Janis Ian

Who are the great songwriters in America today? Not the most popular. Not the richest. Simply the greats. Ask any student of the form, and Janis Ian will be counted among them. The writer of "Jesse," a song recorded by so many others that few remember Ian wrote it; "Stars," possibly the best song ever written about the life of a performer, recorded by artists as diverse as Mel Torme and Cher; and the seminal "At Seventeen", a song that brought her five Grammy nominations (the most any solo female artist had ever garnered) in 1975, and which is now reaching its third generation of listeners. Ian is a formidable talent, a force of nature. Ella Fitzgerald once called her "The best young singer in America."