Autobiography
Chapter 1: Early Life
I was born at the end of World War II in Greenville, South Carolina where my father, Earnest Schier, was stationed with the Air Force. I was a love child, lucky to be born. My father’s training blew out the hearing in his right ear. He was assigned to a desk job. His crew went to Europe and were all killed. He married gentle Marjorie, a Minnesotan who was a copy girl on The Washington Post where he was a drama critic. Journalism was my heritage, printer’s ink in my veins. We moved from DC and Maryland homes to Levittown, PA when my father moved to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. My mom became a feature writer on the local paper and milk-and-cookies mother to four children plus numerous foster babies. We always lived where we could walk to school, suburban children in a pack. As the oldest child, I went to the theater with my father often. We always had seats on the aisle and rushed out at curtain so he could write his review. He never talked about the show so his thoughts went right into writing. I wandered the silent newsroom while he worked, loving the sense of purpose in the metal desks, clattering teletype machines and fascinating morgue, all redolent of smoke and sweat. Set my path for me.
Chapter 2: Out Into the World
I went to Penn State where I majored in boys and was booted out after two years. My parents got me a job as proofreader on the local paper, where I worked in a hot-type composing room. Well read enough to be a good spotter, I honed those skills and followed my latest amour to New York City. I got a job as proofreader on Woman’s Day magazine. The receptionist was Barbara Keith who had dropped out of Vassar to be a folk singer. We recognized each other as compatriots by our long hair, miniskirts, photos of Bob Dylan on our cubicle walls and Iris Murdoch books on our desks. We quit on the same day in cosmic coincidence. She got a job in a band and I was hired to write the Scenes column in The Village Voice. Publisher Howard Smith was a man about town who couldn’t write. So I shaped his stories into pithy paragraphs. It was life-changing. Barbara brought her new band-mate, John Hall, to my Lower East Side apartment, introducing him as “the best guitarist I’ve ever seen.” John came courting with his guitar and some snacks. He sang to me, favorites like “Walk Away Renee,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Little Wing.” We became close friends then fell in love. It immersed me in a world of upcoming musicians who complained about the rock critics on the Voice. So I asked Howard if I could write music reviews. I became a critic and got a byline in the Riffs column. I didn’t want to like Janis Joplin because I thought there wasn’t room at the top for more bands with “chick singers.” But I fell in love the first time I heard her sing, in a club on West 8th St. that later became Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland. I dreamed about her after that until the day I met her. When she released her first solo record, the critics excoriated her for leaving Big Brother, being on a star trip. I wrote a rave review, calling her my generation’s Judy Garland, Edith Piaf. She reached out to me and we became friends. She would climb the three flights to our apartment and hang out. She was always looking for new songs. John played some of his but she didn’t connect with his 18-year-old boy lyrics. One day at the door leaving, she said, “Why don’t you two write me a song?” I was surprised. “You’re a woman, you’re a writer. Write me a song!” We did, in the spring of 1970, in a rented house in Mill Valley, California where John was making a solo record. “Half Moon” was my first song. Janis was rehearsing the Full Tilt Boogie Band in her large Larkspur home. John taught them the song and they all loved it. The musicians for the great guitar riff and cool chords. Janis for the lyric crafted to her life and the danceability of the music. She recorded it right before she died in October. It was the B-side of “Me and Bobby McGee,” in a time when both sides of a single made the same money.
Chapter 3: Building a Band
We moved up to the country, bought a house and painted our mailbox purple. In the whispering pines of Saugerties NY, we learned to write songs. Sitting at a round table, John with a guitar, me with a notepad, we’d jam. And then we needed a band to play our songs. Orleans was founded at that round table and in our basement in January of 1972. The ‘70s were spent on the road. Building a band, writing a catalog of songs, making records and friends. Starting in bars and nightclubs, then theaters, we toured with Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne and Little Feat. An inspiring era to be making music. We wrote “Dance With Me” and “Still the One” and marveled at the magic of hearing them on the radio. Stunning success that came from hard work, focus and deep love of music. John’s activism brought us into the No Nukes movement, writing the anthems of “Power” and “Plutonium Is Forever.” This led to the Muse Foundation and No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden in September of 1979, organized by John, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, and Jackson Browne. Our daughter Lillian Sofi was born in August of 1979. My focus shifted to the unmatched joy of motherhood.
Chapter 4: She’s the One
At the new millennium, I discovered that I wanted to be alone. I still loved John and we have remained close friends to this day. Honoring and continuing our songwriting, parenting and grand-parenting. But I became a single woman in 2000. My musical career continued, singing alto with Ars Choralis and helming the organization as president. We made records and toured in Europe. Barbara and I wrote an opera over 20 years and three iterations. It began as a commission from Saint Gregory’s Church in Woodstock in 2000 and the final version was recorded in 2023. I resumed journalism, writing for The Woodstock Times. Some of that is here, along with my Village Voice reviews. I was an Artist-in-Residence at SUNY Ulster in 2001, teaching a college class in lyric writing and producing songwriter-in-the round nights and a concert featuring my friends, Robbie Dupree, Jonell Mosser, John Hall, and Eric Parker. The most important new development in my life was yoga. I took a class with Sarah Nelson in Bearsville, NY in 2000 and was instantly hooked. Today I have a daily yoga practice and continue my studies. Throughout my life, I’ve been a perpetual student. I credit yoga for my mental and physical health. It has changed my life. Now I am venturing into a daunting unknown, writing books. In the works, a memoir, a mystery novel and an exploration of living single. Blessed to have this time, unafraid of failure. I know that it’s the effort, not the fruit. The singer, not the song.