hxxps://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/view/?id=janis-joplin-life-red&src=facebook&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=red_d_us_eloisa_red6_66206_janis-joplin-life_all_conv-vid12_conv_both_18p_i-0_dynamic_cost-0.4_286407908&utm_medium=23849748379120230&fbclid=IwAR2cb4rb94-idkaef2pylHxbqYrtB1Yzd8j1lWkHSZUoJEYcw4o6xbNSbXw&page=12
*written by Leonard Cohen for Janis Joplin*
Tragic Turbulent Talent: the Life Story of Janis Joplin
yas! | By Allison Diamond | December 28, 2020
This article was originally published on thewindompeak.com and has been republished here with permission.
Everyone knows that Janis Joplin was the original rock queen and there will never be anyone quite like her. She died tragically young and went on to become a musical icon. But her life was always harrowing and self-destructive. Plagued by drink and drugs, she felt she never fit in and craved approval.
1
abcdn.pro
Today, we’re going to dig deep into her childhood, the bullying, pain, and crippling insecurity she endured, her career, her relationships, and ultimately, her death. So, grab a drink and let's see what made musical maestro Janis Joplin tick.
Southern Belle
Janis Lyn Joplin is best remembered for her Haight-Ashbury years, but did you know she was actually born in the racially-segregated town of Port Arthur, Texas? She came into the world on January 19th, 1943, the first daughter of Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college and Sunday school teacher, and Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), who worked as an engineer for Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura.
2
pbs.org
Exceptionally curious and bright, Janis first sang in her church choir when she was just a little girl. Her strict mother expected her to conform to the rules and wear dresses to look like the other little girls. But as she got older, her relationship with her mother became turbulent, often becoming a battle of wills.
Wanted Dead Or Alive!
Her father Seth was an intellectual who enjoyed reading and was much more liberal and tolerant than Dorothy. In a stroke of genius, Seth would take young Janis down to the post office to look at the pictures of wanted men as a form of entertainment! That’s the kind of dad and role model we all wanted. It’s a wonder she didn’t end up dying in a hail of bullets like Bonnie and Clyde!
3
dnevnik.bg
What with the mixed messages from her mother’s nagging and high expectations plus her father’s love of outlaws, it’s no wonder Janis became rebellious. She would go on to develop a complete and utter disregard for fitting in, etiquette, convention, the laws of the land, and all that baloney, instead pioneering woman’s liberation, and gender and civil rights.
Rebel Yell
Soon, young Janis started wearing pants and acting like one of the boys, which may go some way to explaining her many masculine qualities and later bisexuality. As a teenager, she loved painting, reading, and writing poetry. As a teenager, she befriended a group of misfits and began listening to and singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. Remember that school, it’s an important part of Janis’ origin story.
4
deviantart.com
Despite her artistic ways – always feeling alienated, the lifelong pain that led to her tortured soul, drug use, and singing the blues – she craved her mother’s and her Texas high school peers' approval and validation. Janis spent her whole life torn between being an artistic ne’erdowell while, at the same time, desperately wanting to fit in and be accepted as “normal”.
Little Girl Blue
Poor Janis wasn’t the most popular kid growing up. She recalled she was ostracized and bullied in high school, including by ex-Dallas Cowboys football coach Jimmy Johnson. In her own words, "The whole world turned on me". In her mid-teens, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Her hair was too frizzy and, unlike most of her 1950s Texas school peers, she got along with Black people.
5
auctions.yahoo.co.jp
Fellow students would tease her calling her a freak or a pig. Janis once said, “I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn’t hate Black people.” During her time at the University of Texas, some mean-spirited boys campaigned – and succeeded – to have Joplin named “Ugliest Man on Campus.”
She Dares to be Different
Janis never actually graduated from college, but she attended both Lamar State College of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27th, 1962. The headline read “She Dares to Be Different.”
6
imgur.com
The article began, "She 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. Her name is Janis Joplin." How cool is that?
