Musician Inspired by War: Janet Bates Sings American Soldier

"American Soldier" Song Inspires and Touches the Heart

Music for the Soldiers from Janet Bates

by Mary Geddry

Sitting in a coffee shop one cool, February, 2004, Portland morning, waiting for Pioneer Music to open, Janet Bates, a small and fiesty classical folk singer and songwriter grimly poured over the latest news from Iraq.

There, in the NY Times, frozen in time was the grief wracked, tear stained face of an American soldier on the front lines. She looked around the coffee shop, filled with patrons sipping their lattes and tiazzis, chatting and reading and was struck by how ordinary a day this was for those not directly involved in the conflict and her eyes filled with tears at the suffering of this solitary soldier.

Running her fingers through her blonde hair, she set pen to napkin and wrote one of the songs on her first CD A Time Has Come called American Soldier.

My first introduction to Janet and her music came when a mutual friend gifted me with her CD. At that time I was agonizing through the multiple close calls of my Marine son’s second tour in Iraq, in the hotspot of Ramadi, her lyrics ‘What the picture shows in black and white, is a soldier crying in the night, American soldier…come on home’ resonated through me as I knew all too well the precarious life my own son was living.

Shortly thereafter I was lucky enough to meet and talk with Janet and was awed and humbled, (my own support efforts seemed miniscule in comparison) by the magnitude of her effort to support the troops and bring about change.

Janet, wrote her first song the day the war began and published her first CD a few months later. Since that first CD the songwriting bug, fueled by current global events has enslaved the honey throated (her voice has been aptly compared to Joan Baez) activist and she cut back on her day job as a physician specializing in geriatric care to pursue her music. Less than a year after the initial release the Canadian citizen and Oregon resident has followed up with two more CDs, The Colours Will Come Back and Another Child.

Current news and events, political and environmental inspire many of Janet’s songs but so can the casual heartfelt comments from friends. Once I described how I had tortured myself daily with email alerts during my son’s tour in Ramadi. With each email alert of dead or wounded Marines I would become almost physically ill until some tidbit of information, they were from a different company, a different rank, assured me it was not my son; only to have that relief replaced with guilt knowing that another mother or wife had paid the price I had, so thankfully, been spared. A few days later, a new song emerged, 'Mother’s Day’ and is on the Another Child CD.

Since the war began in Iraq, Janet Bates has transformed part of her home on the Oregon coast into a recording studio to capture her prodigious output of songs. With her husband, Ken, and help from musicians all around the world including a mandolin track emailed from Iraq, she has sought to express her feelings in verse and metaphor.

Listen and Find Out All About Janet Bates Music.  Just go to Official Janet Bates Website

About the Author:  Mary Geddry is a syndicated writer and mother of an Iraq War Veteran "Somewhere along the course of my son’s first tour of Iraq I stopped writing about herbal remedies, alternative health care and aromatherapy. Instead I began writing about my son and his experiences in Iraq and by the time his second tour came around I was writing in support of the troops and opposition to the war." says Mary about herself.  Her blog is at Musing, Essays and Ballads