But, damn, she could wail...
Posted on 10/04/2005 11:04:18 AM PDT by kellynla
Singer Janis Joplin dies from a heroin overdose at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood. Joplin's unrestrained personality and passionate, raspy voice made her a symbol of the intensity and rebellious spirit of the late 1960s.
Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1943. A moody, withdrawn teenager, she expressed herself through music, poetry, and art. At age 17, she ran away and began singing in nightclubs in Houston and Texas. In the 1960s, she moved to San Francisco, where eventually she joined a band called Big Brother and the Holding Company. The band released an album and was a sensation at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The band's second album, Cheap Thrills (1968), topped the charts and went gold. The band's song "Piece of My Heart" is still a classic.
Joplin left the band by 1969 and assembled the Kozmic Blues Band, which backed her on her first solo album, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. By this time, Joplin, a hard drinker and drug user, had also become addicted to heroin. Her addiction caught up with her after she had assembled a new group, The Full Tilt Boogie Band, and started recording the album Pearl. She died before the album was released. The single "Me and Bobby McGee" topped the charts in March 1971.
(Excerpt) Read more at historychannel.com ...
Biography of Janis Joplin
by Laura Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was born January 19, 1943 and died October 4, 1970. In between she led a triumphant and tumultuous life blessed by an innate talent to convey powerful emotion through heart-stomping rock-and-roll singing. Born and raised in Port Arthur, Texas, a small Southern petroleum industry town, she gravitated to artistic interests cultivated by parents Seth and Dorothy Joplin.
Janis broke with local social traditions during the tense days of racial integration, standing up for the rights of African Americans whose segregated status in her hometown seared her youthful ideals. Along with fellow band beatnik-reading high school students, she pursued the non-traditional via arts and literature, especially music. They gravitated to folk and jazz with Janis especially taken with the blues. Discovering an inborn talent to belt the blues, Janis began copying the styles of Bessie Smith, Odetta and Leadbelly. She played the coffee houses and hootenannies of the day in the small towns of Texas. She later ventured to the beatnik haunts of Venice, North Beach and the Village in New York, eventually landing in Austin, Texas as a student at the University of Texas. Jumping into the on-the-edge lifestyle cultivated by the beats, Janis thrilled at her creativity, but almost lost herself in experiments with drugs and alcohol, especially speed.
Returning home for a year to question her life direction, she excelled at college but was never content. Music still called her to her in spite of its dangerous association with drugs. "The two aren't wedded," her friends counseled. When old Austin friend, Chet Helms, then in San Francisco, called to offer her a singing audition with an up-and-coming local group, Janis was tempted. She found a vital San Francisco community, turned upside down by the flower children of 1966, and was offered the singing position in a relatively obscure group called "Big Brother and the Holding Company."
Big Brother played in the Bay area and up and down the California coast, to ever-increasing enthusiasm for their unique brand of psychedelic rock. They initially signed with Mainstream Records, a small outfit that did little promotion, but did produce an album and two singles, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness." Then during the summer of 1967--the "Summer of Love"--Big Brother played a large concert, The Monterey International Pop Festival. Janis smashed through her anonymity with Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain" and the world took note.
The group was actively courted by Albert Grossman, one of the most powerful entertainment managers of the day. Through his representation, they signed a three-record recording contract with Columbia Records, who bought out Mainstream's rights. Their "Cheap Thrills" album was released in August, 1968 and soon went gold, presenting the hits "Piece of My heart" and "Summertime." The band was playing to large audiences, for big fees, and the billing now read "Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company." The pressure mounted, income rose and hippie rockers indulged themselves with their new ability to use high-priced drugs. Drugs began affecting their performing and work relationships and in Christmas of 1968, the group played its last gig together.
Janis formed a new group, oriented more toward blues and released a new album "I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again, Mama" in September of 1969. In the U.S., mixed reviews greeted the new sound but in Europe the group was welcomed with loudly enthusiastic praise. Still the anything-goes lifestyle grew with greater use of drug and alcohol to both increase the artistic creativity and to handle the tensions of coming down. Finally recognizing the problems in her life, Janis quit her drug use. She formed a third band, called Full Tilt Boogie Band, which evolved more professional popular sound. Janis felt she'd finally found her unique style of white blues. She was never happier with her new music. While recording her next album "Pearl," she chanced into using heroin again. Obtaining a dose more pure than usual, she accidentally overdosed in a motel in Los Angeles at the age of 27. Her third album was released posthumously to wide acclaim, launching the popular songs "Me and Bobby McGee" and Mercedes Benz."
Janis's albums have gone gold, platinum, and triple-platinum. Her "Greatest Hits" album still tops the charts in Billboard. Several new releases have followed her death, with wide acclaim for her boxed set, "Janis." She was the subject of a 1973 feature documentary, "Janis," and numerous TV documentaries, the most notable being VH-1's Legends program. She is currently the subject of two hotly contested biographical movie projects.
Horrible, awful screaching.
Miss Janis was something special. Too bad she checked out in such a hurry.
"Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz...."
Heard on AFRVN.
But, damn, she could wail...
Taking a dirt nap was her best career move. I would rather listen to rap "music" than her crap.
Might have been a "star", but her "music" sucked and unlike fine wine, worsened with age.
A lot of people died that day from the same pusher.
Bummer man
She was classmates with former Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson in Port Arthur.
I always thought all Robert Plant was doing on the first Zeppelin albums was copying Janis' wailing.
What a waste. She could have developed some talent if she didn't blow her brains out in drugs.
Definitely. She sorta reminds me of Kurt Cobain. Annoying, screechy voice, crappy sounding music, heroin junkie, best known for dying. And waaaaay overrated.
I would rather listen to rap "music" than her crap.
I can't go there with you. I actually feel the brain cells dying inside me whenever I am exposed to rap. I honestly believe that music makes you stupid.
The best line from her best song.
I wonder exactly how many people even know who he was, let alone remember him?
the infowarrior
For you triva experts: Name the high school student whose picture is beside her in her Port Arthur High School Year Book - Jimmy Johnson (ex Dallas Cowboy football coach)
Too bad she didn't take her "music" with her!
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