Waller Creek Girl
During her time at the University of Texas, Joplin often performed with a folk trio called The Waller Creek Boys. Well, they were boys until they heard Janis' incredible vocals and let her join the band. Perhaps they should have changed their name to The Waller Creek Boys and Girl.
7
taringa.net
Joplin styled herself after her favorite blues heroines and the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student. She herself said, “This is a song called 'What Good Can Drinkin' Do', that I wrote one night after drinkin' myself into a stupor."
Country Road
Joplin left Texas in January 1963 "...just to get away… because my head was in a much different place" and hitchhiked with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Soon after, she was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the next two years, her drug use increased and she made a name for herself as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user in the Bay Area.
8
etsy.com
If she never left Texas, Janis never would have become the singing legend we know and love today. Or, if she had become a singer, but stayed in Texas, her songs would have been very different. She may have sung “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedez Benz, my friends all ride horses, I must make amends.”
Singing The Blues
Even before she was famous, drugs were taking their toll on this brilliant young woman’s life. Janis and the blues were a match made in heaven. Her songwriting frequently demonstrated trials and tribulations of love, heartbreak, loneliness, alienation, addiction, injustice, hopelessness, and being a down-and-out deadbeat but longing for a better life so often associated with singing the blues.
9
infobae.com
In 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a collection of blues songs in San Francisco. One session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
You’re Either On The Bus...
By 1965, Joplin’s health was on a rapid downward spiral due to her drug use. She was severely underweight to the point that her friends thought she looked skeletal. They really thought it was best that she go home to recover and hopefully get clean. They even threw her a bus fare party so she could afford the trip back to Texas.
10
autocarsmagazine.pro
Back in Port Arthur, Texas in the spring of 1965, her parents grew concerned about her health. She weighed 88 pounds (40kg) but Janis changed her lifestyle for the better. She avoided drugs and alcohol, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar while sporting a beehive hairdo like Amy Winehouse would years later.
A Life More Ordinary
Did you know that in the fall of 1965, Janis got engaged to be married? The man in question was Peter de Blanc, whom she courted toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked for IBM Computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Janis and her mom began planning the wedding but De Blanc, who traveled lots for work, broke off the engagement soon afterward.
11
radionos.com.br
A few years later, Janis stated she had no interest in just being a secretary or being a wife like all the other women she knew at the time. So, while he took another little piece of her heart, it’s actually a good job Peter skedaddled as Janis would never have made music if he stuck with her.
Choose Life
Through 1965 and 1966, Janis had regular therapy sessions with a psychiatric social worker by the name of Bernard Giarritano, also in Beaumont, Texas. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after Janis’ death, he described Janis as “diffused”. Friedman went on to call her “spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold…” One of the things that most bothered Janis was how she could possibly have a successful career in music without being tempted back to drugs. Giarritano tried his best to reassure her that she did not have to use drugs to be a successful artist.
12
reddit.com
Janis faced the age-old crossroads. Avoid singing professionally by becoming a secretary, and then a wife and mother, like all the other women in Port Arthur… or becoming a singer and risking relapsing into drug use. What would you choose to do? Live a long, comfortable but unfulfilled life as a secretary or live a short life in the fast lane and become a legend?
Leap of Faith
In 1965, Janis recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. You can hear these demo version tracks as they were later released as a new album in 1995, This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
13
pinterest.co.uk
In 1966, Janis Joplin’s life was about to change forever. She became a secretary. Only kidding… Joplin's raspy, soulful, bluesy vocal style and powerful mezzo-soprano range attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. The band was popular among the hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. The date was June 4th, 1966, and Janis Joplin joined the band she would become world-famous with.
It’s Not What You Know...
