by Laura Joplin
Janis had a lot to be happy about. She had appeared in a fashion spread in the October 8, 1967, San Francisco Examiner living section. “Wearing a poncho of antique Moroccan fabric over velvet peone [sic] pants” and a red flower in her hair, Janis stood jauntily on a hillside in Buena Vista Park for a group portrait of stylishly hip women and their dress as designed by Jeanne Colon.
In her scrapbook, Janis wrote, “At last, recognition,” next to a San Francisco Chronicle column by Herb Caen about the changing nature of the hippie movement, away from peace and LSD. He wrote, “I remember a party at Hillsborough where Big Brother and the Holding Company played, and singer Janis Joplin kept belting the champagne, one glass after another. I was shocked. Pretty soon they’ll be wearing mink stoles and making love furtively instead of openly.”
She received fan letters from men saying they had hunted forever for a woman like her, asking her to share the energy of love and to “see God in each other’s eyes.” She could talk about the December review of their gig at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach that headlined, JANIS JOPLIN TOO FULL OF SOUL FOR HOLDING COMPANY PARTNERS. Yes, Janis had plenty to discuss with her old trusted friends.
The fall of 1967 was a good time to review personal commitments. Though the social revolution was gaining speed, the scene in Haight-Ashbury was souring with age. The venereal-disease rate was up six-fold in one year. Police were conducting daily raids on the streets, picking up underage runaways and anyone carrying pot or LSD. On October 2, police arrested musicians, managers, and friends at the Grateful Dead house on Ashbury Street for possession of marijuana, then a felony. The band protested through a subsequent press conference, complaining that since they were charged with a felony, society incorrectly equated smoking marijuana with the crimes of rape and murder. They challenged the country to look at the unpunished guilt of an automobile company that made cars that were knowingly unsafe and compare it with the benign experience of smoking grass.
Big Brother almost got arrested in October over a noise complaint during their three-day engagement at the Matrix, a popular club in San Francisco. It was located in a residential area, and neighbors had finally had enough of the thundering rock that regularly accompanied their weekend evening hours. In such situations, the police normally threatened to arrest the club managers. In this situation, they threatened to arrest the band as well. Under duress, the band canceled the last night of the gig.
The elders of the movement were heading out of the city to communes in the country or the healthy life-style of Marin County, just across the bay. The Beatles, the cultural leaders of the movement after Kesey and Leary were arrested, announced they were giving up LSD and getting into transcendental meditation, or TM.
The brief vision of a new-style community within the city had vanished. Hounded by the police, overpublicized by the press, swamped with unwanted and needy new converts, abused by criminals, and trivialized by tourists ogling at the scene, the core of the movement was moving on. In the spirit of rebirth, they held a wake and parade for “Hippie, devoted son of Mass Media.” October 6, 1967, in Buena Vista Park, ten pallbearers carried a coffin around Haight-Ashbury, ending in Panhandle Park, where they set the poor soul afire. Before Hippie was given his last send-off, high-pressure water from the fire department put out the whole event, a fitting symbol.
Janis was ready for a rest and a place to crow when she came to Port Arthur for Christmas 1967. She brought presents for the family—a gold pin with a pearl for Mom, a blue leather fringed vest for Michael, and a velvet and pheasant-feathered purse for me. She also brought 45-RPM copies of the band’s single “Down On Me.” Those she shared liberally with family and friends.
Michael ran next door to Jimmy Pryor’s house to show off his sister’s success. They sat around the record player in Jimmy’s living room as the needle settled into the grooves. Easing back into their seats, they tried to make sense of the new, raucous musical style. Even Michael was a bit chagrined. He wanted to shout for joy that his sister was on a record, but his close friends had difficulty finding a polite and honest adjective to mumble in their thanks for sharing the music.
Janis had a special warmth for Michael, the only family member who seemed to be trying to join the movement. He was an artist, echoing her earlier interest. She confided to him, “You look pretty hip, but you should let your hair grow.” Michael replied, “I can’t because the school won’t let us, but I let the front grow as long as I could.”
