Janis Joplin-A forgotten legend?

One thing for sure is that she's a pretty women.

Yea I said it... sue me

 

I had some Big Brother on yesterday.

Being from where she is, I often wonder why her and the Winters were not bigger.

 

I wouldn't put her anywhere near a list of the all-time great vocalists.

 

I think she is more historic than musically feted today. Her singing was kind of an acquired taste. I love the first two big brother albums. Her Kozmic blues and Pearl stuff a bit less.

 

one of the all-time great vocalists

 

This last summer, I walked across the street to have a conversation with the twentysomethings who share that house. Asked if they'd ever heard of Joni Mitchell. Nope. And they're heavily into the local music scene. Around Christmas I was out with a friend and asked the young lady who waited on us if she listened to or liked Green Day. She said she personally doesn't, but her dad and her brother do. Just to put things in perspective.

I wonder where that leaves Laura Nyro and Grace Slick?

 

I really think that Janis represented to rock vocals what Hendrix did to the guitar - just shocking, overpowering virtuosity delivered with serious grit. The grit is really why she's not better remembered these days, because to be a Really Good Female Singer you've gotta sing pretty. And while I think that Janis definitely could sing pretty (the song "Little Girl Blue" is an example), she usually just went for the crotch in ways that only men get a pass for. I don't really wanna lean to heavily on a sexism narrative, but I think it's foolish to pretend that Janis' femininity has nothing to do with her diminished profile today. If she had looked like Michelle Phillips and sung like Ann Wilson she would be more popular today than she is, I'd wager. She also had a relatively short and spotty career which was spent finding not her voice but her arrangement, and I'd offer that perhaps she never really found it. She made at least three really brilliant and really different albums but each have certain problems and shortcomings. I far prefer her work with Big Brother but it's also fair to say that they were probably beneath her, and the two more professional bands she worked with seemed quite tentative and unsure.

Another problem with Janis is that although I maintain that she was a virtuoso singer, she was really well on the way to ruining her voice with drink and the while the whiskey-soaked roar has its charms, it's also an easy target for misunderstanding, rejection and ridicule. Again, guys can usually get away with it more easily. Robert Plant pinched a good deal of Janis' style and while he also has his principled detractors, his interpretation of the Joplin air raid siren has proved the more durable and successful.

However, in this age when so much importance is placed on women's achievements in male-dominated fields, Janis Joplin ought to be much better recognized for her short but startling success, when she stood eyeball to eyeball with many of the greatest rock musicians and prevailed. She most certainly paved the way for many other women in rock, and she surely paid a heavy price for her conquest.

 

It's hard to know where the Jack Daniels stopped and the lack of restraint began - she was obviously a soul in pain.

 

I think it's maybe because she's been dead for so long...

Janis died at 27 in 1970 (that's almost a half-century ago) the other female vocalists she came up with like Aretha Franklin are still alive.

 

Way too much screaming/yelling

Can only take her in small doses

 

She came and left so quickly and didn't have the big discography like Morrison, Hendrix, etc did. I just got her greatest hits on vinyl in the mail yesterday, just re-released this month.

 

There was a thread yesterday something like...Singers that send a shiver up your spine....guess who I listed?

 

I'm shocked that she isn't remembered. The first thought when I read that in your post and that you couldn't find many references to her on this forum was that you must have spelt her name incorrectly in your search. I guess, that I'm naive; sadly, in the lack of recognition of her stature of what she was to Rock in it's glory days. Yes; those were the glory days. There was never any woman who embodied Rock more then she. And for what it's worth she held her own with anyone; male or female. Her voice was at once; soulful, tender and downright ballsy. An unapologetic sinner and a saint; a tent set-up in the sun revival preacher. She was genuine; the real deal. No manufactured hype; although they tried. She'd have none of it. She didn't have it in her to conform to what anyone wanted her to be either personally or professionally. Today in our society generally, for the most part nonconformity is looked down upon. The ideal is to be one of the many. She was the purest of vocalists. Not in her instrument but in her attitude; in her soul. She had to sing. HAD TO sing. And each time she did it was evident; she was signing to save her life. Until she couldn't save it anymore... and she wouldn't let anyone save it for her. Whenever she opened her mouth she couldn't sing without soul, blues, funk, rock and heart all rolled into one. I remember seeing her once at The Fillmore East and Bill Graham announced her and Bill was going on about how extraordinary she was and how she just the week before "brought the house down in San Francisco". Before he even finished you could hear her say; almost to herself... yeah yeah talk talk talk and she with Big Brother behind her burst into Down On Me. And for the next 2 hours she was relentless. Preaching, Belting and Soulfully Bluesing the night away. At one point she was looking, almost transfixed at the undulating Josh White Lights behind her and she just shook her head and said; "that's some groovy weird **** man". She was simply right; it was some groovy weird **** and she was digging it just like the rest of us.. The evening was just a group of friends hanging out... some of us were on stage and some of us were in the audience, but we were all together sharing a space hangin' and havin' a time. There was no; I'm on stage, I'm running this show... we were all just there on a Saturday night. No pretense; just music shared, by people who needed to be there for one reason or another; one reason was as good as another... it didn't matter. All that mattered was the music and us; together. I later; but around the same time; in '68 saw her on the same bill with The Chambers Bros. and Jimi and The Experience. The venue; The Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadows Park, in Queens was totally different. It was larger to begin with; it was louder, more lights, more echo; more frenetic... there was more electricity in the air. Much due to Jimi being in the house. But Janis was Janis; she had the same oneness with the audience she'd had that night at the Fillmore. It was just a different night in a different venue. She gave it all she had. There was no other way. It was communion.

