American singer-songwriter Janis Ian was BOTD in 1951. Born Janis Fink in Farmingdale, New Jersey, she was a musical prodigy, playing multiple instruments by her teens and studying at LaGuardia High School in New York City. Inspired by singers Joan Baez, Odetta and Billie Holiday, she recorded her first single Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking), a ballad about a forbidden interracial relationship, at 14. Radio stations were reluctant to play the song due to its controversial lyricsl, until Ian performed it on a 1967 Leonard Bernstein TV special. It became a national hit, launching her to celebrity, and she left school to embark on a national tour. Initially seen as the female successor to Bob Dylan, her subsequent three albums failed to chart, though her song Jesse became a hit for Roberta Flack in 1973. She had a major comeback with her 1975 album Between the Lines, featuring the hit single At Seventeen, winning her a Grammy Award for best pop vocal performance. She declined in popularity during the 1980s, relocating to Nashville and writing songs for Bette Midler and John Mellencamp. In 1993, she released her “coming out” album Breaking Silence and publicly disclosed her lesbianism. Her songs have been covered by Baez, Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield, Cher, Nina Simone and Celine Dion. Heavily involved in civil rights causes, she has been an outspoken critic of the music industry, frequently locking horns with the Recording Industry Association of America. In recent years, she developed a second career as a science fiction writer. Ian was briefly married to Portuguese filmmaker Tino Sargo, divorcing in 1983 due to his physical and emotional abuse. She is married to her long-term partner Patricia Snyder, with whom she raised Snyder’s daughter. Her autobiography, Society’s Child, was published in 2008.