Janis Joplin-A forgotten legend?

Just 3.5 years ago there was an excellent looking US Postage Stamp issued of her [the advertising magnet for it looks cool on my fridge] and many tracks a staple of "classic rock" (or is it oldies now) on FM and streaming services. I really do not see how forgotten applies as for legend that is always a POV thing.

 

Well...Grace was far more talented, as a songwriter and musician, and I think far more influential. Janis was so limited vocally, and there was really nothing beyond that, and as others have pointed out, it could become quite grating. I think her tragic death and the myth surrounding it elevated her to a greater status than she deserved.

 

She's not forgotten here, because this thread comes up every six months or so. However, it's usually fairly short and contains as many detractors as fans.

I love Janis Joplin, and she is not my genre at all. She just poured so much heart and soul into her music, you can't help but be affected.

I'm always curious if the many who find her "grating" partake in Joe Cocker, Bob Seger, Faces-era Rod Stewart, Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, etc.

I do agree that she's in danger of being forgotten after the boomers are gone. I don't get it. It seems that a woman in music with a story like Janis' would be revered in 2018.

 

Janis Joplin - Bo Diddley ( live )




Janis Joplin - Summertime

 

Forgotten isn't a word I'd ever associate with Janice.........

 

There’s an American Masters Janis documentary from 2015 called “Little Girl Blue,” narrated by Cat Power, that I haven’t seen but now cannot wait to.

 

It has also been on Netflix.

 

As someone who enjoys a truckload of recordings by artists from generations previous to mine, it's been extremely rewarding to step out of my generational pigeonhole and have a wider look around. That's what records are for: time-binding information. Recorded music is one of the great technological leaps of the previous century. I now have as many artists in my record collection who were making records before I was born as those by singers and musicians who made records when I was in my teens and 20s.

It wasn't that way when I was 20. But one of the advantages of getting older than that is that it's offered more time for my tastes to expand. And one of the major cultural differences between music listeners of the "Baby Boom generation" and afterward, as opposed to those before that era, is that many more of us kept buying more music, and seeing live music performances, after age 30. At least in the USA.

As to the question of "who will go down in history", and how they'll be remembered, the stature of some artists is already assured. Others are the flavor of the month, or the decade. And some get rediscovered, or are overdue for a rediscovery. Nick Drake and Laura Nyro are arguably bigger now than they were when they were alive. Their legacy had practically vanished during the 1980s, when narrowcasting and "heavy rotation" of the same 100 songs ruled the airwaves.

(It's unsettling to recall how culturally bleak the formatting of radio and the increased commercialization of the airwaves and music marketing made the 1980s. There really was a concerted effort to stamp everything made prior to 1977 as "obsolete hippie music", etc. Although that accounted for only a small fraction of the musical legacy that the Central Scrutinizers were out to drop into the memory hole, in their effort to convert the diverse tastes of music buyers back into those of easily manipulated adolescent consumers. Not a knock on the new music or the musicians from that decade- a lot of 1980s music is terrific. All too many people fall for a superficial reading of musical history that blames musicians for artistic decline, when the blame is more properly placed on the replacement of musical integrity with commodification. But radio sucked in the 1980s, and that really worked to limit the exposure to a wide array of quality music, which in turn resulted in the dumbing down of much of the new audience. At minimum, it typically hampered their ability to think outside of musical pigeonholes.)

That crack about "pensioners and carers" is easily dismissed for what it is- typical adolescent posturing. From someone fooled into thinking that music is something you look at, instead of something to be listened to, essentially invisible. Unbounded by imposed illusions like "decades."

 

You may not be but a fan of these genres, but many baby boomers are indeed fans of lighter country and new age music.

 

It's great. Do look for it.

 

Well isn't the shot voice exactly her charm as a vocalist? Janis Joplin was different from any other white female singer. Even contemporaries like Grace Slick and Mama Cass, as formidable as singers as they might be, they in fact never sang one note outside of the traditionally marked lines of how female singers are supposed to sound. Janis broke many boundaries in that respect.

BTW, I read somewhere that Joplin modelled her voice after the yelling vocal style of 13th Floor Elevators' frontman Roky Erickson. Early in her career there was even brief talk about Janis joining the Elevators (this was before she teamed up with Big Brother). Now, that must've been a hoot, watching Janis Joplin and Roky Erickson screaming each other's heads off on stage, ha!

 

Ok, I have to post this. Every time I see something about Janis I have to post this......

I think it's her greatest single performance, this song at this gig....

 

Nope...I find them all "grating" as well. It's whenever I listen to someone and feel the overwhelming desire to clear my throat

 

I don't know what this makes me... but I love Tom Waits, Joe Cocker, etc.

Janis' voice, by contrast, only in limited doses.

When it comes to female singers, I'm drawn to Sandy Denny, Kate Wolff, Jacqui McShee, Neko Case, Alela Diane, Joni Mitchell... but Joplin grates after a short period of time...

 

Was this from the "Festival Express" tour? That's a great story in it's own right.

 

Janis has always been one of the mythical greats of the 60's, but I never see much in-depth discussion of her maybe due to the small discography. I think if she had more time and more recordings, there would be a higher profile of critique.

Yep, that's the story! Janis and the Elevators came from the same region and circle of friends. She got a lot of those elements from Roky.

 

A great takeaway from the so-so book "Going Down with Janis" is that she used to toss off these impassioned cris de coeur just walking around Albert Grossman's office, asking for feedback.

 

I think she was not only underrated as a singer but also underestimated as a serious performer and as a professional. So many people think of Joplin as some sort of damage-case who was just practicing primal scream therapy in front of a band but I personally think that if she hadn't succumbed to her personal demons, she would have gone fairly mainstream. You could hear it on Pearl. Hell, you could see it when she dumped Big Brother. I can imagine her with the right people filing off some of the more abrasive edges on her vocal style and persona and ending up like some sort of quasi-counterculture Cher with her own TV variety show and bound for Vegas glory. A defanged, buffed- up, scrubbed-down hippy mascot for her generation. And I can imagine her going along with it.

D.D.

 

Amen brother! The ignorance of today's phone zombies continues to shock and sadden me.

 

The American Masters program is a must-see. Heartbreaking.

As for my 5c, I love Janis. I found Cheap Thrills on a random search through my dad's record collection when I was about 15 (1987). Picked it for the comic book cover. Piece of My Heart was the obvious draw at first, but Ball and Chain is my favorite.
I never liked the post -Big Brother stuff as much.
Her more frenetic performances with Kosmic Blues don't do it for me the way Monterey or the 68 live albums do.

 

I loved Janis and still get a thrill whenever I hear her music, but I think that she's about as relevant to most of the millennials and younger as the Andrew Sisters were to my generation in the 60s and 70s.

 

Or Lynn Carey:
MAMA LION "Candy Man" Live !

 

I'm a big fan. My favorite women in music include Maybelle Carter, PJ Harvey, and definitely Janis.

 

As we get further away from 1970, she's certainly seems lost more and more. I loved her then and I love her now. "Kozmic Blues" still knocks me out, everytime.

 

I think that there are folks that haven't heard of her but they've probably heard her music playing in the background. It's a generational thing.