Mead was born in
Adelaide,
South Australia, in 1937. She formed a band, simply called the Rock Band, when she was 17 to provide music for the weekly
Mass at her local church. She studied piano at the
Adelaide Conservatorium before joining the
Sisters of Mercy order and became a music teacher at two local Catholic schools. She began to explore the "Rock Mass" concept in the early 1970s, desiring to make the Mass more interesting and accessible for her students. This led to a successful series of Rock Masses which she held at
St Francis Xavier's Cathedral, Adelaide. earning a gold record award for Mead and Martin Erdman. Mead donated her share of the
royalties to charity while Festival Records used their portion of the proceeds to refit one of their studios. In October 2001, she directed the Romero Company's annual production at the Melbourne Trades Hall Auditorium, an inventive adaptation by Damien Mead of
Victor Hugo's
Les Misérables.
Death Janet Mead died from cancer in Adelaide on 26 January 2022, aged 84. ==Discography==