by Laura Joplin
She didn’t consider the sensibilities of the guys in the band. Taking the sweater made problems for her within her family. “It just wasn’t good business,” Peter explained to me. “It all eventually comes back to you.” Years later, Peter ran into the former owner of the sweater. The guy said, “Yeah, I got a good story. Janis Joplin stole my cashmere sweater.”
The pressure of Paul Rothchild’s offer to Janis intensified the band’s sense of urgency to get a record deal. Earlier in San Francisco, along with other bands, Big Brother had auditioned for a couple of small record companies, including Bob Shad at Mainstream. Chet Helms, as manager, had rejected any offers that were presented. Reflecting the San Francisco business view, he was holding out for a good offer giving them artistic control and more.
In Chicago, Bob Shad reintroduced himself to Big Brother. Chet Helms was no longer the group’s manager. They’d let him go due to his time conflicts in managing the Avalon Ballroom. Away from his guidance, they were susceptible to a precipitous move.
Bob Shad had been in the business a long time and wasn’t a bad sort. He offered them a contract that was standard at the time. The band would get 5 percent of the royalties and the record company would get ownership of all the songs they wrote. They thought they were taking the necessary precautions by having an attorney check the deal, but all he could do was look at it from a legal standpoint. What they really needed was a manager’s view, and that was missing.
Bob Shad courted the group with promises that Mainstream was a label that understood their type of blues music. He could capitalize on their niche. So Janis made the all-important choice. She told Paul Rothchild, “I fell in love with one of the guys in Big Brother, so I’m going to go with that band, and not with yours.”
Bob Shad’s plan was to release some singles of the band’s music. Eight hours in an eight-track studio in Chicago netted four or five songs. They might be considered true renditions of the form of their art at the time, since they played only two or three takes of each song and just chose the best of the group. However, sound engineers weren’t yet aware that some distortion was necessary to duplicate the music’s impact. The audio level was kept too low, losing much of the intensity of their live performances.
September 20, 1966
Dear Mother, family
Finished the Chicago job Sunday & started out last night for California. Home! Home! We’re now in Nebraska. In fact, we just passed the Clay Center turnoff—I almost drove in to meet my relatives but I couldn’t remember their names so we’re still on the road. We’re driving a ’65 Pontiac Grand Prix—real class. It’s a driveaway—you put up a certain sum of money which is refunded when you deliver the car & all you pay for is your gas. (Car is in motion, excuse handwriting. . . . )
HOW THINGS ARE GOING, PROFESSIONALLY, DEPT:
1. We completed one recording session—quite an experience. It took us 9 hrs. to get less than 12 min. cut. And we didn’t mess up a lot either. First of all, you record the instrumental part alone. Then when you have it to your (and your engineer’s) satisfaction, you lay the vocal on another track over the instrumental. Then for a dynamic effect you dub another vocal track, same voices, same words, over the first to give the voice a deeper sound. Really involved. So at any rate, we cut 4 sides. He’s going to release 2 of them—1 single 45—in a month or so. Now he’s badgering us to get some more recording done. He says I came out very well on the first ones & thinks I am the most marketable aspect of the group & wants to get some of my songs. He wanted to do it before we left Chicago but we have a gig this week-end & so will have to do it later in L.A. Whew.
2. Our Chicago job, though good for us from a professional point of view was a real burn. (Burn—idiomatic for unfavorable balance of exchange—i.e. we got cheated.) The first 2 weeks were okay—we got paid. At the close of the third week, the mgr. of the club told us he didn’t have any money to pay us or to buy our plane tickets home,—so we were forced to work the 4th week for the cover charge & simply hope it would be enough to get us back home. And about the $1400 he owes us—well, he’ll send it when the club gets back on its feet & gee I’m really sorry & mumble mumble. So, here we are in our driveaway sweating across country cursing. But we have an I.O.U. from him & still think (hope?) he’ll pay us. I gleaned about $200 out of the gig though. Will get $120 this week-end & another $80–100 for the recording session. Think I’m going to buy myself a car. Also via the Chicago job, we got a very good job feeler for 2 wks. in Toronto & 2 more in Montreal—at $1500 a week, 4 days a week. In December. Sounds good now, but theoretically our record may be a hit by then & we’d be stars. But, we’ll see.
