On the Road with Janis Joplin

by John Byrne Cooke

  From repeated viewings in Pennebaker’s screening room, I know Redding’s set by heart. It comforts me to imagine him now in an exclusive group, made up of musicians who have died in plane crashes, that entertains the Heavenly Choir on its days off. Otis sings in harmony with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens and J. P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson, and he gives a soul twist to the country melodies of Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins. The backup band is conducted by Glenn Miller.

  We play Fresno and Turlock, Merced and Modesto, small cities strung along U.S. 99, which traverses the San Joaquin Valley north-and-south, a strip of macadam that runs through the heart of America’s vegetable basket. The kids in the Valley aren’t quite sure what’s expected of them. Their hair is still short, but they’re on the receiving end of prevailing winds from the coast and they’ve picked up a contact high. The grown-ups have felt the vibe too, and it makes them edgy. Soothing the powers that be is part of my job from the start. We’re just a jolly bunch of long-haired musicians, sir—nothing to worry about.

  Until my first gig with Big Brother, I’ve heard the band do only the songs they performed at Monterey, with “Ball and Chain” foremost in memory. Sam Andrew’s “Combination of the Two,” about the San Francisco dance-hall scene, is in the movie too. The lyrics include a play on “Fillmore” in a line directed to a girl who has caught his eye: “I’d like to feel you more, baby.”

  In the band’s concert sets, which run forty-five minutes to an hour, there are songs from many backgrounds. I’m pleased to find a couple of traditional folk songs on the list. Clarence Ashley’s 1929 recording of “The Coo-Coo Bird” is on Harry Smith’s six-LP Anthology of American Folk Music, which was the Rosetta stone to the folk boom. I’ve heard Ashley perform the song live, at the Club 47 and Newport. More than thirty years after his original recording, he gives it new life each time. Big Brother’s version is faster, driving, but it has the right feeling, Janis singing up high, flying with the coo-coo bird. Peter Albin plays lead guitar. The band has combined “The Coo-Coo” with another song, “Oh, Sweet Mary.” When the vibe is right, Big Brother’s medley can run for a long time, like a Grateful Dead jam.

  The band’s version of “Easy Rider” is very different from the slower, traditional bluesy version that was a staple of the folk revival. This one swings right along. Janis and James share the lead vocals and James sings a verse that was definitely not in the traditional version (nor is it on the Mainstream album): “I got a woman who walks like a duck; she ain’t good-looking but she sure can . . . dance! Easy Rider, don’t you deny my name! Oh, no!”

  In the mild December of California’s Central Valley, the high school and college kids in Big Brother’s audiences are getting a dose of traditional American music, turbocharged by the San Francisco renaissance, as well as tunes from unexpected sources beyond the traditional canon.

  An eerie song called “All is Loneliness” is unique, unlike anything I have heard before. I am astonished to learn that it was written by Moondog, an anachronistic apparition I have seen on Sixth Avenue in New York. He is very tall, has a long gray beard, carries a spear, and wears homemade clothes and a leather hat with horns that makes him look like a Viking. Finding that Big Brother does a song by this singular character from my hometown makes me feel connected to Janis and the boys in an unexpected way. Like my friends in Cambridge and Berkeley and New York, Big Brother has gleaned songs from far-ranging sources. Unlike many in the folk revival, they aren’t trying to replicate the original forms. With rhythms and vocal harmonies that are distinctly their own, Janis and the boys have brought the older songs beyond folk and folk-rock into the present moment, charging them with new energy and offering them to a wider audience than the folk boom reached even in its largest assemblies.

  James Gurley was Big Brother’s lead guitarist at the band’s creation, and his unique style defined the group’s distinctive sound. By the time I join them, Sam has become the co-lead. He and James swap rhythm and solos, and you have to pay close attention to tell who’s doing what. The synthesis they have achieved is impressive, because they are in many ways polar opposites. Sam’s musical education is rooted in the classical tradition, while James has absorbed his music from the ether. He is unacademic, nonintellectual, and a thinker all the same. Like Sam, James is given to damping down excess cerebral activity with alcohol and drugs.

