by Laura Joplin
Love and peace were in the air, but the band decided that living together was stretching it. In February they all moved back to the city to separate quarters. Living together had served its purpose. Big Brother and the Holding Company was now an organic entity.
February 1967
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTHER FROM JANIS
Again, my apologies for not having written, but we’ve been busy. Making a lot of money, ($600 for 4 night in San Jose for example) (SIGH!) getting a very good reputation (one of the Monkees came & heard us at the Matrix & supposedly left w/his mind blown!) got ourselves a manager who is so fine—does everything & really knows his business—really helped a lot, bought a ’52 Cadillac hearse for transporting band & equipment, and looking for new places to live in the city—we move out of here on the 15th. So, as I say, busy. Our new record is coming out soon & best of all, we’re really getting better. New material & new proficiency—it has us all turned on. We have a lot of confidence in our ability now & we’re irrepressible! (sp?) Well, we’re awfully excited anyway.
Don’t write to Lagunitas anymore. Write to Ashbury, S.F. until I send my new address.
The picture is from a bunch of promotion pictures we’ve had done. Hope you like it. All my love & best wishes, Mother. . . .
XXXX
Janis
By March 1967, Janis was back in the city. She had a new apartment, and a friend of Sam’s, Linda Gravenites, Nick’s former wife, was staying with her while she finished a sewing job. Linda was a tall, big-boned, attractive woman with dark hair and alluring eyes. She was a California native who grew up in the desert but abandoned the traditional life her adoptive parents planned, dropping out of college her sophomore year to be an artist. By the time she met Janis, Linda had been married and divorced twice. She had established herself as a gifted clothes designer for boutiques and a costume designer for the theater. However skilled, she wasn’t able to provide sufficient income to raise her two children, who were then living with relatives.
Linda’s life was in flux, and Janis and she crafted a relationship that gave each the balancing strength and friendship they needed. She had a wonderful sense of humor and was a delight to be around. She had a gift for craft work, sewing new hippie fashions with precision and artistry. One day while looking at a sink full of dirty dishes, Janis wailed, “I need a mother.” Linda said, “I can do that,” and so her temporary living arrangement became a permanent one.
Linda was a costume designer and began dressing Janis for her career. Casting out the madras Earth Mother influence of Nancy Gurley, Janis began grabbing the spotlight with shiny pants, blouses showing cleavage, and flowers in her hair. Linda saw Janis as flamboyant and lush but funky at the same time. Janis loved Linda’s plans and wore her creations with style. Nick Gravenites saw Janis enjoy the positive strokes she got with her new look. He also recognized that part of her resented how easy it was to change people’s attitude. Wasn’t she the same Janis, with the same voice? It was almost too cheap a trick to get praise just for changing a few external decorations.
Regardless, Janis worked on her image. Big Brother landed a job in the movie Petulia in March 1967, starring Richard Chamberlain and Julie Christie. Janis latched on to Sharrie Gomez, a socialite model working with photographers on the set. Sharrie introduced her to Stanley Ciccone, a fashion photographer at Macy’s, who took promo photos of Big Brother. Janis wanted him to help her become glamorous. She wanted to learn how to use makeup artistically. Ciccone counseled, “No makeup. I love you the way you are.” In spite of that advice, Janis believed the glamour-magazine hype that makeup techniques would make the difference between an ordinary face and a glamorous one. She had finally found people who knew, and wanted to take advantage of their expertise. She asked questions like, “How much eyeliner?” “How and where do I apply it?” “How could you improve my skin?” She began wearing makeup.
Janis also worked on improving her love life. Country Joe McDonald became her lover. He was a man of the times, a politically minded Berkeley rock-and-roll musician who led the band Country Joe and the Fish. He wanted to unite the scenes in the Haight and Berkeley. He often sported flowers at political benefits and protest buttons at hippie dances. Joe was about five feet eight inches tall, with a muscular build and sandy-brown hair that curled and hung shoulder-length. He had rugged good looks, with a beard and a winning smile. He was a considered man but wasn’t afraid to jump into the middle of emotional issues.
