Music

Janis Ian:The Essential Janis Ian

JanisIanJanis Ian became a songwriter at the age of 12, and that first song, “Hair of Spun Gold,” starts off this exciting two-CD collection with a haunting childlike audacity. The sequencing of the Essential survey of 31 Ian songs is not chronological—rather she time-bops around from 1966 to 2008—and we get a picture of a life lived out loud (she came out in 1993 with her album Breaking Silence), sometimes lyric, sometimes intense, whether confronting the hypocrisy of ’60s society or singing the wrenching “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” in 2005 for a music collection by former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno. Sept. 8. Columbia/Legacy (legacyrecordings.com, janisian.com). —Review: Ann Walton Sieber
Editor’s note: Ian performs at the Dosey Doe in the Woodlands on October 23. Tickets are $64, $72 with dinner. More info: 281/367-3774.

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