27

by Howard Sounes

  It is a shock when someone dies young, even if they were heading for trouble. It is disturbing to think that such a death came about because the deceased was a fool, or suicidal. When famous people die, the circumstances are often embellished and complicated until mysteries arise. This is borne out repeatedly with the 27s, and it goes back a long way. After Robert Johnson died in 1938, his life was turned into a supernatural legend involving a pact with the Devil, as a result of which he was gifted with extraordinary musical powers. This fanciful story has been told so often that it has become part of his biography, almost as if it might be true. The fact that Robert Johnson and Brian Jones died at the same age as a series of other performers has encouraged mythologising. Theories entwine around these unhappy lives, like the ivy that smothers tombstones, until it becomes difficult to make out what actually happened.

  The Rolling Stones are seen here at the start of their career, in 1963, gathered around their founder, Brian Jones.

  A young Jimi Hendrix is seen in London in 1966, the year the Jimi Hendrix Experience was formed.

  Janis Joplin was a beatnik college student in Austin, Texas, when this photograph was taken in 1962.

  The young Jim Morrison is pictured (far right) with his naval officer father, Steve, mother Clara, sister Anne, and brother Andy. Jim would sever contact with his parents in adult life.

  Kurt Cobain was seven in this family group, with his father Don, mother Wendy, and sister Kimberley. Kurt had a complicated relationship with his parents.

  As a boy growing up in Aberdeen, Washington, Kurt Cobain had the cheerful, innocent appearance of a member of the Brady Bunch. But he was traumatised by his parents’ divorce.

  Aged about ten in this photograph, Amy Winehouse was a vivacious and precocious child.

  Jimi Hendrix is seen here on the cusp of fame in 1967. ‘He wasn’t a hit yet. But he was clearly at a fantastic moment in his life and he was really relishing it,’ recalls the photographer Gered Mankowitz.

  The careers of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were boosted by their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. Janis is seen on stage with Big Brother and the Holding Company.

  Jim Morrison poses with his fellow Doors, in a typical beefcake publicity photograph, at the time of their first album. Behind him are (clockwise from bottom): Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore.

  Kurt Cobain was happy on tour with Nirvana in 1989, just as they were getting started. Krist Novoselic sits at the back.

  Amy Winehouse was a healthy young woman when she attended the Mercury music awards in 2004, following the release of her debut album. She would soon be an emaciated drug addict.

  Amy Winehouse’s stylist took this candid picture of Amy at her Camden flat as she tried on outfits for the ‘You Know I’m No Good’ video. Amy was in the middle of a row with her boyfriend.

  Self-harming scars are visible on Amy Winehouse’s forearm as she embraces Blake Fielder-Civil, on tour in the USA, April 2007.

  Amy and Blake emerged cut and bleeding from the Sanderson Hotel in London after self-harming in the middle of the night, August 2007.

  Amy celebrated her multiple Grammy Awards win with her family in February 2008. Left to right are her brother Alex, mother Janis (front), stepmother Jane (behind), father Mitch, and aunt Melody.

  Looking like a trapped animal, Amy was photographed in the window of her Camden home in June 2008.

  Amy Winehouse presented a horrifying spectacle at the Berkeley Square Summer Ball in September 2008. Death seemed close.

  ‘I am Death.’ Death was memorably portrayed by Bengt Ekerot in The Seventh Seal.

  By 1968 Brian Jones’s debauched life had made him a mental and physical wreck, with the face of a much older man. He is seen here outside court, with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger.

  Brian Jones drowned in his swimming pool in July 1969. This picture was taken the following day.

  Brian Jones’s funeral in Cheltenham was a major media event and a personal tragedy for his parents, who are in the middle of the picture.

  Jimi Hendrix took a nap en route to his final concert in Germany, September 1970. The big sleep was two weeks away.

  On tour with her Kozmic Blues Band in 1969, Janis Joplin was drinking and using heroin.

  By 1969 Jim Morrison was a bearded and bloated alcoholic. He is seen here with his girlfriend, Pamela Courson. Both would die at 27.

  Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson are pictured at a cafe in France five days before Jim died.

  Kurt Cobain breaks down and weeps offstage, Seattle, 1990.

  Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love are seen here with their daughter, Frances. Fatherhood was not enough to save him.

  On tour in Europe in 1994, Kurt Cobain posed with a gun to his head, making a joke of an act he was soon to carry out for real.

  Kurt Cobain committed suicide in the room above the garage (left of picture) at his Seattle mansion, April 1994.

  Amy Winehouse started dating filmmaker Reg Traviss in the spring of 2010. He was her last boyfriend.

  Amy Winehouse’s final concert, in Belgrade, 18 June 2011, was a disaster. Apparently drunk, she was unable to sing and was clearly distressed.

  Two undertakers, watched by a police officer, removed Amy Winehouse’s body from her home, 23 July 2011.

  Two days after Amy died, her family came to look at the flowers left outside her house in Camden Square, which stands directly behind Mitch Winehouse. The windows are open in the room in which Amy died.

  * Her husband, singer Donovan Leitch.

  Nine

  NODDING OUT

  I’m here to have a party, man, as best as I can while I’m on this Earth.

  Janis Joplin

  1

  Causes of death recur on the 27 long-list. Road-accident fatalities are surprisingly common; there are several murders and fully realised suicides; but most striking is the number of deaths, like Brian Jones’s, that are related to the abuse of drink and drugs.* A third of the fifty deaths can be attributed to drink or drugs. The word ‘overdose’ occurs repeatedly, mostly in connection with self-administered injections of heroin. In addition there are fatalities where drugs were a significant contributory factor to death, if not the primary cause. This chapter deals with two of the most notable drug-related deaths in the 27 Club, those of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, friends and peers at the apex of the music business, who died within a month of each other in 1970.

  Death did not come out of the blue. There had been symptoms of trouble for years, and in the last months the warning signs flashed repeatedly.

  On his way to a show in Canada on 3 May 1969, Jimi Hendrix was arrested at Toronto International Airport for possession of hashish and heroin, both of which were found in his flight bag with his toiletries. He denied that the drugs were his and was acquitted at trial, the Canadian jury accepting his assertion that the drugs had been planted by fans. Fans did give Jimi drugs, as they gave them to other rock stars as a tribute, typically slipping them into their pockets as they made their way through a crowd. It would seem unlikely, though, that fans would want, or be able, to smuggle drugs into an artist’s luggage. In truth, the drugs were probably his. Jimi dabbled with heroin, as many friends did at a time of experimentation. In the code of the hippies it was cool to use smack, though not to be a junkie, more cool to smoke heroin than shoot up, which was what junkies did. Jimi and his friends were also squeamish about needles. ‘We all were,’ says Deering Howe. ‘We always said, “We’re never sticking a needle in our bodies for any drug. If we take it, we’ll snort it.” We both had a tremendous aversion to needles.’

  That summer Jimi disbanded the Experience and took a vacation in Morocco with Deering Howe and two women. The availability of drugs in Morocco has long been part of the attraction of the North African kingdom for Westerners. It is no coincidence that Brian Jones and Jim Morrison also chose Morocco as a holiday destination towards the end of their lives. ‘It was really his [Jimi’s] first vacat
ion ever, because Michael Jeffrey had his nose to the grindstone and was trying to reap every penny he could from Jimi by constantly having him on tour,’ says Howe, who recalls that Jimi had to ask his manager for holiday money before they went away – a striking example of how little control he had over his finances at a time when he was one of the highest-earning acts in show business. ‘He had no money,’ adds Howe. ‘I think he got two or three thousand dollars … I mean, a ridiculous situation.’

  Jimi returned from Morocco in the late summer of 1969 to perform at the Woodstock Festival where he topped the bill. Because the festival ran behind schedule, he didn’t appear until the morning of Monday, 18 August, by which time many people had gone home. Playing before what looked like a deserted battlefield in the cold light of day, at the end of the sixties, his set had a sombre quality. He performed with a new five-piece band, featuring Mitch Mitchell on drums and his old army buddy Billy Cox on bass. Although not entirely happy with the band, Jimi delivered one of the outstanding performances of his career. His interpretation of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ alone showed him to be one of the most original artists in music and remains a touchstone moment in the 1960s.

