Janice Allen was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania into a family that loved to sing. Her mother, Jacquelyn Beard, was born in Virginia. Her mother's father was of mixed Irish and black heritage, and her mother's mother was half black, half Cherokee. Her father, Richard Allen, was born in Barnwell, South Carolina, son of a Georgia sharecropper Philip Allen, Sr. and his wife Mazzie Allen. Life was a struggle for her South Carolina grandparents, and times were dangerous, so much so that Phillip Allen Sr. sent his wife north to Philadelphia out of fear of the lynchings that had become common in their area. He himself escaped by secretly riding under a train headed north.

Much of the family remained in Georgia and as sharecroppers, they were constantly moving. Janice remembers how important that tight-knit family was to her during her many visits to their small town in the South Carolina area. When she moved to Boston just before the first grade and started school, Janice had a strong Southern accent and her speech was peppered with phrases in Gullah, the dialect spoken on the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia, and picked up by mainland Georgians.

The Allen family homes were filled with music old and new, but always firmly grounded in the African-American culture. Folk songs, singing games, playground chants, Motown, spirituals - all were equally loved. Recipes, too, were a link to the lifeline that had sustained her grandparents' and great-grandparents' generation - dishes like black-eyed peas, pig feet, neck bones, rice, sweet potatoes and chitlins, the throwaways of the white plantation owners that became the sustenance for overworked black bodies and souls. Janice's mother carefully taught the history of the traditions and songs she shared with her six children, as Janice now shares with her own four, and Janice grew up with the understanding that although there were very few books about the real history of her people, a wealth of knowledge was to be found in their music. This was underscored even more forcefully when she met and became friends with Bessie Jones ("Miss Bessie"), the late Georgia Sea Island singer and educator who was an archive of African-American music and culture during her lifetime. They performed together in Boston in the "Sea Island Revels" in the early 1980's and Janice prepared as her understudy one year when Miss Bessie was not feeling well. Their long personal and professional association has a tremendous impact on Janice, rejuvenating her quest for her roots through the meaning imbedded in the music.

After taking part with her siblings in gospel and Freedom Choirs in the black churches and schools during the Civil Rights Movement, she knew that her musical ability would become the foundation for her life's work. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, and also earned a diploma from the Kodaly Musical Training Institute. She is currently a music teacher at The Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts, has taught at the Nathan Hale School of Wheelock College and the Boston Children's Museum and numerous other schools, and frequently is called on as a specialist, consultant and performer for radio, television, festivals and conferences. She believes that her work in guiding her students and audiences to a greater understanding of her own and others' cultures will inspire them to look more deeply into their own, leading them to feel more grounded and empowered, and thus contribute in some measure to greater peace in the world.