  One of the songs they play together, a real surprise on the set list, for those who recognize the theme, is Sam’s arrangement of Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King,” from the Peer Gynt Suite. The original is less than four minutes long, but Big Brother’s version explores rambling variations on the theme that never occurred to Grieg.

  At most of our shows I get to hear part of the set, but I have other responsibilities when the band is onstage.

  Road managing is about logistics, communication, and money. The basics are simple: Get the band to the gig, see that they fulfill their obligations, see that they get paid. Ideally, the musicians can think about nothing but the music, while the travel arrangements and the business are handled so smoothly that they’re scarcely aware of it. Keeping the promoter satisfied is part of the job. So is seeing that he holds up his end of the bargain. It’s just what Neuwirth said: Get the band to the gig, collect the money, make sure everybody’s happy.

  Early on the job, I establish as policy another piece of Bob’s advice: The road manager does not carry your guitar. You are the musician. You carry your own guitar. When you need cigarettes or booze, you will buy them yourself. “Don’t be their gofer,” Bob said. “If you’re running around getting them cigarettes or a bottle of whiskey, you won’t be able to do your job.”

  The band’s equipment travels ahead of us in a beat-up van driven by Big Brother’s equipment man, Dave Richards. Dave carries only the stage equipment—the instrument amps and Dave Getz’s drums. The promoters provide the PA system. Checking that the PA is adequate is up to Dave. If he runs into an uncooperative promoter or some schmuck who thinks one mike and a fifty-watt amp is enough, Dave calls me and I get to play Bad Cop, but this is rare. Dave has been doing this job for a while. He’s got it covered.

  When we arrive at the gig, I introduce myself to the promoter and get the band to their dressing room. I check with Dave to make sure he’s cool, then scout the layout of the hall. Where’s the box office? How many doors are there?

  There are two kinds of gigs: flat-rate and percentage. The simplest, from a road manager’s point of view, is a flat-rate deal. If the band is getting paid a flat $3,000, the promoter can let the whole town in free and I don’t care. He has deposited 50 percent of the fee with Albert’s office beforehand. I collect the other half at the gig. A flat-rate gig is an incentive for the promoter to advertise the show effectively and make a bundle. Everything above our guarantee is his. It is to the band’s advantage, of course, to share in the profits if they draw a big audience. This is why, from my first days on the job, most of Big Brother’s gigs are percentage deals. On a percentage deal, the band gets a guarantee plus a percentage of the gross receipts. For these early gigs under Albert Grossman’s management, the guarantee usually ranges from $2,500 to $3,500 against 50 or 60 percent of the gross.

  On a percentage deal, I have to know how many tickets the promoter sells and I have to calculate what Big Brother is owed, to make sure the promoter’s accounting is accurate. If the tickets are printed for the gig, I want to see the printer’s manifest. For roll tickets, I take the starting number on each roll. At the end of the show, I get the end numbers and we assume the promoter sold all the tickets in between, less a reasonable number of comps that he gave away. He’s supposed to have a written record of these, plus any comps issued to the band or our guests.

  I’m still learning the routine when—Oops! Gotcha! On the seventh or eighth gig I discover a scam.

  We’re playing a Saturday afternoon concert in the Valley. The promoter—I’ll call him
Joe Promo—is selling roll tickets, nice little “Admit One” red jobbies just like Saturday afternoon at the movies. Each ticket is numbered. There are two box offices, the better to serve the eager fans. Joe has provided me with the starting numbers from two rolls of tickets, one for each box office. At the doors to the hall, the ticket takers are tossing the tickets into big wastebaskets without tearing them, which is okay—any ticket no longer attached to the roll is sold. Big Brother has attracted a good crowd and the mood is up. The kids are happy, Joe’s happy, the band’s happy, I’m happy. Until I pick up a handful of tickets from one of the wastebaskets by the entry doors to check the numbers. Egad, Watson, what’s this? Some of the tickets are from a roll my starting numbers know nothing about.