Janis and Joe strolled the streets arm in arm, hugging each other and grinning. Some say it lasted a few weeks, others say longer. Joe said they lived together several months, a six-month period of laughing and loving. Lying in bed in Janis’s city apartment listening to the radio, they gleefully turned up the volume whenever the DJs played a single from Big Brother or Country Joe and the Fish. Janis wrote in her scrapbook, “For awhile it was Country Brother and the Holding Fish.” They broke up in a very touching way, in love but unwilling to compromise their individual pursuits.
The success of Janis’s career was beginning to dominate her life. She asked her roommate, “Linda, how can you be so happy. You don’t have anything.” Janis was so consumed with succeeding that she couldn’t understand anyone not similarly inclined. It wasn’t just money and possessions that she wanted; it was also the approval.
Janis was becoming very serious about managing her career. She clashed with Peter Albin again because they both wanted to handle the business aspects of the gigs. They also vied for the role as front person for the band, pattering with the audience. “What are you doing?” Janis challenged Peter, not approving of his Lenny Bruce approach to talking with the audience. When they sang “Amazing Grace,” Peter liked to do a rap about a guy who was trying to see God and so he went to a psychedelic church and took LSD. He also enjoyed guiding the audience in breathing exercises. Janis preferred a more traditional entertainer style, talking about the history of the song they were going to do. She also liked copping the blues approach of setting herself apart from the audience by letting them in on the “truth” she had learned from her “experience” of hard knocks in the world.
Finding themselves without a manager again, Big Brother sought advice from someone they respected, the manager of Quicksilver, Ron Polte. He recommended Julius Karpen. Julius had a powerful nervousness about him that showed not in fidgeting but in the unwavering stillness of his body. “I felt they were on a mission from God,” Julius later explained, “helping lead the San Francisco revolution. They were as priests to the masses. My motto was to guide them and not let the outside world change it, to let the band stay true to itself. From the first day I met them, I knew Big Brother was the biggest thing happening in rock and roll. All that was needed was to show it to the world.”
The Haight-Ashbury scene was truly on the map by March 1967. Gray Line bus tours promoted a trip through the area as the “only foreign tour within the continental U.S.” The prankish Diggers, formerly the San Francisco Mime Troupe, who were masters of political street theater, chanced upon a bin of broken mirrors. The next tour through the district was met by hippies who ran beside the bus, holding up the mirrors so the tourists could see what they looked like while they were gawking.
March 1967
Dear Mother. . . .
Your beautiful letter came today & prodded my guilt feelings once again, so here I am. You were on my list though—I’ve been trying to get something written, honest.
I had written of a friend of mine, Bobbi, who had a place in the Haight Ashbury that I might move to. Well, I have for the time being. I have a room plus use of the kitchen & living room, complete w/TV. So I’ll be living here (Ashbury St., S.F.) until I let you know.
So far, moving into the city has really hung us up—we have no rehearsal hall. Very hard to find a place where you can make a lot of noise, don’t have to pay much rent, and the equipment will be safe overnight. So, we’re all sitting in our respective places trying to find something to do & waiti
ng. And it’s come at a very inopportune time—we were really getting into a good thing together—we’re getting lots better & we all have new songs we want to try & we can’t get together to do it & it’s so frustrating! So I sit around my new house & play folk songs on my guitar & watch television & make beads & take George for walks. George! Now, he is my salvation. He gets me out of the house when I’d have just sat & moped. And he’s so nice to come home to. After a job when I’m feeling especially lonely. I come home & he’s so happy to see me! Just can’t contain himself—he’s so sweet. He’s getting bigger & bigger but is really a good dog. When I take him in the car, he won’t get out unless I tell him to, never runs away, & is housebroken. And so sweet—all he wants is to be petted & loved. (That’s about all anyone wants though isn’t it? . . . )
Still faced w/the problem of what to wear on stage. I think I am going to have some clothes made by someone. A lot of the hippie girls sew & work from your design. Now all I have to do is design them. I’m pretty heavy again—so I want flattering things, plus they can’t be too hot, plus I have to be able to move around a lot in them. I have one idea—I have an old lace curtain—very pretty that I want to use for sleeves & make some sort of simple dress to go w/them.