Janis’s old gang held a holiday party at Adrian and Gloria’s. Janis gave out copies of her 45-RPM record, saying she didn’t like it, but it was all they had out then. They were recording a new one.
“It was really exciting and fun hearing her stories,” Adrian said. “By then, Janis dressed differently, I’ll say outrageously,” he laughed. “She went down to the Seven-Eleven for cigarettes, and when she came back she was all upset because some guy had said, ‘By God, a costume party!’ She flew into the guy, but I think she got enjoyment out of that too.”
In our living room, Janis posed, shifted, smiled, and cocked her head as the photographer and reporter from the Port Arthur News, Leonard Duckett, took her picture. “Janis Joplin Drawing Acclaim . . .” read the lead. “Janis Joplin is another Port Arthuran carving her name across the country with talent.” Duckett and Janis had a friendly discussion about blues singers and their history, the meaning of soul, and the development of her career. “The band is making money,” she said. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” She laughed. I leaned on the doorframe of the kitchen, watching the unfolding of the public Janis, curious about the nature of press interviews, and pondering the new role my sister was developing. Before he left, Duckett shot a photo of the family together, the four of us in normal Texas clothes, and Janis in San Francisco attire—wild hair, with inordinately wide bell-bottom pants under a ruffled white blouse.
Returning to California, Janis had to contend with more than the gigs Big Brother was playing on the West Coast. She was pregnant. The father was a young guy and their relationship was nothing that would last. Janis flirted with the idea of having the baby and carrying it lovingly from dressing room to dressing room, but she soon faced up to the impossibility of having a child and continuing her career. While playing in Southern California, she went to Mexico and had an abortion. She knew the decision was best, but it grieved her terribly. She really wanted children. It was even harder for her because the procedure hadn’t been done properly and she suffered physically from it, hemorrhaging and having pain for some time.
January 31, 1968
Dear Mother, Father, Mike & Laura
Quite a surprise, eh?! Well I got your letter this morning & it’s stopped raining & I have an hour until rehearsal so George & I are in the park, respectively—chasing doves & writing to Mom. Thanks for that article on Aretha, she is by far & away the best thing in music right now. (Although, a review in Rolling Stone, a national rock & roll newspaper, called me “possibly the best female voice of her generation.” But I suppose she & I are of different generations. Well, I don’t know. . . . . 25 y’know)
Twenty-five. 25. XXV. A quarter of a century! Oh, it’s all too incredible. Thanks for the presents both Christmas & birthday. I loved the nightgown but I dyed it purple & aged it 10 yrs. It’s lovely. And the clock I really needed—but twenty-five?! I never thought I’d even survive this long.
I’ve been sick for the last week & a half & confined to bed so I finally had a wonderful rest. We had to cancel 3 days at the Fillmore & lost about $8000 but I feel so nice & calm now. The first time off I’ve had in months! Very fun, this was the first time I’ve ever been stay-at-home preferably in bed sick since I was away from home. I didn’t really realize it until one afternoon lying in bed drinking a beer. I suddenly flashed on the fact that lying in bed drinking a beer is the way to be sick! And I’d never done it before. It was really a nice time—people sent me flowers (3 vases full) and very many charming young men came to call
. Linda and I had a fine time.
On my birthday we were in LA. playing a club & everyone was so nice! The owners of the club sent me 3 dozen red roses—all over the stage when I came in, the band gave me 2 doz., some friends in S.F. sent me 1 doz. & (are you ready Mike?) Peter Tork sent me 1 doz red roses. And after the show we had lots of champagne & a birthday cake. Really nice.
Well, career news now. First of all the word from Albert is that we’re only a few weeks from finally recording again. Confidentially (if this shows up in the Houston Post I’ll kill you) Columbia has agreed to pay everything over $100,000. Mainstream’s lowest figure for us has been $250,000. We pay the $100,000. A lot of money but a good record right now would really set us. We’re getting an incredible amount of national press now and more to come. I just did a thing for Eye magazine, a hip young adult magazine put out by Harper’s Bazaar which will be out in March or April. An article on Grace Slick (of the Jefferson Airplane) & I w/full page color photos of both of us, so things look good. Very good.
