Why is an iconic 1960-70s Grammy-winning singer donating her archives to Berea?

This isn’t quite the holiday season Janis Ian had mapped out.

The two-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter was planning on wrapping up the final North American dates of her final concert tour in support of her final studio album (“The Light at the End of the Line,” which is up for another Grammy in February).

So, yes, a sense of career completion was already at hand. But Ian wasn’t shutting the door entirely.

As she assembled a massive donation of her personal archives, one already landing in increments at its perhaps unexpected home of Berea College, Ian was hoping to still participate in the occasional concert and recording session with friends.

Instead, a non-COVID virus contracted earlier this year permanently damaged her vocal cords, bringing her performance work to an abrupt and immovable halt.

So, as she sifts through a lifetime of accumulated materials encompassing everything from gold record albums to tax returns, the singer who gained fame for a 1965 single chronicling an interracial relationship (“Society’s Child”), a bluntly vulnerable 1975 portrait of adolescent social standing (“At Seventeen”) and was one of two musical guest on SNL’s first episode on Oct. 11, 1975, is looking at a performance career, despite a length of 58 years, cut short.

“It’s weird,” Ian admitted. “It’s really weird. If you think it’s weird for you to write about, try it from my viewpoint.

“It’s a huge adjustment in part because of the way it happened. It just didn’t happen the way it was supposed to. I was going to tour till early December and then go to Scandinavia and the UK and Spain and Israel and all these places. Then on May 31, I was going to have a series of concerts at Dublin’s National Theatre. We were going to shoot it for a documentary. That would have been a different kind of finalization because it would have let me continue to sing on my friends’ records or go out and do a couple of shows here and there.

“It never occurred to me that I would have to stop performing period or, if I was going to perform, it would be as a guitarist or a pianist. I’m still in shock over that.”

Donation of archives outlines Janis Ian’s life

Still, with life on the road concluded, a trip of a different order to Kentucky is at hand. Ian’s mammoth donation of archives is underway.

This won’t be a mere academics only-collection. Ian wanted materials outlining her entire life – from her youth as a grandchild of immigrants to years as an activist in gay rights, women’s rights and civil rights to, yes, a musical career that placed her in front of an audience when she five years old – be open to everyone. Academicians. Students. Anybody.

“In my experience, I find it quite rare that we have a stakeholder like Janis Ian who is really invested in making her knowledge, her whole experience, accessible to the public,” said Peter Morphew, Project Archivist at Berea College “She is really excited about making things accessible. That is really rare to find in an artist. It certainly is a joy to be able to work with someone who is so invested in making things open.”

“Janis’ life story is fascinating as is the documentation of that story - not just of her music, but of her life with all of its difficulties, with all of its rejections, all of the oppositions she has faced,” added Tim Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives at Berea. “She wants to be totally transparent with the details of her life and business career. That’s great for us because there are so many lessons students can learn, whether it’s in arts management or in the creation of music or simply in overcoming life’s challenges and deciding you are going to persist, you are going to continue with what you feel called to do in life.”

The life to be chronicled in Ian’s archives covers papers her grandparents used to immigrate to America around 1916. Of course, it also extends deep into a musical career not just with recordings but through contracts that cover song publishing, touring and recording.

“I did a commencement speech at Warren Wilson (College) a few years ago, and said, ‘I am the American Dream. I’m the reason immigrants come to America.’ As a second generation American, I had the chance to do something I love, make a good living at it and help the world. But I’m also why my grandparents came here because they were Jews in Russia. They couldn’t get the kind of education that was offered to non-Jews, so they would never be anything but Jews in Russia. My grandparents believed in education. The house was always full of books. For someone at Berea who may not have had that kind of upbringing, it’s a new world. It’s like being a second or first generation immigrant in a lot of ways.”

Why did Janis Ian donate her personal archives to Berea College?

So why Berea? Of all the educational institutions in the country, how did Ian come to pick a liberal arts college in Central Kentucky?

Berea, as it turns out, was already on her radar. Through work with the Pearl Foundation, a charitable organization she co-founded with then-partner, now-wife Patricia Snyder, Ian has helped fund numerous college scholarships. That included an endowment to Berea.

But factoring also into the decision was the college’s willingness to construct an archival project that would be as comprehensive as possible.

“More than anything, I felt if the archives went to Berea, they would be properly… I think the word I’m looking for is ‘cherished.’ We talked to a lot of different entities. One was a very large entity that made us a nice financial offer, but said, ‘We’re not really interested in the women’s movement or the gay rights movement. We’re just interested in civil rights.’ In other words, they were only interested in songwriting. I kept thinking, ‘There’s got to be a place that is interested in all of it and sees the value in all of it and will also agree to let the public look at all of it.’ I didn’t want something that only academicians could look at. So I met with Lyle (Roelofs), the current president at Berea, and his wife. It seemed like without us even really talking about ‘Are you interested in this?’ it would be a good fit. To be in the same league as bell hooks and Jean Ritchie at a school with Berea’s history was wonderful.”

How to view Janis Ian’s archives at Berea

The assembly of Ian’s archive is an undertaking Binkley described as “daunting.” It isn’t scheduled for formal public viewing until next fall. Even then, additions and updates to the archives will keep it a work in progress, one bolstered by Ian’s input and donations, for several years.

“Archives usually deal with people after they are gone,” he said. “So to have a living donor to help us understand and interpret what we have in front of us, is an incredible opportunity.”

For Ian, the archives represent music made and a life lived. While the music component is essentially complete, her life still has a few as-yet unwritten chapters to go.

“I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do or if I’m going to do anything. I’m trying not to pressure myself. I’m also trying not to get so heavily invested in my archives that I’m more interested in what I was than what I am.”