Simon Renshaw Presents: Janis Ian Shares Your Pain
- MP3 Digital Download (1995)
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Tracks
- Take No Kissingers
- Genderless
- No One Else Likes You
- Lazy
- When Simon Calls
- Take Me Walking In Bahrain
- Berlitz
- Stolen Tires
The basics: Produced by John Jennings & Janis Ian; recorded 1994 at Sound Emporium, Nashville.
Personnel: Musicians: Cyro Baptista, Jim Brock, Steve Gadd, Jim Hoke, Janis Ian, John Jennings, Carl Marsh, Simon Renshaw, Matt Rollings, Willie Weeks.
The Inside Scoop: Janis' manager at the time, Simon Renshaw (who now manages The Dixie Chicks among others, and has become a self-described mogul), is "like the kid brother you can't stand being around, but adore all the same. Big voice, big presence, very noisy ego!" Janis decided to make him crazy, so she spent three months having all her friends tell him she was working on a secret jazz project she was convinced would be "the next big thing". This was guaranteed to drive him nuts, since he firmly believes jazz is dead. She wrote parodies of a bunch of the Revenge songs (with the help of John Jennings and Dave Sinko), then recorded new vocals onto the stereo tracks. She then called all Simon's friends and invited them to a playback party. We created a fake album cover where every credit was Simon's (words & music by Simon Renshaw, produced by Simon Renshaw), with the title SIMON RENSHAW PRESENTS in huge letters, then my name in tiny script. We had a merchandise table with T shirts, cassettes, and "signed autographed pictures" of Simon for sale. We brought him into the studio blind-folded, sat him down in the producer's seat, then hit PLAYBACK... and a very good time was had by all!
This album achieved near-legendary status with Janis fans; it was rumoured to exist but was completely unavailable. Only two copies of the actual CD were ever created...One belongs to Simon, the other to Pat. Pat graciously allowed Janis to use her copy to make the album available in the iTunes store, which is the only other place you will be able to get a copy.