And in February,we take off for 7 weeks on the road in the East. Playing Philadelphia, Boston, N.Y., Buffalo, some colleges, Toledo, Detroit. Should certainly test our mettle. Will be gone from Feb 15 to the 2nd week in April, so if my birthday presents don’t quite get there right, please understand.
Mike, your poster was GROOVEY & really good luck w/your light show. Sounds like a great idea. If you need any advice write, because I know lots of people that do them. Some of them the originators of the whole thing. Do you plan to start with liquid projections? They’re the best because they can reflect the mood of the music, & keep the tempo. If you can get this & incorporate slides with it you’ll really have something. You & your friend should get the equipment & rehearse w/records. Again, good luck, it’s a good idea. And I hope the flu doesn’t cut into your grade, too much.
Well, no more news I guess. You’d better frame this—it may be another year . . . Bye & love,
Janis
TWELVE
BREAKING UP WITH BIG BROTHER
Well, you told me that you loved me
I believed you darling, but you lied, you know it’s true
I hold you to my heart, I believe until you leave
And then I cry . . .
Oh darling . . .
Make it the last time . . .
—JANIS JOPLIN, “Last Time”
FEBRUARY 17, 1968, Big Brother and the Holding Company opened on the East Coast at the Anderson Theater in New York City. They were the headlining act for a program that included B. B. King and a new rock group, the Aluminum Dream. New York was a whole new experience for the group, but one they were ready to make their own. Myra Friedman, in her book Buried Alive, wrote about the Anderson event, the first time Myra had seen the band. “She [Janis] crouched for a second and I jumped up in astonishment as the entire theater blazed open. Never before had I heard a sound like that! She was a headlong assault, a hysterical discharge, an act of total extermination. It was as if some invisible claw had risen up from her throat, its talons hooked to tear unmercifully at the outer reaches of the auditorium.” Myra related the tunes, opening with “Catch Me, Daddy,” followed by “Summertime” and “Piece of My Heart.” The last of four encores was Big Mama Thornton’s “Ball and Chain.” Friedman wrote about the finale, “A stunned pause followed. Then the crowd reared back like a huge stable of just-branded horses and heaved forward with a shrieking charge to the stage.”
Robert Shelton of the New York Times besieged Myra, who was then the band’s press agent, for pictures and details about the band, all of which she was unprepared to supply. No one had expected the extent of press reaction to Janis and Big Brother. On March 9, 1968, Shelton wrote, “Rock Star Born on Second Avenue: Janis Joplin Is a Smashing Success in Debut Here . . . As fine as the whole evening was, it belonged mostly to the sparky, spunky Miss Joplin. She sounded, at first, like an athletic soul shouter, a white stylistic sister of Aretha and Erma Franklin. But comparisons wane, for there are few voices of such power, flexibility and virtuosity in pop music anywhere.” Big Brother had arrived in the East, and Janis had taken it by storm.
The band members were all overawed by their new success. Used to scraping by on a month-to-month basis, they were tight with their increased income. None of them was sure that what had come so surprisingly might not evaporate as quickly. John Cooke labored to convince them to spend a little extra to fly first-class. At that time, the difference was often less than twenty dollars a ticket. They finally settled on a routine of flying first-class when they were going coast to coast. The shorter flights were to be coach.
The eight weeks Janis spent in the East were marked by many milestones in her career. January 30 was the termination date of Big Brother’s ill-advised recording contract with Mainstream Records. They bought themselves out of their contract with Bob Shad and Mainstream. As Janis mentioned in her letter, it cost them $250,000, of which $100,000 was due to innocent conversations while visiting in Texas at Christmas. Janis had mentioned the possibility of signing with Columbia, a label of CBS Records. Mom told a family friend, who told her daughter, who shared it with a friend who was a reporter for the Houston Post. Once published as a gossip note, Bob Shad upped his price. ARRGGHHH! I remember the anguished telephone call about that, and the drawn faces of our family talking among ourselves. None of us could even imagine $100,000.
Everything over $100,000 was paid by CBS as a cost of doing business. February 1 was the effective date of their new contract with Clive Davis and CBS. Twenty pages long, it outlined the details of their legal relationship.
