by Laura Joplin
Young, happy, healthy, and optimistic, Janis found the 1966 hippie scene in Haight-Ashbury a community of kindred souls. (© Bill Brach)
Texan Chet Helms introduced Janis to the band he helped form, Big Brother and the Holding Company. Here Janis and Chet pose near the Windmill at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. (© Herb Green)
One of Big Brother’s first promotional photos. FRONT ROW: Peter Albin, bass; Dave Getz, drums. BACK ROW: James Gurley, guitar; Janis; Sam Andrew, guitar; and Sancho, the family dog of the commune that sponsored dances, the Family Dog. (© Bill Brach)
Janis (FAR RIGHT) models clothes in this photo taken in Buena Vista Park. Jeanne Colon designed and made clothes for rock stars. For Janis, Jeanne made “a poncho of antique Moroccan fabric over velvet peone pants.” (© San Francisco Examiner; John Gorman, photographer)
Timothy Leary, an early proponent of LSD use, was out of jail on appeal when he was busted again for drug possession April 16, 1966, in New York. He was supported in his fight by the San Francisco hippie community. Big Brother played many benefits for all types of causes. (© Dennis Nolan, artist)
For several months in 1967, Janis had a deep romance with Country Joe McDonald, the leader of Country Joe and the Fish. They eventually split up because of commitments to their separate careers. (© Jim Marshall)
TOP: Janis came home for Christmas in 1967. Our lives entered a new era as reporter Leonard Duckett, from the local paper, The Port Arthur News, came to the house to interview her. He snapped this family portrait as a favor. (© Leonard Duckett)
MIDDLE: Janis signs her name to the band’s contract with Columbia Records. Janis wrote home, “Signed the contract on the 26th floor of the CBS Building, met the president, had a press party and got drunk.” (© John Cooke)
BOTTOM: Columbia Records threw a press party announcing the signing of Big Brother and the Holding Company. From left to right: their manager, Albert Grossman; James Gurley; Dave Getz; Peter Albin; Sam Andrew; Janis; and Clive Davis, the president of Columbia. (© Elliott Landy)
TOP: At home in her Lyon Street apartment in San Francisco in 1967. Janis decorated with the art of the times, lace, feathers, and posters of friends and idols. (© Jim Marshall)
BOTTOM: Janis in full regalia at an outdoor concert in San Francisco. (© Jim Marshall)
Janis and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of the Grateful Dead at the Northern California Folk Rock Festival, May 18, 1968. (© Jim Marshall)
Janis loved capes like this Mexican one that a fan threw over her shoulders as a gift one night. (© Baron Wolman)
Janis was also proud of this velvet cape she wore for a promotional shot of Big Brother and the Holding Company at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. (© Baron Wolman)
LEFT: Janis fondly referred to Albert Grossman as Uncle Albert. He provided the support and expertise she needed to propel her career forward. (© Elliott Landy)
RIGHT: In February 1968, Big Brother made its first East Coast tour, opening at the Anderson Theater in New York. Backstage the band joked with fellow musicians Ed Sanders of the Fugs and Barry Melton of Country Joe and the Fish. (© Elliott Landy)
LEFT: A sign of the times, Janis is reading an underground comic. Several of her Texas friends had moved to San Francisco and started Rip Off Press, a chief supplier of posters and comics. Dave Getz is peering at a report entitled “The Horror of Growing Drug Abuse.” (© Elliott Landy)
RIGHT: Big Brother’s first album with Columbia was Cheap Thrills. Much of it was recorded live at the Grande Ballroom. This was one of the new-style posters advertising hippie concerts. The poster design was by Gary Grimshaw. (© Artrock, 1153 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA)
TOP: The Janis Joplin image was becoming decidedly sexy as Linda Gravenites began creating elaborate, embroidered stage clothes. This one is crushed black velvet with beaded flowers sewn on the bodice. (© Joe Sia)
BOTTOM: Linda Gravenites was Janis’s costume designer, friend, and roommate for three years. She provided a steadying influence to the turbulence of Janis’s life-style and escalating career. (© Jim Marshall)
TOP: Janis formed a group she called the Squeeze, which later became known as the Kozmic Blues Band. Here they play on the July 18, 1969, Dick Cavett Show. From left: Luis Gasca, trumpet; Terry Clements, tenor sax; Cornelius “Snooky” Flowers, baritone sax; Maury Baker, drums; Brad Campbell, bass; and Sam Andrew, guitar. (Courtesy of Joplin family)
MIDDLE: Janis and her new group played the Fillmore East in New York February 11 and 12, 1969. Janis often played Latin American percussion instruments like this guiro. She also played maracas and claves—wooden sticks that are hit together. (© Elliott Landy)
BOTTOM: In 1969 Janis toured Europe April 11–24, through Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and London. She clowns here for friend and road manager John Cooke. (© John Cooke)