  I stroll out to the box offices and check the stream of kids coming away from the ticket windows. “Could I see your ticket, please? Thanks.” The out-of-sequence tickets are coming from one of the two box offices.

  I present the rogue tickets to Joe Promo. He turns red and storms off to talk to the ticket seller. He comes back with a story about his box office guy selling tickets from a third roll under the counter and pocketing the money. This may be true, but it’s just as likely that Joe himself was responsible for the scam. It’s not my job to determine who is the guilty party. In situations like this, the promoter is guilty until proven innocent.

  I spend the first half hour of the concert sorting through the purchased tickets with the help of the ticket takers. I find the highest serial number from the third roll and assume all the tickets up to this number were sold, starting at 0000. Joe Promo accepts my calculations without complaint. For this gig, the tickets from the third roll make the difference between collecting just the other half of our guarantee and going into percentage.

  When I send the proceeds to the New York office, I report the scam to Albert so he can decide if he’ll do business with Joe Promo in the future. Joe is a two-bit local promoter, but if I were to find a similar rip-off being run by a regional promoter, someone Albert does business with regularly . . . the responsibilities of the job just got bigger.

  In San Francisco I am camping in a cream-colored stucco motel a block off Lombard Street in the Marina district until I can find a pad. West of Van Ness Avenue, Lombard is a commercial strip lined with restaurants, motels and businesses. I can get my laundry done or buy a meal within a few minutes’ walk of my motel, but it’s not a part of town where I want to live for long. I’ve got a station wagon from Hertz until I get a car, and I start looking for a place to rent on my days off.

  My mornings are spent on the phone. Albert’s office has supplied me with an itinerary for the coming weeks and contracts for the gigs. I check the flights if we’re taking a plane, check the motel reservations, call the promoters. What time is the sound check? What time do the doors open? What time is the show? How long is the show? What time will Big Brother go on? In my spare time, I visit with friends in Berkeley or go to the Fillmore or the Avalon with members of Big Brother. Then I get a revised itinerary from Albert’s office with new gigs on it, and I’m back on the phone.

  For the Valley gigs, I usually drive the band in the rent-a-station-wagon. Where it’s a toss-up between driving and flying, I call the band members to take a poll. Would you rather spend three hours in a car or three hours in airports and airplanes? Albert hired me, but I work for them. The band’s income pays my salary, and from the start I involve them in these decisions.

  On a street map of San Francisco I chart a course from my motel to the band members’ homes in the Haight. The day before we travel I call them to let them know what time I’ll pick them up. I build a lot of extra time into the schedule. These are musicians. Their clocks run slower than mine. Sam is congenitally late. I tell him to be ready at eleven. He’s the last to be picked up because he lives on Oak Street, east of the Haight. From his house it’s a straight shot to the freeway on-ramp. When the rest of us pull up in front of his place at eleven thirty, maybe he’s ready. But this is a game two can play. Sam begins to allow for the fact that I arrive later than I tell him.

  When someone slows us down, I can get wound up in a hurry. If Sam seems to be deliberately lagging, messing with me on purpose, my style of road managing becomes, shall we say, intense. When a member of the band wanders off in an airport and almost makes us miss a plane, my admonitory rant may turn heads in our direction. I vent my displeasure at volume, but I don’t hold a grudge, and I hope the band sees that my aim is to get us where we’re going. Just because I handle the plane tickets and drive the car like their parents did when they were children, that doesn’t mean they can get away with behaving like children now. They’re grown-ups. To their credit, they prove they’re grown-ups by viewing my flare-ups with humor, except for the one who’s bearing the brunt. In those moments, they take to calling me the Road Nazi, and in time they manage to make it an affectionate nickname.

