For your GRAMMY© consideration
Janiva Magness
Best Contemporary Blues Album
“Hard to Kill”
“Magness lives in the same rarefied vocal realm as Irma Thomas and Etta James…
With raw energy and defiant vocals, the singer proclaims her resilience and testifies her hard-as-steel personality that’s been burnished in the fires of her life.”
HARD TO KILL debuts #6 on the Billboard Blues Album Charts
“That no rules attitude is all over HARD TO KILL, both lyrically and musically. Magness is undisputedly rooted in the blues…”
“Magness is clearly deep in her own zone throughout HARD TO KILL and delivers performances that are bold and brutally honest.”
For your GRAMMY© consideration
“Fireman”
Best Americana Roots Song
For your GRAMMY© consideration
Best Americana Roots Performance
“Right Here”
For your GRAMMY© consideration
Best Audio Book, Narration and Storytelling Recording
“Weeds Like Us”
Janiva Magness reads the introduction of her memoirs, “Weeds Like Us”.
Weeds Like Us is the stunning memoir from Janiva Magness, six years in the writing and a lifetime in the making. This Grammy-nominated artist possesses an earthy, raw honesty, and beauty born from her life experience. She has been awarded the blues' highest honors. Now comes her miraculous and deeply moving story about a life worth living, in audio, in her own voice.
“She is, after all, a badass on stage. A strong woman with a beaming smile, charisma for days and a voice that soars. She can hold a huge crowd in the palm of hand and gleefully toy with it. As is the case with all of us, there’s far more to her than the surface reveals..It’s a ride that is both thrilling and heart-breaking. But the spoiler is, we know-how it ends because we know that Magness is still producing incredible music. And she’s still a badass.”
“With the same energy and depth she brings to her songs, Magness tells the stories of her life in her deeply moving new memoir, Weeds Like Us. She plumbs her own emotional depths, carrying us with her through her own hells and back to the other side. Ultimately, Magness’ memoir is a story of hope and the refusal to let the worst experiences of life kill you.”
“Some lives are destined to be wild. Maybe it’s the stars, maybe it’s the family, or maybe it’s just sheer destiny. But singer Janiva Magness got handed a juiced-up life from the very start. In a rushing miracle of memories, this memoir of a life well-lived reads like fiction, but be assured every simmering detail is true down to the core. There is violence, bullying, incest, addiction, alcoholism, rape, clinical depression, parental suicide and that’s just for starters. She took off on her own at 14 years old, figuring anything was better than where she was. When she found the life-saving fate of making music, it looked to her like she had half-a-chance to survive. Survive Janiva Magness did, from winning a shelf-full of music awards, recording albums that will live forever and building a life outside the darkness that threatened to take her all the way down for so many years. Her book is a life-affirming look at the hell she went through, as well as the miraculous change that perseverance and passion allowed her to find. Against nearly all odds, Janiva Magness beat the terminal curse of loneliness to find her way to the other shore. Shine a light.”