Our new record is out & we seem to be pretty dissatisfied w/it. I think we’re going to try & get out of the record contract if we can. We don’t feel that they (Mainstream) know how to promote or engineer a record & every time we record for them, they get all our songs which means we can’t do them for another record company. But then if our new record does something we’d change our mind. But somehow, I don’t think it’s going to. But, we’ll see . . . More importantly, I feel, we’re playing better than ever. Seem to have more of an idea of working together not fighting each other w/our instruments.
To answer questions in your masterpiece of a letter:
The thing in the picture is an old tablecloth made into a parka or a shawl.
Tell Michael his puzzles puzzled me—is this what he’s doing in school?! Good heavens.
About your coming to California—that’s great!! As I understand, you’ll go to L.A. & then come up here. Oh, I think that’s wonderful! You’ll just love San Francisco, I know you will. Actually I’ve always hoped Laura would try & go to college out here, so maybe she could see some of the campuses while here. And of course I’ll take you to one of the big dances. They will blow your mind! It’s really startling at first to see. They’re based on pure sensuousness—or at least bombarding the senses & they just astound you. I remember the first one I ever saw just completely stoned me! Whew! And you can see us perform! Oh, I’d really like for you to.
Re your cartoon about haircuts I enclose a handbill from our last dance at the Avalon called the Tribal Stomp. The picture is of our lead guitar player, James Gurley, who says he laughs in every barber shop window. James is quite a romantic figure in the hip scene in S.F. (which numbers from 5–10,000 people according to the S.F. Chronicle) & reports are that soon 3 × 5 posters of his face will be on sale around. Fantastic, eh?
Well that’s it for now I guess. I’m sorry I don’t write more often but I do think of you all the time. All my love. Looking forward to seeing y’all.
Janis
P.S. I know I’ve asked before, but do you have the black scrapbook w/pictures of Linda & I—I really would like to have it. Please look.
Big Brother emerged within the context of the democratic San Francisco music scene. Problems were discussed in group meetings and settled amicably. The group secured a warehouse on Van Ness in which to practice, and they returned to seriously focusing on their music, rehearsing daily. “There was a lot of input from everyone about the music,” recalled the band’s new attorney, Bob Gordon. “There was real good genuine cooperation from everyone. . . .”
Julius sent Janis for voice lessons with Judy Davis, who coached the stars. Janis attended begrudgingly, with Julius feeling compelled to call her before each lesson to be sure she went. For six months Janis practiced sliding through the upper and lower registers and singing the vowels, holding them until her breath would come no more.
The band was making money, enough to begin putting some aside to buy new instruments as the old ones wore out. “It’s not fair,” Janis complained as Julius explained this new arrangement. “I’m only a singer, I don’t have an instrument.” She relented as Julius explained that a good PA system and good instruments meant a better sound behind her.
Already people were telling Janis that she was better than the rest of the band. In spite of the band’s family attitudes, Janis was still looking out for Janis. In Los Angeles, she called a band meeting. “Look, I think I’m doing more for this group, and I would like to be in charge, sign the union contracts like Peter does, and get the additional money.” “What?” Peter exclaimed. “You think I’m getting more money?” Ooops. Union rules allowed for the leader of the band to get 20 percent more, but in egalitarian hippie bands, it was equal shares all around. “No,” Peter said, “we share everything.”
The five of them put up with each other’s quirks. “I’m not giving them any money,” Janis yelled at Julius when he asked about her court summons for a stack of traffic tickets. “We can just pay the fines, Janis. It means loss of income to the band if you spend time in jail,” he implored. “I’m going to jail,” she retorted. “Janis, you’re tough,” he sighed. Jail it was—for one day, until Julius paid the fines.
Philip Elwood, in the San Francisco Examiner on March 22, wrote, “Most dynamic of the musical performers is granny-gowned Janice [sic] Joplin with Big Brother. . . . And the Big Brother band is in good shape, too. Their guitar-bass blend has become an harmonic fascination and the once ponderous rhythm is now moving in a rolling good dancing pattern.”
The hippie audience loved Janis. “Janice,” one wrote on a card accompanying flowers, “your voice defies the use of stupid words. You’re just too much.” The band was making money and getting love and acclaim from their audience.
“Karleen, don’t put the phone down, I want you to hear something,” high school friend Arlene Elster said, telephoning from San Francisco to Port Arthur. In 1967, she lived across the street from the Avalon Ballroom. She opened the apartment window and moved the phone receiver closer. “Can you hear that, Karleen? That’s Janis singing!”
