Award-Winning Blues Singer
Like the repeating refrain of a hit song, the stunning life story of Janiva Magness will stay with you for a long time. This talented artist has been singing the blues for more than 30 years. Her simmering, powerful vocals, gritty live performances, and seven soulful albums have made her a favorite of fans and critics alike.
Winner of the 2006 and 2007 Blues Music Awards for Best Contemporary Artist Female Artist, Janiva is nominated for the coveted BB King Entertainer of the Year Award in 2008. Last summer, she signed with the country's premier blues label, Alligator Records, and is releasing her eighth CD "What Love Will Do" on June 10, 2008. She is dedicating the new album to children at risk.
Behind the raw, emotional authenticity that Janiva's fans adore, is an inspirational tale of redemption. She was born into a working-class family just outside of Detroit. It was a tough childhood as both parents battled alcoholism, her mother was depressive and Janiva suffered molestation by age six. Shortly after her thirteenth birthday, she lost her mother to suicide. Within a year of that tragedy, she ran away from home to Berkeley, CA where she endured homelessness, substance abuse and isolation.
After what she calls a "moment of clarity," Janiva escaped life on the streets and headed to Minneapolis to stay with a family friend. By the age of 14, she had attempted suicide multiple times. Over the next two years, she would experience three psychiatric hospitalizations and would live in 12 different foster homes, including a group home for girls with mental retardation.
She began hanging around local blues clubs where she discovered the distinctive sounds of legendary blues guitarist Otis Rush. She says the music made her want to "hang on to life." Although this musical awakening would become an essential part of her future success, the trials of her young life would continue. When Janiva was 16, her father committed suicide and she became pregnant with a daughter she would later give up for adoption.
With all doors closing around her, Janiva went to a local youth center where they connected her to Carrie, a divorced mother of five children who often provided temporary shelter to runaways. Moved by her plight, Carrie decided to become a certified foster parent because she couldn't bear to abandon this young girl. Janiva recalls:
"Carrie showed me kindness and compassion. She had the capacity to say 'no' when I needed it most. Music inspired me to go on, but Carrie set boundaries that truly saved my life."
Bolstered by the guidance and support of a caring adult, Janiva began the long journey of healing that she continues to this day. Along the way, she discovered her own musical gifts while working as an intern at a recording studio. Today, she and her band travel the world touring more than 200 days a year. When's she's not on the road, she resides in LA with and her husband Jeff. And, after 16 years apart, Janiva reconnected with the child she gave up for adoption. She enjoys a close relationship with her daughter, an accomplished musician, and is a proud grandmother to six-year-old Henry.
Even as her star is rising, Janiva's desire to give back grows as well. This April, she will perform for the troops in Iraq as part of a Bluezapalooza tour. In addition to her work on behalf of foster care, she is active in the Blues in Schools program. On May 31, she returns to Phoenix, where she once lived and formed her first band in the early '80s, to perform the National Anthem before the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game accompanied by a choir of youth in foster care from the Florence Crittenton group home.
"I have a life today I could never have imagined. You know, your fate does not have to be your destiny. Fate is what you are handed. Destiny is about what you could be. I'm living proof. The tragedies of my life no longer define me."