Columbia 33394
Producer: Brooks Arthur
Track listing: When the Party’s Over / At Seventeen / From Me to You / Bright Lights and Promises / In the Winter / Water Colors / Between the Lines / The Come On / Light a Light / Tea & Sympathy / Lover’s Lullaby
September 20, 1975
1 week
Success came early for Janis Ian. At the age of 14, she wrote and recorded “Society’s Child (Baby, I’ve Been Thinking),” a controversial tale of an interracial romance that was too hot for 22 record companies. Eventually, Verve Folkways Records signed Ian and released the track, but radio wouldn’t touch it. However, the song caught the ear of Leonard Bernstein, who invited Ian to appear on the CBS television special The Pop Arts. Following the TV exposure, radio stations finally began playing the song. More controversy ensued as the single climbed to number 14 in July 1967, while Ian’s self-titled debut album reached number 29.
Another album, For All the Seasons of the Mind, followed in 1968, but it failed to repeat Ian’s early success. Growing tired of the sexism she was encountering in the music business, Ian announced her retirement in 1968. Three years later, however, she returned, signing to Capitol Records, which released an album to disappointing sales.
The Ian-penned ballad “Jesse” became a top 30 hit for Roberta Flack in October 1973, but Ian’s debut album for Columbia Records, Stars, which featured her own version of the song, stalled at number 83 in 1974. Then came Between the Lines.
“Nobody thought I would do anything again,” Ian says. “A lot of people were surprised.” Ian herself didn’t have time to be surprised by her second career success. “I was on the road for seven months, I would write for two months, then I would go into the studio and record for three months,” she says.
The album was produced by Brooks Arthur who mixed “Society’s Child.” Ian says that the sessions, held at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, New York, went so well that she “kept pushing to do six more tracks for the next album, but I couldn’t find anyone to agree with me.”
Before Between the Lines became a hit, Ian struggled playing the club circuit and living on whatever money she made at gigs. While recording the album, a struggling artist by the name of Bruce Springsteen was laying down “Born to Run” at the same studio. “We hung out at the diner together,” Ian recalls. “We were both starving.”
The song that helped propel Between the Lines to the top of the album chart was “At Seventeen,” a confessional ballad about teenage isolation and insecurity, which climbed to number three. “I realized it was a hit when it was sold out all the time,” she says. “And when I performed the song, people started clapping after the first few bars. I never thought it would endure the way it has. It is an amazing thing to tap into something that universal.”
Between the Lines garnered five Grammy nominations, which at the time was the most ever a female artist had received in one year. Ian won for best female pop vocal performance, while the album was honored as the best-engineered non-classical recording.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of September 20, 1975
1. Between the Lines, Janis Ian
2. The Heat Is On, The Isley Brothers
3. Honey, Ohio Players
4. Red Octopus, Jefferson Starship
5. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Elton John