LEFT: In Amsterdam, Janis sings beside Sam Andrew, the only member of Big Brother she asked to join her new group. In Europe her new band received acclaim wherever they went. Janis remarked that the audience rapport hadn’t been this enthusiastic since the early days in Haight-Ashbury. (© John Cooke)
RIGHT: John Cooke was Janis’s close friend and road manager for the three principal tours of her career. (© Jim Marshall)
This portrait was taken in New York, December 1969, during a time in Janis’s life marked by confusion, drug use, and excessive drinking. Still she manages to shine for the camera. (© 1969 Jay Good)
LEFT: Standing in front of the hotel in Rio de Janeiro where Janis rented an elaborate suite for herself and Linda Gravenites and two new friends, Ben Beall and Janis’s boyfriend David Niehaus. (© Ben Beall)
MIDDLE: Ben, Janis, and David soaked up the street carnival life in Rio, partying and dancing till dawn. (© Linda Gravenites; courtesy of Ben Beall)
RIGHT: For two weeks normal life ceases for Carnival in Rio. Much of the partying takes place in the streets, which are elaborately decorated for the festivities. (© Ben Beall)
The last show of the Kozmic Blues Band was Madison Square Garden, December 19, 1969. For Janis the whole point of singing was communicating. She was always good to her audience. (© 1969 Jay Good)
LEFT: In May 1970, Janis opened a new band called the Full Tilt Boogie Band. When they toured the East Coast, they set up a base in New York and traveled from there. Here she is on Fifth Avenue going to her limousine, wearing a new signature item, feather boas in her hair. (© Clark Pierson)
RIGHT: The band got an unexpected break in the Midwest when a concert fell through due to poor support work. Sympathetic to the fans who’d bought tickets, Janis tried to give a free concert the next day in a local park, but they couldn’t get enough press to make it work. Here Janis relaxes with Ken Pearson and Brad Campbell of Full Tilt. (© Clark Pierson)
Janis toasted life with her Full Tilt Boogie Band, Clark Pierson, John Till, Brad Campbell, Richard Bell, and Ken Pearson. (© Jerry Tobias)
TOP: Friend and lover Kris Kristofferson dropped in to visit Janis while she was on tour. One of Janis’s best-known songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written by Kris. (© Clark Pierson)
RIGHT: Record producer Paul Rothchild joined the Full Tilt tour for a few months to get to know Janis and her sound so he could capture it on record. He produced Janis’s third major album, Pearl. (© Clark Pierson)
LEFT: Janis returned to Port Arthur, Texas, for her tenth high school reunion the middle of August 1970. Here she and I strolled from a press conference into the celebration at the Goodhue Hotel. (© Watkins Photo)
RIGHT: Janis and some of her former classmates at her high school reunion. (© Watkins Photo)
Sculptor Doug Clark captured Janis in many poses for a bronze statue of her that was underwritten by her high school classmate John Palmer. Donated to the city of Port Arthur, the statue is now a part of the Port Arthur Historical Collection at the Lamar University Library in Port Arthur. (Courtesy of Port Arthur Historical Society)
ABO
UT THE AUTHOR
With a master’s in psychology and a Ph.D. in education, LAURA JOPLIN both teaches and goes on countless speaking engagements, dealing with such topics from “How the 60s Impact Us Today” and “The Power and Illusion of Fame in Our Lives” to “Making Peace with the Emotional Stories in Our Lives.” She also works with her brother, Michael, to oversee their sister’s estate. Recently, she collaborated with Sony Music on several rereleases, including the new Pearl; Janis, the box set; and Live at Winterland ’68. But she is most proud of her four-year effort to research and write this biography, Love, Janis—which was instrumental in developing Randal Myler’s Off-Broadway play under the same title, Love, Janis.
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CREDITS
Cover design by Mabel Zorzano
Cover photograph by Francesco Scavullo
COPYRIGHT
Permission acknowledgments appear here.
This book was originally published in 1992 by Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc., and in a trade paperback edition in 1999 by Acid Test Productions.
LOVE, JANIS. Copyright © 1992, 2005 by Laura Joplin. Introduction © 2017 by Laura Joplin. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST HARPER PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED 2005.
Digital Edition DECEMBER 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-279817-6
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-075522-5
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Joplin, Laura.
Love, Janis / by Laura Joplin.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York : Villard Books, 1992.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-10: 0-06-075522-9
1. Joplin, Janis. 2. Singers—United States—Biography. 3. Rock musicians—United States—Biography. I. Title.
ML420.J77J6 2005
782.42166'092—dc22
[B]
2004059686
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