  Less celebrated was Janis Joplin’s set at Woodstock in the early hours of Sunday morning. Janis was working with a slick new band complete with a horn section. Sam Andrew had come across from Big Brother to play with the Kozmic Blues Band, but the rest of the musicians were session men. The other big difference between this band and Big Brother was that Janis was the boss, rather than a member of a group. Some critics thought that her new band lacked soul, though soul was what the musicians were trying to achieve. ‘When they were putting the band together they wanted to assemble like a Stax-Volt/R&B kind of band of studio musicians, so at that point it was not very organic, and we got labelled as being, for lack of a better word, colder,’ says drummer Maury Baker. ‘[But] some people liked us. “Finally, she’s got some really good players.” That’s what they said.’ Generally speaking, however, the Kozmic Blues Band was not well received, which added to Janis’s anxieties.

  She was drinking more than ever, lining up cups of tequila on stage each night. Unlike Jimi Hendrix, Janis had also become a full-blown injecting heroin addict. All addicts run the risk of overdose, because they are greedy, or inadvertently buy a stronger batch than they are used to. There was a dramatic and frightening incident with Sam Andrew in London when Janis brought the Kozmic Blues Band to the city. They did better in the UK than at home, and Janis and the boys celebrated their success with a party at which there was ‘some really good heroin’, as Sam recalls. He used too much and overdosed, ‘nodding out’, in drug parlance. Fortunately, Janis and other friends were there to save him, putting Sam into a cold bath to revive him while a girl gave him the kiss of life. After a while he started to kiss her back. ‘So she said, “He’s OK.”’ Janis wasn’t chastened by this. She overdosed six times in 1969. Any one of those incidents could have proved fatal. It was just luck that she and Sam had survived thus far. Luck, or lack of it, plays a significant part in the 27 Club.

  As for why Janis carried on in this way, she was an insecure, somewhat unhappy person who used drink and drugs as an anaesthetic, like other 27s. She was also a hedonist. Janis was warned many times – by friends, doctors and acquaintances – not to push herself so hard, but she shrugged off such advice. Journalist David Dalton captured a fascinating conversation between Janis and a member of the public in San Francisco, during which Janis was warned that she might end up like the late Billie Holiday if she didn’t curb her behaviour. Janis observed that Holiday’s self-destructive lifestyle may ‘contribute to the romantic mystique. It’s intriguing.’ But when pressed, she became defensive: ‘I’m here to have a party, man, as best as I can while I’m on this Earth. I think it’s your duty to,’ she said. ‘When I’m ready to retire I’ll tell you about it. If I start worrying about everything I’m doing, you know – like this’ll give you cholesterol or cirrhosis or some other dumb, unaware trip – I’d just as soon quit now. If that’s what I gotta do to stick around another forty years, you can have it.’ This attitude has a logic of its own, one that is echoed by great minds through the centuries. ‘Live while you live: tomorrow, perhaps, you may die,’ Pierre says, in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It is the same sentiment. But there isn’t necessarily a clean break between living life to the full and dying. A life of excess often leads to a period of impairment first, and this is true of several 27s.

  The toll taken by drink and drugs was apparent by the autumn of 1969 when Janis toured with her new band in support of their album, I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama! ‘She [always] liked to drink before her performance, but it was sort of a measured approach [before],’ says her road manager, John Byrne Cooke. ‘She wanted a particular kind of boost for the start of a performance, and she’d drink more after. Then she doesn’t have to measure it, she doesn’t have to watch herself afterwards. But in ’69 I was feeling maybe she was drinking more before performances. It just seemed to me the whole thing of drinking and drugs was affecting the performances, whereas it hadn’t before.’ Byrne Cooke became so unhappy with the situation that he quit, and when Janis came off the road in December, Albert Grossman persuaded her to seek professional help. ‘One of her problems was that intellectually she was so advanced, [but] her emotions were childlike and uncontrollable,’ said Dr Ed Rothchild, who treated Janis for addiction. His words would be just as applicable to Amy Winehouse.