FASHION NEWS: Before we learned that we weren’t to receive any more salary, I felt very flush—I have $200 and $200 more coming—pure profit, bills already paid—So, I went out & bought myself a $35 pair of boots. Oh they are so groovey!! They’re old-fashioned in their style—tight, w/buttons up the front. Black. FANTASTIC! When I get back I’m going to rent a sewing machine & make myself some sort of beautiful/outlandish dress to go w/them.
HOWDJA LIKE TO DO ME A FAVOR DEPT: Y’know that box you’re ready to send me? Well, I thought of a few more things I’d like to have if they’re still around. I’ll list them, for efficiency:
1. the makings of my quilt. If I get the sewing machine, I’d like to work on it.
2. my knitting bag & the gray & blue Orlon sweater I was working on.
3. the black photograph album of Linda & I. Should have been in the second shelf of the desk. Also down there, a manila envelope—closed—full of rather inconsequential but very personal things—I’d like to have it too.
4. In the record holder, a small manila envelope w/a booklet & other things from a record club I joined—that too.
5. And, if they haven’t been given to Goodwill or Laura, a couple of articles of clothing: the grey & brown striped knit top and grey skirt? and the green cotton shirtwaist I liked so much.
6. Do I have a black knit hat at home? If so, send it too?
7. Recipe box & book. Hope this isn’t putting you out too much—I really appreciate it. Send it by Greyhound, that’s fine—my address is P.O. Box 94, Lagunitas, Calif.
What I want to do, if we get our employment on an even keel, is take a few days off & come home—to try & explain myself to you, to see everyone, & to sort my belongings. But heaven knows when I’ll be able to do that. But I’m still hoping.
All for now, I guess—if you find any little personal thing of mine that you think I might want, send it.
Love XXX
Janis
The gig over, the contract signed, the band started for the West Coast intending to record again in Los Angeles with Mainstream. Peter had saved his money, so he flew from Chicago in style. The rest of the group jammed into the Pontiac Janis mentioned in her letter.
Until October 2, 1966, LSD had not been covered by any laws, but on that date possession became a misdemeanor. Seven hundred or so hippies celebrated by congregating for a Love Pageant Rally in Panhandle Park. The flyer encouraged them to come “to affirm our identity, community and innocence from influence of the fear addiction of the general public as symbolized by this law.” Big Brother, the Dead, and the Wild Flower performed. Reporters from radio, television, and newspapers were on hand. Most celebrants were flying on acid in group defiance.
Janis and Pat “Sunshine” Nichols sat at the edge of the event. They traded a bottle of Ripple wine back and forth, staying away from psychedelics. They watched those around them trip on the geometric patterns of the leaves in the trees and the astounding allure of veins in the blades of grass. Janis and Pat were old friends from the Coffee Gallery. They didn’t need to justify their preference for alcohol over acid. They were part of the movement but rejected the chemical that gave the era its style.
TEN
SUCCESS WITH BIG BROTHER
Come away with me
And we’ll build a dream
Things will be like they
Never seemed they could be
—JANIS JOPLIN, “Come Away with Me”
BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY went back into the studio in the late fall of 1966. Bob Shad flew out from Chicago, intent upon getting some good singles to release. From the two studio sessions, Chicago and Los Angeles, Mainstream released the first single, “Blindman” and “All Is Loneliness.” Despite Janis’s enthusiastic mailing of 45-rpm singles to family and friends, and almost wearing out a copy on the Lagunitas stereo, nothing much came of the effort.
Big Brother was getting good local reviews for their record and their performing. Mojo Navigator Rock and Roll News said the record “. . .is excellent, both in terms of commercial potential and actual re-creation of their in-person sound.” In The Berkeley Barb, Ed Denson wrote in his column, “The Folk Scene,” “The chick really can sing, thou. She is a blues wailer working material from Shirley & Lee back to Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, with the ability to scream and throw her body into the music.” He continued, “But it was the instrumentalists who made the group out of sight. . . . I was hooked on the guitarists. . . . Overall was the feeling that the group was making their music, not just their living, & that they were doing some inventive things.”