Janis’s Texas friends were still in her life. “She sent me a poster of her, with a nipple showing,” said Tary Owens, “along with a note, ‘I’m the first hippie pin-up girl. What a kick!’” Posters by Berkeley Bonaparte presented sixteen choices for $1 each, except Janis and Yab Yum, which were $1.50. Her intent stare sold alongside photos of Oscar Wilde, Allen Ginsberg, and Ho Chi Minh.
When Janis sang, she put her all into the performance. “She was a great singer, but basically she was a performer,” said Linda Gravenites. “Going onstage, Janis was like a thousand-watt light bulb going off. . . . Her insecurity made her a great performer because she needed the return that she got.” Janis, along with the rest of Big Brother, brought a cup of the night’s choice of liquor onstage during performances. Some brought whiskey, others brandy, but whatever the flavor, alcohol was a proven lubricant for everyone in the group. Janis sometimes drank a bit before going onstage, just to loosen herself up. She would stretch as though preparing for the aerobic workout of her performances.
April 1967
Dear Mother, family
Things are going so good for us & me personally I can’t quite believe it! I never ever thought things could be so wonderful! Allow me to explain. First of all, the group—we’re better than ever (please see enclosed review from S.F. Examiner) and working all the time. Just finished 3 weeks straight engagements, 6 nights a week & we’re booked up week-ends for well over a month. And we’re making a thousand or over for a week-end. For single nights we’re getting from $500–$900. Not bad for a bunch of beatniks, eh? And our reputation is still going uphill. It’s funny to watch—you can tell where you are by the people th
at are on your side. Y’know, the scene-followers, the people “with the finger on the pulse of the public.” One of the merchants on Haight St. has given all of us free clothes (I got a beautiful blue leather skirt) just because 1) she really digs us & 2) she thinks we’re going to make it & it’ll be good publicity. Our record is enjoying a fair reception—much better than our first one which was much, much better. We made #29 in Detroit but we don’t really know what’s happening because we never hear from Mainstream. It’s a long & involved story but we really feel like we’ve been used & abused by our record co & we’d like to get out of the contract but don’t know whether we can. We talked to a lawyer about it & he seemed fairly negative & we can’t even get ahold of our record co. to talk about it. So until further news, we’re hung up. There’s a slim possibility we might go to Europe & play this summer. There’s a hippie boat going back and forth & rock bands get free passage if they play on the way over. And Chet, head of the Family Dog, is trying to organize “” dances over there & if he does, we’d have a place to work. Probably won’t work but it sure would be groovey. Speaking of England, guess who was in town last week—Paul McCartney!!! (he’s a Beatle). And he came to see us!!! SIGH Honest to God! He came to the Matrix & saw us & told some people that he dug us. Isn’t that exciting!!!! Gawd, I was so thrilled—I still am! Imagine—Paul!!!! If it could only have been George. . . . Oh, well. I didn’t get to see him anyway—we heard about it afterwards. Why, if I’d known that he was out there, I would have jumped right off the stage & made a fool of myself.
Now earlier, I spoke of how well things are going for me personally—it’s really true. I’m becoming quite a celebrity among the hippies & everyone who goes to the dances. Why, last Sunday we played a Spring Mobilization for Peace benefit & a simply amazing thing happened. As the boys were tuning, I walked up to the front of the stage to set up the microphones &, as I raised the middle mike up to my mouth, the whole audience applauded! Too much! And then as we’re getting ready to play, a girl yelled out “Janis Joplin lives!” Now you can’t argue with that, and they clapped again. Also, a rock publication named World Countdown had a collage on its cover using photographs of important personages in & about the scene & I’m in there. Also they’re bringing out a poster of me! Maybe you’ve read in Time magazine about the personality posters. They’re big, very big photographs, Jean Harlow, Einstein, Belmondo, Dylan, & Joplin. Yes, folks, it’s me wearing a sequined cape, thousands of strings of beads & topless. But it barely shows because of the beads. Very dramatic photograph & I look really beautiful!! If it wouldn’t embarrass you, I’ll send you one. I’m thrilled!! I can be Haight-Ashbury’s first pin-up.