  Sam is the one who incurs my outbursts most often, but I can’t stay mad at Sam. He’s my first real friend in the band. He has played music since his early teens—jazz and classical, saxophone as well as guitar, all through his years as a student. Intellectual, sensitive, thoughtful, a die-hard romantic where women are concerned, Sam dropped out of graduate studies in linguistics at UC Berkeley to play rock and roll. Linguistics is like the philosophy and physics of language rolled into one discipline. Someone who is attracted to linguistics is someone who enjoys the life of the mind in its rarefied recesses. Sam landed in linguistics after earlier studies in philosophy and English literature. In Big Brother, Sam is in retreat from the life of the mind. It strikes me that he will have to find an outlet for his intellect somewhere along the way, or suffer the consequences of keeping it in confinement.

  On our car trips, the band is like a bunch of kids. Are we there yet? I have to pee. Who’s got a joint? Can we stop and eat?

  Well, yes, because I’ve planned a meal break. When the timing is right, we like to eat at the Nut Tree restaurant in Vacaville, just off Interstate 80, our route from the Bay Area to Sacramento and the Valley. The Nut Tree has been a California landmark since the twenties. In addition to the restaurant, there is a toy store and a small-scale railroad that gives kids rides from the toy store to the restaurant. Inside the restaurant there’s a glassed-in aviary. Big Brother likes the Nut Tree because the restaurant bakes its own bread and features fresh vegetables and fruits on the menu. It’s as close as we can get to a health-food restaurant in the Valley.

  “Are there sprouts on the salad?” Janis wants to know. Janis is sporadically into healthy food. She fights a tendency to plump up on road fare. The boys eat like farmhands. I pay for the meals out of the road fund, and at first the band is horrified by the size of the tips I leave. We’ve run the waitress ragged for an hour—“Oh, miss, I asked for my coffee black.”

  “Can I change my soup for a salad?” (This as she sets the soup on the table.)

  “Could you get the chef to cook this steak for another thirty seconds on both sides?”

  “Can I get ice cream on that pie?”—and they begrudge her a ten-dollar tip. Ten bucks looks like a lot of money lying there on the table. “Hey,” I tell them, “the bill was sixty dollars—ten bucks is fifteen percent rounded up to the nearest dollar.” Over time, I raise it toward 20 percent. Let’s leave a trail of goodwill behind the hippie musicians, instead of frowns and a muttered “Good riddance.” Oh, but we’re poor, man. We can’t afford it. Bullshit. They think this is 1966 and Chet is still managing them. Persuading them that they aren’t as poor as they think they are takes some time.

  On one of our early trips to the central valley, I see a touchy side of Janis. East of the Berkeley Hills, we’re a band of long-haired hippies invading the Land of the Squares. Outside her hometown environment, Janis can be defensive. Something the waitress says, or something in her attitude, sets Janis off. “You know, you could be more polite to us. Our money’s just as good as th
ese other people’s,” is the gist of her short lecture. Janis’s tone manages to combine righteous indignation with the feelings of a child who has been unjustly scolded.

  On another occasion, the family in the next booth gawks at us and Janis is quick to get her dander up. “What are you looking at?”

  At first, I think Janis is too quick to take offense, but I come to see that in these situations Janis’s reaction isn’t only personal—she’s taking offense for all of us. She is just as quick to jump in if someone else is mistreated. If we’re eating at a wayside restaurant in the Valley that doesn’t get as many long-distance travelers as the Nut Tree and a couple of young hippies come in, the girl barefoot, both of them bedraggled and out of place, they may not be greeted in the same way the straight people are welcomed. When Janis perceives the slight, she intercedes in their defense. She sides with the underdog. She stands up for what is right. It’s not right to treat people badly because they’re different. This perception becomes a useful key to my understanding of what makes Janis tick.

  “She was very compassionate. And if she saw someone, an underdog, being treated badly—and she was totally capable of treating an underdog badly herself—but she would always really react to that. That would get her back up. Particularly if it were a woman. She would come to the defense of that person, very strongly. That was an enduring quality in her. She not only had that, but she consciously wanted to have it too, to project that to people.”