Big Brother plunged into a tumultuous search to find bits of the soul, unearthed through gut-wrenching musical determination. Soul was Janis’s musical guide. It led her to black music and the black experience in white America. “Blue-eyed soul” was her entree into the white middle-class rock-and-roll scene. The roots came from folk and rhythm and blues, but it was uniquely white. Her music was an attempt to blend the styles meaningfully and echo the life of white America. People were working at creating the new sound, finding its definition. But there were limits. When Sam Andrew tried some unusual chords on a blues piece, Janis shot him down quickly, ever the purist, saying, “TV blues!”
Jive talk accompanied her absorption into black music. Every sentence started with “Hey, man,” recalled Paul Rothchild. In the middle was always the word like. “Hey, why don’t we, like, go downtown?” Drugs redefined the language; a frequent user was an “acid head,” a single dose a “hit” or a “tab,” and marijuana was “pot,” “grass,” “reefer,” or “good shit.” Life was art, and dialogue was improvisational theater. They thought a new society was beginning.
The Mojo Navigator of October 5, 1966, paraphrased the Declaration of Independence:
When in the flow of human events it becomes necessary for the people to cease to recognize the obsolete social patterns which have isolated man from his consciousness and to create with the youthful energies of the world revolutionary communities of harmonious relations to which the two-billion year old life process entitles them . . . we hold these experiences to be self-evident, that all is equal that the creation endows us with certain inalienable rights, that among these are: the freedom of body, the pursuit of joy, and the expansion of consciousness, and that to secure these rights, we the citizens of the earth declare our love and compassion for all conflicting hate-carrying men and women of the world.
We declare the identity of flesh and consciousness; all reason and law must respect and protect this holy identity.
October, 1966
Dear Mother—
Gawd, I feel so delinquent not having written in so long—& you just getting over a serious operation. I’m sorry, sorry. I’m so thankful that you’re okay—your letters sound chipper—& that they feel they caught it in time. I really am relieved & also very proud of you for the stoic way you handled everything. I know it’s rather late to be saying all this, but since I have my car I’m highly mobile, so if you ever need me or want me, call, Please.
Things are just as messed up around here as ever. We all just stumble from one day to another, not getting much of anything done. I’ve discovered I can’t do anything unless there’s a modicum of quiet & w/eight people in one house—talking & carrying on w/their babies, I can’t do any little things, like writing letters, mending, sewing, anything. For example, everyone is gone now (Allah be praised!) so I can do this.
I got a beautiful old sewing machine in a second-hand store. An old Singer w/gold fillgree (sp?) designs all over it. Also bought some blue velvet to make a dress for on stage—if I can get around to it, probably not until our lease is up & we each get our own place again.
Our record is out now—Blindman/All is Loneliness on Mainstream Records. We’re supposed to get 50 free records & I’ll send you one. We haven’t received any yet—they were due 2 wks ago. Do you suppose our record producer lives w/eight other people & just can’t seem to . . . oh of course not. We have one copy which we’ve played so much I can’t stand it any more. I can’t even tell if it’s any good.
Am sending you a couple of things. First, a picture of me looking beautiful—off a proof sheet that a photographer did for us. Second, an I.D. magazine w/some of the local bands in it. All the people w/names by them are friends. I send this so you can see how groovey the people in California look. The bands that are friends of ours are the Grateful Dead (isn’t Pig-Pen cute? They make Pig-Pen T-shirts now w/his picture on it—for fans. I have one—red.) the Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Charlatans (remember the blue poster I had of them? Is it still around by any chance? I’d like to have it.) the Outfit, & the P.H. Phactor Jug Band. Take a look at them, then at the Calliope Co. & then, if you’re steeled, the Family Dog picture. The Family Dog is Sancho on top of the truck—the symbol for all those people that form a rock & roll corporation & put on dances every week end. Those people are all friends of mine! Aren’t they amazing?! The people w/stars after their names are members of the band.
I’m in the back on the right. Really an amazing picture. They aren’t dressed up—they look that way all the time. Now, taken in perspective, I’m not so far out at all, eh?