February 20, 1968
Dear Mother—
Well, here it is—our first New York review from our first New York gig. Too much? Eh! So now we’re in the process of taking the East Coast by storm. Also, as of yesterday afternoon we’re with Columbia, officially. Signed the contract on the 26th floor of the CBS building, met the president, had a press party, & got drunk. Am now in Albert’s office, just completed an interview. From all indications I’m going to become rich & famous. Incredible! All sorts of magazines are asking to do articles & pictures featuring me. I’m going to do everyone. Wow, I’m so lucky—I just fumbled around being a mixed-up kid (& young adult) & then I fell into this. And finally, it looks like something is going to work for me. Incredible.
Well, pin the review up so everyone can see—I’m so proud.
All my love,
Janis
I’m staying at the Chelsea Hotel, 23rd St. N.Y., very famous literary type intellectual hotel. Dylan Thomas lived & died there, Brendan Behan also.
The March 2 issue of Billboard ran a photo of Clive Davis, the ubiquitous president of CBS Records, welcoming Big Brother and the Holding Company. Clive was forceful and visionary. He was one of the first in the record industry to recognize the staying power of rock and roll, and thus signed many top acts. Unfazed by the entourage around her, Janis reacted with working-class honesty to the unlimited free records offered by Columbia. “I sat on the floor, in the middle of Clive Davis’s office, and went through the catalogue,” Janis told Linda Gravenites. She came back with boxes full of records, including The Baroque Oboe for Linda and two albums for me, by the Krainis Consort, playing my favorite madrigal recorder tunes.
Columbia threw a press reception for Big Brother at a tony Manhattan restaurant. Mike Jahn wrote a story that went out over the Bell-McClure Syndicate wire:
Janis is beautiful. In a business where popularity usually is accompanied by studied aloofness, she is a breath of fresh air. . . . In appearance she is a small, sexy doll, almost a toy that bounces happily around the microphone all the while assaulting the ear drums with the drilling intensity of her voice. Her disdain for bras and affinity for lightweight blouses adds a certain universal appeal to the basic raunchiness of her voice. She may become, since such distinctions are inevitable,the first major girl sex symbol in rock. For a lot of people, she is that already. . . . “I tell all the performer
s I meet to drink Southern Comfort because it preserves their voices,” she said. “It’s just an excuse for my own drinking.”
The February 23–29 East Village Other called Janis’s music “feminine vocal blues.” Peter Albin explained the band’s roots: “We’re not a white soul group. Just white, middle-class, suppressed, and repressed old-time beatniks.” The New York Free Press hailed Janis as the “Voice of a Lady Leadbelly.” The Village Voice of February 22 said that “the girl gap had been closed. The girl gap is an easy term for a hard problem that’s been facing the pop music industry. The plumage and the punch in the last few years’ rock has remained in the province of men. . . . Now, with Janis all that is over.”
Newsweek ran a story on “The Queen Bees” of rock, quoting Janis, Grace Slick, Mama Cass, Spanky, and Mama Cowsill. “The guys are starting to sing and there is something to build around, me,” Janis was quoted as saying. Peter agreed, “Without her, we’re nothing.” Already the “bizness,” as Janis liked to call it, was defining her image of herself.
Albert had added someone new to Janis’s retinue of business attendants, a press agent. Myra Friedman was a stubborn, persistent woman who cared about Janis to a fault. Her involvement in Janis’s press totally changed the publicity. Myra dropped the impromptu interviews after a performance and scheduled in-depth interviews, often back-to-back for afternoons on end.
From the first press feature in New York, the stories focused on Janis, not the band as a whole. They wrote as though Janis were a singer with a band backing her and not the family-unit San Francisco band. John Cooke recalled, “The guys in the band were mumbling, ‘Hey, how come the reporters only want to talk to her?’ They should have been smarter,” he added. The billing that Julius Karpen had been so insistent on keeping as “Big Brother and the Holding Company” was changed by Grossman’s office to “Big Brother and the Holding Company, featuring Janis Joplin.”