In addition to my suggesting you listen to everything she's ever recorded. There are some fantastic recordings not readily available... one that comes to mind is Janis guested by Johnny Winter in her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas; where Johnny also hailed from. I'd also suggest you Google and watch her on the Dick Cavett Show. You're in for a treat. As an afterthought... as this is The Steve Hoffman Forum I feel obligated to let you know in the off chance you don't; that Mr. Hoffman did a magical mastering of the Cheap Thrills album.

She can't not be though of when we lament; the loss of the greats: Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, The Blind Owl, Tim Buckley, Buddy Holly before and Nick Drake later... all those who were taken too early.

In closing I'm going to relate a short story that I've never mentioned before. I'm going to try to do this without mentioning any names. As I'm thinking now about it; I don't think I can get across the meaning or the impact it had on me. I know I won't be able to but will give it a shot. I was once spending time at a friends' house in a small town outside of San Francisco. I had made my way across the US and without notice showed-up at the doorstep of of my friend. Within moments it was established I'd be staying there as long as I wanted. We caught-up on everything and everyone we'd known together; ate, drank, drank a lot; smoked... smoked a lot. People were always coming and going. Coming and staying. Now understand my friend was well ensconced; a bedrock founder of the San Francisco music scene in the 60s and beyond. When people would come and go and come and stay they often moved in their instruments. On an occasion or 2 they moved in their entire families. It was a party, a beautiful circus... man; what a life, what a time it was. After one particularly "energetic" weekend of partying; I was watching the sun come up over the mountains behind the waterway at the back of my friends' house and my friend stumbled out of the house, walked over to me sat beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. In a post drunkin' stammer he asked; "You know where you are man?" Of course I knew where I was I hadn't consumed THAT much. "No man where you are, where you are at this moment... you're sitting on the dock Otis was sitting on when he wrote Sitting On The Dock". There was no second guessing... that is where I was. With that; my friend told me to come inside he wanted to show me something. Before I go on with the story; let me remind you this was after we'd lost Janis and as we all remember; the booze and the drugs did a number on her and at the end she looked worn and aged well beyond her years.

My friend and I walk into the kitchen; there was a beautiful golden haired girl neither of us knew or remembered in any case; making a huge cast iron skillet of scrambled eggs. We all just exchanged good mornings and went on about our business. "Where's the hot sauce baby", the makeshift chef asked; and my friend pointed to a shelf while he got a step stool and moved it over to a closet. Asking for my assistance in stabilizing him I gave him my hand and he took my shoulder and came down with a shoebox; a red and gold paisley handpainted shoebox, opened it and took out a handful of black and white photographs. He looked at them in silence for what I remember being a very long time; which I'm sure was a less long time then I'm remembering and while he's looking at them he asks me; "you remember we were talking about how worn and drawn Janis looked at the end?" I told him I remember; but it was 2 days ago. "Same party man!" He hands me the photographs and they're of this vibrant, radiant, absolutely gorgeous girl beaming rays of luminescent youth and joy in a forest wearing nothing but some beads around her neck and her wrist. Mesmerized and dumbstruck by her beauty and purity and utter joy and playfulness I tell him so. "Who is she?" I asked. Look close man... look hard I was instructed. I did and I got it! I remember I had to tell myself to close my mouth. I was dumbstruck. I understood amazement for the first time.. It was Janis before... before everything. I was told that she was actually my friends' girl when she'd first come to San Francisco... and every day was like that back then.

My friend picked up a half empty; not a half full, but a half empty bottle of J&B and walked out of the room. No body saw him for the next day and a half.

I'm not exactly sure why but I feel the need to apologize for telling that story.

It frightens the hell out of me; it angers me to no end that a Taylor Swift or a Brittney Spears may be better remembered then Janis Joplin; Little Girl Blue from Port Arthur, Texas.

***Please note I've temporarily changed my avatar in tribute to Janis and this thread.

 

So what?

 

Unreal. So much soul conveyed in your telling of the history...wow, just WOW.


Thank you for sharing.

 

I think she's fallen off the radar a little. In the 90s she was still a big deal. I don't ever hear her on classic rock radio anymore and I don't see as many posters. In the other hand... The same thing is true for the Doors, Pink Floyd... People are moving on ☹️

 

Al Wilson and Canned Heat surely have been forgotten unfortunately.

 

Not really forgotten with the touring musical and such.

 

If I ain’t got nothing nice to say, I quote this.

 

Janis voice was an unbelievable "vortex" on stage, there have been a couple projects to keep her name out in last decade.

 

Janis was prettier than a lot of people gave her credit for. A lot prettier than she thought she was on account of that.

This is better Janis than anything that was released during her lifetime



The thing is, Janis sang gut-bucket blues. Bessie Smith isn't smooth enough to be accepted as a singer these days, either. Today, she'd be a rapper. So would Janis, probably.

 

I don't think she is forgotten. If anything, I think her legacy is largely overstated, but then again, I have never been much of a fan.

 

I'm glad you shared it.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem that many singers cite her as an influence. She may have inspired countless women to become musicians, but few have carried on her stylistic legacy.

 

***If it's not clear the temporary avatar... Janis; as I'd pointed out in my earlier post, along with the Chamber's Brother (who by the way; if memory serves did a 20 version of Time Has Come Today - Extra heavy cowbell) are the 2 Other Super Groups.

What a wild Summer it was. Those 3 legendary shows. The name of the Group that's cutoff in the avatar; the group that opened for The Who... The Doors! The Who ended their set by absolutely demolishing the drums... amps... just about anything within reach... and The Doors, believe it or not upping the anti... Jim initiated; not instigated; but initiated a full scale riot; chairs being flung left and right and all that goes with it.

And for the final of the 3 shows: The Rascals who were opened up for by The Vagrants. The Vagrants man!