Janis Joplin and her crew arrived at the Woodstock Festival by helicopter on August 16, 1969. They had to be picked up from their motel due to the huge traffic jam caused by the massive attendance at the festival. Janis felt dizzy and nervous seeing the huge number of people from the helicopter. Despite wanting to perform immediately, she had to wait for about 10 hours backstage and watch the performances with her partner Peggy Caserta before going on stage in the early hours of August 17.
I mean you knew Janis swung both ways right? . . . .not really a confirmed out n out lesbian but definitely bi-sexual she was in a strong relationship with Peggy Caserta seen here at their arrival at the festival. It is said Caserta was also a dope dealer but I have my doubts the biography Going Down with Janis, I have mentioned before and it is largely rubbish but that Caserta was a confirmed gay woman is a given and Janis’ predilection for mixing it up with men as well drove the relationship with Peggy to a final end, sadly ending in Janis death and Caserta’s addiction issues (the reason for the dreadful book) . . . .a sad story but these were happier times!
Early Portrait of Janis Joplin With Guitar Taken by Marjorie Alette in Austin, Texas, circa 1962
From her early, unhappy teen years in Port Arthur, Texas, Janis Joplin seemed to know she wanted to be a blues singer. She once said she decided to become a singer when a friend “loaned her his Bessie Smith and Leadbelly records,” writes biographer Ellis Amburn. “Ten years later, Janis was hailed as the premier blues singer of her time. She paid tribute to Bessie by buying her a headstone for her unmarked grave.” She was devoted to the blues, from her earliest encounters with the music in her youth to her last recorded song, the lonely, a capella blues, “Mercedes Benz.”
But when Joplin first appeared on the San Francisco scene in 1963, she did so as a Dylan-influenced folkie fresh from the University of Texas, Austin. The year before, she had been described by a profile in The Daily Texan as an artist who “goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levis to class because they’re more comfortable, and carries her autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy.” The article was titled “She Dares to Be Different.”
Another great profile of Janis and her first band Big Brother and The Holding Company from Kostas over at Urbanaspirines. Not sure why now but why not!? It’s always welcome and if you didn’t know them then this is where to start! I think most if not all CDs are still available so go buy them! (Cheap Thrills bought when it came out, 15s 6d , still available £12.99)
"Big Brother and the Holding Company are an American rock band that was formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After some initial personnel changes, the band became well known with the lineup of vocalist Janis Joplin, guitarists Sam Andrew and James Gurley, bassist Peter Albin, and drummer Dave Getz. Their second album Cheap Thrills, released in 1968, is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album is also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. "
Cheap Thrills is the second studio album by Big Brother and the Holding Company, released on August 12, 1968, by Columbia Records. Cheap Thrills was the band’s final album with lead singer Janis Joplin before she left to begin a solo career.
The cover was drawn by underground cartoonist Robert Crumb after the band’s original cover idea, a photo of the group naked in bed together, was vetoed by Columbia Records. Crumb had originally intended his art for the LP back cover, with a portrait of Janis Joplin to grace the front. But Joplin—an avid fan of underground comics, especially the work of Crumb—so loved the Cheap Thrills illustration that she demanded Columbia place it on the front cover. It is number nine on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest album covers. Crumb later authorized the sale of prints of the cover, some of which he signed before sale.
Some site posted this over on Flickenabook and I won’t credit them anymore as they referred to Germans by a derogatory term, not cool man! I have asked that they edit it and complained but please this is the 21st century and we don’t need any more racists!
Meanwhile with the German interview and overdubs removed here’s the full concert clippage
the legend that is and was the astronomical JANIS JOPLIN
Cavett always seemed like a really nice guy. . . he looked like a ‘square’ but always seemed to appreciate the contemporary scene; Janis and the Airplane to name but two . . . . Here is Janis singing the Bee Gees!
THE DICK CAVETT SHOW. July 18, 1969 To Love Somebody - Big Brother live
Turns out this vid didn’t play and nobody told me!!
