea

Tickets: $27.50-$250 at berea.edu/janisian