My poor little car. I lost the keys so it’s hot wired. Lost a hub-cap. And the starter motor burned out so I have to push it to start it. It was a nice clean healthy little car & now its an out-&-out beatnik car—& it knows it. Poor thing. It’s out front, parked on a hill.
Linda & I are still writing—she and Malcolm and Sabina are now living on the boat that Malcolm built. She sent me a picture—she is so beautiful! Holding Sabina w/a bikini on—all brown. She just looks great! Sigh.
I think we’re supposed to go to L.A. in November sometime to record. Hope to stay w/Barbara or Donna [Janis’s cousin] while I’m there. Really want to see Donna.
Isn’t this ridiculous—I haven’t written in about 2 mos. & I can’t think of any news. Absurd. Well, I love you all, think about you a lot, will send you a record, & try to write sooner.
Love, XXXXX
Janis
November 20, 1966
Dear Mother. . . .
How is everyone? Fine, I hope. And happy.
We’ve been busy working lately—and glad of it. This business just isn’t any fun unless you can perform. The monitary aspects of not working are important too of course, but the real value is just in being appreciated. It’s worth all the hassles and bad rehearsals just to have 1500 kids really digging you. And for me to have a musician from another band tell me that I’m the best chick blues singer, bar none—not even Bessie Smith. Happened this weekend SIGH!!
Last week end, we were very busy—Fri. nite from 7:00–9:15 we taped a T.V. program—a local pop art show called POW! We did our record & had to lipsync it which is very strange. Then off to Sacramento in a rented car for a job that night. We were very late—11:15, so to fulfill our contract we had to play for 2 hours straight which is none too easy. The next night into the city for what ranks as our crowning achievement here-to-fore—a Hell’s Angels Party. A complete madhouse! Then Sunday night we played a zenefit—a benefit for the Zen Temple here in town. This weekend we played at a place in Santa Cruz called the barn. It’s about 60 mi. away, so we stayed at someone’s house & slept on the floor Fri. nite—which is just barely called resting. Moan. We’re at
the Avalon Ballroom next week end and the first part of December we’re supposed to be going to L.A. to record. Our record doesn’t seem to be making it despite quite a push from fans around here. The record company wants to feature me on the next sides so we’re working on my stuff and so on and so on, business, business.
Also new—I have a dog. So cute! Only 8 weeks old and fluffy as a dandelion. Part German Shepherd and part English Shepherd. He’s going to be pretty big. He has German Shepherd coloring but long curly hair, named of course, George. Actually, he was named George when I got him, so I kept it. Also, while in Santa Cruz this weekend, I caught a mouse. Just about this __________________________ big (not counting tail) and really cute. Haven’t named him yet.
My car now has Big Brother and the Holding Co. painted on it, and our symbol, the God’s Eye, very good, done by Mouse, one of the poster artists around did it. Very nice. Car, haven’t named it yet either, is running well but won’t start because of my non-working starter motor. So I jump-start it rolling down hills. Luckily we live on top of one. Will get it fixed as soon as we get monies.
I also have a $35 dermatologist bill. Doesn’t seem much better yet. He’s doing a new thing—at least to me. I’m taking internal medication called Tetracycline that he says has revolutionized the profession. We’ll see. But the advantages, if it worked, would be tremendous.
Last bit of news—we got a new manager, Jim Killarney & just shrugged all responsibility & information & money & everything off our shoulders onto his & last week he broke his back—literally (my analogy & story line got a little crossed there. . . . ) he had a car wreck so he’s in the hospital now & we’re all disorganized.
Now to matters at home:
Mother, did I read in your last letter that you’d gone back to work!? Good Heavens! Please don’t do too much too early. Take care of yourself for heaven’s sake. But if it means that you’re feeling that well, then I’m glad. Mike, mother told me of your grade in English & just want you to know how Pleased I am. Really proud of you—& I’ll bet you are too. Don’t you find it a kind of interesting class after you get your momentum up? Keep it up! Keep it up! Are you taking art this 9 wks or have you finished it? You could write you know. . . . Love you.