One late night Janis Joplin stepped into the Chelsea elevator with a professorial-looking man with a hangdog look—thirty-three-year-old Leonard Cohen. He would later memorialise the tryst that followed in two variations of his “Chelsea Hotel”—#1 and #2—with #2 featuring these lines about their sexual encounter: “You were talking so brave and so sweet / giving me head on the unmade bed / while limousines wait in the street.” Janis’s view of their encounter was less tender. The following year, during a session with acclaimed photographer Richard Avedon, while being interviewed by his assistant/writer Doon Arbus, Janis spoke about the ups and downs of her sex life. “Sometimes… you’re with someone and you’re convinced that they have something… to tell you,” she confided. “Or… you want to be with them. So maybe nothing’s happening, but you keep telling yourself something’s happening. You know, innate communication. He’s just not saying anything. He’s moody or something. So you keep being there, pulling, giving, rapping.… And then, all of a sudden, about four o’clock in the morning, you realise that, flat ass, this motherfucker’s just lying there. He’s not balling me. I mean, that really happened to me. Really heavy, like slam-in-the-face it happened. Twice. Jim Morrison and Leonard Cohen. And it’s strange ’cause they were the only two that I can think of, like prominent people, that I tried to… without really liking them up front, just because I knew who they were and wanted to know them.… And then they both gave me nothing… but I don’t know what that means. Maybe it just means they were on a bummer.” Leonard Cohen, it turned out, observed more than “nothing” about her. In his song’s lyrics and wistful melody, composed in the months after her death, Cohen captured her wit and lifelong, tortured relationship with beauty, writing: “And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty / You fixed yourself, you said, ‘Well, never mind we are ugly but we have the music.’ ”
"Janis Joplin performed on July 28th, 1966 at the California Hall in San Francisco, California, it was one of Janis' first gigs with Big Brother and the Holding Company.
This is a revisited version with normalized sound of the Light Is Faster Than Sound unofficial release."
Nice homespun and indeed homemade, compilation of the women of contemporary music from Kostas over at Urbanaspirines this morning and whilst I have most if not all the tracks it is well worth reading and checking the liner notes and downloading anyway!
Kostas says there may be exceptions and I thought well yeah obviously but . . . . . . .this is very comprehensive and we still have Vol II - VII still to go! Do you reckon anyone’s missing? If so, who? It even included women I didn’t really know (for shame!?) Angie New and Barbara Hudson? Anyone?!
Janis Joplin at the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, 1970. Photo by David Gahr.
Joplin was described by Record Mirror in 1969 as “a kind of mixture of Lead Belly, a steam engine, Calamity Jane, Bessie Smith, an oil derrick and rot-gut bourbon, funnelled into the 20th century between El Paso and San Francisco”.
As she told an interviewer: “Man, I’d rather have 10 years of superhypermost than live to be 70 sitting in some goddamn chair watching television.”
And she continued: “People aren’t supposed to be like me, make out like me, drink like me, live like me, but now they’re paying me $50,000 a year for me to be like me.”
“She was portrayed as this loud, Southern Comfort-drinking girl – and she definitely loved to have fun – but like so many women she was trying to find herself,” says Berg, who says that she fell in love with the singer as she learned more about her.
“She enjoyed the high of it, and she enjoyed what happened to her on stage when she was giving the audience everything she had inside, but she had a really hard time with trying to balance the high with the mundane aspects of life and finding the right people to balance it out with.”
-Edward Helmore
Janis at Woodstock with girlfriend Peggy Caserta
Peggy Caserta
Janis and Peggy
The Peggy Caserta story is worth pursuing but the first book 'Going Down With . . . ' is largely not written by Caserta but was issued to fund her then drug habit of some substantial degree, she later went on to try to correct this scurrilous nonsense. Janis was certainly nothing if not bisexual and sought warmth companionship and sexual relationships wherever she found them but Caserta was a confirmed lesbian and couldn't cope with Janis' sexual predilection for men when it arose.
Nice rare set from Rockasteria here and worth a download for Janis fans ( who isn't?)
plus a fascinating piece of interview text from David Getz recalling those early days when it behoves us to recall Big Brother were an established band (sic!) when they tried out a new young girl vocalist who many stalwart free form rock fans didn't care for and within such a short time rose to stellar proportions and left the boys standing in her dust!
