Janet Bates

Janet Bates
Songwriter, Singer, Social Activist

Passionate, politically astute singer-songwriter Janet Bates uses her golden gift to help make a difference in the world.  With her evocative three-octave contralto vocals she writes songs that seek to make the world a better place.  Janet builds upon what musicians before her have done in previous decades: making the world sit up and pay attention.

In the spirit of Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger, and recalling the lilting voice of Joan Baez, Canadian Janet Bates brings her talented songwriting and simply lovely vocals to the task of conveying to the forefront of public awareness, the issues of environmental degradation, the politics of war, and social justice for people around the world as well as in her adopted home, the U.S.A.

Says Janet, in her moving environmental song “For Whom:”
“The sun, and the wind and the stars and the rains,
We have only borrowed to use for a while.
When we are done, we will have to give them back.
Let’s give them back the way they came.”

Janet is unabashedly an activist of the tallest order. With her fifth CD now in production, she has, in the five years since she took up her pen, taken on the war in Iraq, the policies of the U.S. government, social justice, corruption, greed, environmental degradation, and now, global warming.

“When you glance at your reflection, is it standing straight and tall?” she says, in her song “The Destination.” She exhorts us all to stand up for what is right, stand up and be counted. Like Gandhi, she believes that we each must “be the change you want to see in the world.”

Janet Bates was first inspired to become an activist by reading the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam” delivered at Riverside Church in New York City a few months before the invasion of Iraq.  "There comes a time when silence is betrayal,” said King. Janet read the words and understood that she, too, needed to stand up and be counted. She needed to put forth her efforts to make a difference, to stand up for justice, be a vocal anti-war critic, and to become a significant force in social and environmental advocacy. Janet felt she needed to use her voice in whatever way she could, to speak for those people and ideas that could not advocate for them.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” Janet took those words to heart, on the first day of the Iraq war, Janet wrote “Your Own Worst Enemy,”   she went on to sing it at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Janet Bates continues to open the eyes of political decision makers across the country, singing to make them hear, make them see what real change means, not just to the country, but the world.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Contact info: Janet Bates, 89569 Sunny Loop Lane, Bandon, Oregon, 97411
www.janetbates.com     info@janetbates.com