Milling About with Janis Ian

Folk pop legend Janis Ian joins host Robin Milling to talk about her autobiography Society's Child My Autobiography. Spoken by Ian herself, it has garnered her a Spoken Word Grammy nomination. While listening you are taken through her lifetime, through her childhood growing up on a chicken farm and then in East Orange, New Jersey; a predominantly black neighborhood where witnessing interracial relationships inspired her to write Society's Child when she was only 13. Making her the youngest recording artist of her time at 15, it should have been a happy time but the firestorm of death threats she received caused her to live in a state of constant fear.

Wide-eyed you can't stop listening to all 12 hours and 13 minutes of 20 chapters. Some begin with Ian singing, then narrating her uncensored stories of late night jam sessions with Jimi Hendrix, her friendship with Janis Joplin who called her 'the other Janis,' and her surprise LSD trip. Ian doesn't shy away from the unfathomable such as her dentist molesting her and her abusive marriage. She unabashedly recounts her sexual escapades; coming out and going back into the closet, and ultimately marrying the woman in her life. Never afraid to sing about the ugly things, the underdog and the disenfranchised; there was always music, which Ian says saved her.

For more information visit www.janisian.com

Photos by Peter Cunningham