Tracks
Disc 1
1. Bye Bye Baby (Powell St. John) - 4:10
2. Great White Guru (Chris Kenner, Arranged by David Getz, James Gurley, Janis Joplin, Peter Albin, Sam Andrew) - 5:46
3. Women Is Losers (David Getz, James Gurley, Janis Joplin, Peter Albin, Sam Andrew) - 5:09
4. Oh My Soul (Richard Penniman) - 2:34
5. Amazing Grace (Traditional) - 11:30
6. Caterpillar (Peter Albin) - 4:11
7. It's A Deal (David Getz, James Gurley, Janis Joplin, Peter Albin, Sam Andrew) - 2:13
8. Hi Heel Sneakers (Robert Higgenbotham) - 3:36
9. Faster Pussycat Kill Kill (Bert Shefter, Igo Kantor, Paul Sawtell) - 2:22
10.Turtle Blues (Janis Joplin) - 6:46
11.All Is Loneliness (Louis Thomas Hardin) - 9:04
12.Light Is Faster Than Sound (Peter Albin) - 6:26
Track 2 "Great White Guru" is a free version of "Land Of The Thousand Dances"
Recorded Live January 1967, at the Matrix, San Francisco
Disc 2
1. (Come On Baby) Let The Good Times Roll (Leonard Lee) - 2:37
2. I Know You Rider (Traditional) - 3:13
3. Moanin' At Midnight (Chester Burnett) - 4:57
4. Hey Baby (Peter Albin, Sam Andrew, Dave Getz, James Gurley, Janis Joplin) - 2:50
5. Down On Me (Traditional Arranged by Janis Joplin) - 2:45
6. Whisperman (Peter Albin, Sam Andrew, Dave Getz, James Gurley, Janis Joplin) - 1:46
7. Women Is Losers (David Getz, James Gurley, Janis Joplin, Peter Albin, Sam Andrew) - 3:48
8. Blow My Mind (Jimmy McCracklin) - 2:34
9. Oh My Soul (Richard Penniman) - 2:34
10.Ball And Chain (Big Mama Thornton) - 6:43
11.Coo-Coo (Peter Albin) - 2:30
12.Gutra's Garden (Peter Albin, Sam Andrew, Dave Getz, James Gurley, Janis Joplin) - 4:36
13.Harry (Dave Getz) - 0:37
14.Hall Of The Mountain King (Traditional) - 6:51
Recorded Live July 1966, California Hall San Francisco
Big Brother And Holding Company
*Janis Joplin - Vocals, Maracas
*Peter Albin- Bass, Vocals
*Sam Andrew - Guitar
*David Getz - Drums
*James Gurley - Guitar
Go on you know you want to!
'Down on Me'
Meanwhile . . . . some time later . . . "Combination of The Two" D.A. Pennebaker's 'Monterey Pop Festival'
During Janis Joplin’s December 19 Madison Square Garden concert she was joined on stage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield. Winter was also Janis’ date to the premiere of Myra Breckinridge.
“I didn’t see her a lot, but from time to time I’d see her,” Johnny says. “When we got together, she would usually call my agency and I would call her back. One time her office called my office and asked if I wanted to go to the premiere of Myra Breckinridge with Janis. It was Mae West’s last movie. That was the first time I spent any real time with her. We went to the premiere in New York and it was a lot of fun. We were both dressed up. I was wearing a long velvet coat with bellbottom pants and a long scarf. Janis dressed in feathers and a big ole cape. “Janis was a real sweetheart but she was drinking too much and taking too much dope—mostly drinking too much. We both felt comfortable being around each other because we were both born in Texas in towns close to each other. We didn’t really have a relationship—Iʹd just see her once in a while and we’d go to bed together. We stayed on Fifth Avenue when she was in New York."
Sullivan, Mary Lou. Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter - Woodstock 1969
Janis on Dick Cavett - To Love Somebody ( a favourite of all time song)
Janis and The Full Tilt Boogie Band on Dick Cavett - the last interview