  As Janis limped offstage at the end of 1969, Jimi Hendrix was also working towards the end of his hedonistic decade. He didn’t have such acute problems as Janis, though. Jimi didn’t drink as much. He tended to stick to wine, his favourite tipple being Mateus rosé. As for drugs, Jimi and his friends indulged freely, but he seemed able to handle it. ‘Drugs were always there, the booze was always there, the women were always there. It was just open season to have fun,’ says Deering Howe. ‘We were [in our twenties]. We didn’t give a shit. “Let’s party as hard as we can for as long as we can.”’ Another friend, record producer Alan Douglas, agrees that drugs weren’t a problem. Using drugs was ‘part of living. It was part of the life, being in that scene.’ Douglas insists that Jimi was never an addict. ‘He could always overcome the dope. He could always overcome the travelling. He could always overcome the business problems. When he started to play the guitar, he played the guitar, and there was nothing else in his way.’ Still, drugs would kill Jimi.

  The guitarist turned 27 in November, celebrating his birthday by watching the Rolling Stones performing at Madison Square Garden in New York, with Mick Taylor in place of Jimi’s recently departed friend, Brian Jones. Jimi stayed on in New York for Christmas, which he spent with Deering Howe, who notes that Jimi, who ‘didn’t give a shit about politics’, was starting to come under pressure from the black-power movement to show solidarity with African-Americans. This pressure may have influenced the formation of the Band of Gypsys, in which Jimi played with Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. The Band of Gypsys gave four shows at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East over New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day 1969/70. The shows were recorded and the tapes given to producer Ed Chalpin in part-settlement of a legal claim against Jimi, stemming from their 1965 contract. The resulting live album, containing new songs such as ‘Machine Gun’, is an important addition to the Hendrix canon.

  Another pressure came from audiences, who expected Jimi to play his hits in concert and perform his now famous stage tricks, something he was increasingly reluctant to do. Jimi gave the Fillmore audience the full show, up to the point on New Year’s Day 1970 that Bill Graham told him he didn’t have to pluck his guitar with his teeth and all that shit. Fillmore patrons just wanted to hear the music he wanted to play. That was not true of most audiences. In the last months of his life Jimi was booed in concert when he eschewed his tricks and hits and tried to introduce new music to audiences. ‘The general public didn’t want to hear his new music. They wanted to hear �
��Purple Haze” and “Hey Joe”. That drove him nuts,’ says Deering Howe. ‘He did not want to be trapped in the past by his own success, but he found himself totally trapped musically in the past.’

  2

  Janis Joplin turned 27 on 19 January 1970. She seemed surprised to have made it. She wrote home: ‘I managed to pass my – gasp – 27th birthday without really feeling it.’

  She was taking some time off work, staying home in Larkspur, an area of Marin County on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge, where she had bought an A-frame house in the woods. Janis used the break to get her house fixed up and to get clean of heroin. She also took a trip to Rio de Janeiro for the carnival.

  It was in Rio, in February 1970, that Janis met an American named David Niehaus. In comparison to the youths she picked up on the road, then discarded with her empty bottles, Niehaus was a mature man with whom she entertained the idea of a relationship. When he suggested they might travel the hippie trail together, even get married, Janis was delighted. Part of her craved family life, as was true of Amy Winehouse, and as the women moved into their latter twenties the urge became more pronounced. David Niehaus came to stay with Janis in California after the Rio carnival but, like so many holiday romances, theirs did not survive a dose of real life. ‘I think she really liked David, and [marriage] was something she was thinking about, but he really wasn’t into the fame-and-fortune thing. And it didn’t go well,’ says Lyndall Erb, who shared Janis’s house in Larkspur and looked after the property when she was away. ‘When he came back to California, he just didn’t like her lifestyle here.’ That lifestyle included sleeping with other people, women as well as men. Niehaus continued on his travels alone.