Janis had been recruited to Big Brother and the Holding Company by her old friend Chet Helms - the same friend she’d hitchhiked to San Fran with three years prior. In the meantime, he’d become a hot-shot promoter and Big Brother’s manager. Chet sent his friend Travis Rivers to find Janis in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
14
bbhc.com
Aware of her previous drug addiction in San Francisco, Helms and Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and Helms drove her to Port Arthur – waiting outside in his car while she told her mom and dad the good news (and presumably promising them she wouldn’t relapse into drug use) – before they began their long drive to San Francisco, where stardom... and heavy drugs awaited.
Broken Promises
Due to the magical persuasive powers of keyboardist and friend Stephen Ryder, Janis avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment in San Francisco, promise that using needles was banned in the house. But when bandmate, drummer Dave Getz, drove her home one night, Travis Rivers was not there, but guests he’d invited were injecting drugs…
15
Pinterest
"One of them was about to tie off," recalled drummer Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'”
Debut Album
In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California. They often partied with fellow psychonauts, The Grateful Dead, who lived nearby. Janis had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
16
picclick.ca
The band traveled to and from Los Angeles to record ten tracks including "Down on Me", "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo" between December 12th and 14th, 1966, which appeared on the band's debut album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, released in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival.
Keep On Truckin’
Journalist Kim France reported in her 1999 New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose", that, "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
17
ebay.com
Janis was bisexual but, in 1970, once told her old friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager: “I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!”
Stardom Beckons
In 1968, Big Brother embarked on an East Coast Tour. On April 7th – three days after Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination, Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York. The band recorded their Live at Winterland '68 album at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco a week later.
18
ebay.com
On July 31st, 1968, Joplin hit the big time when she and the band made their first national TV appearance on This Morning with Dick Cavett who, it’s rumored, was among Janis’ long list of lovers! So was Leonard Cohen, by the way. Sometime after releasing their second album, Cheap Thrills, the band became Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. The media coverage Janis was receiving ranked her bandmates, who believed their diva was on a star trip. Meanwhile, people were telling Joplin that she ought to dump Big Brother as they were “a terrible band”. Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1st, 1968.
Going Solo
Janis went solo and formed a funky new backing group, the Kozmic Blues Band, which she spelled with a K in honor of Franz Kafka. They comprised of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, ex-Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew, and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The Kozmic Blues Band incorporated horns and were funkier, poppier... more influenced by Stax-Volt R&B and soul bands of the 1960s, like Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays compared to Big Brother and the other psychedelic bands around at the time.
19
ebay.com
On the surface, her life was going well, but scratch beneath the surface and she was a hot junkie mess. By early 1969, Joplin was shooting $200 worth of heroin a day even though efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Janis had lived in producer Gabriel Mekler’s Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence specifically so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-taking friends.
Sing Sing
In 1969 while performing in Tampa, Florida to a restless crowd, the police asked Joplin if she would help them calm down the crowd. Joplin instead shouted at the police, berating, cursing, and calling them everything under the sun! The funny thing is; it worked! The raucous crowd actually calmed down. Reverse psychology.
20
69.16.194.131
Not unsurprisingly, the cops didn’t particularly like being screamed at so they arrested Janis as soon as the show came to a close. The singer spent the night in Sing Sing but all charges were dropped when the presiding judge decided she was just practicing her freedom of speech. Please note, don’t take that as permission!
Break On Through
In the late 1960s, Janis and Jim Morrison were the queen and king of rock. The Doors’ lead singer was so enamored with Janis he just had to get a date with her. Joplin wasn’t interested, but Morrison wouldn’t take no for an answer. After a party at Hidden Hills in Los Angeles, when Joplin was about to disappear into the night with record producer Paul Rothschild, Morrison allegedly reached into the car and grabbed Janis by her hair, trying to pull her out of the car.
21
aol.com
Joplin reacted instinctively, grabbed a bottle of Southern Comfort, and smashed Morrison across the head with it, sending him sprawling to the ground and knocking him out. Even that wasn’t enough to change Jim’s opinion of her. After the incident, he was quoted as saying, “What a great woman! She’s terrific!” In fact, he seemed all the more obsessed after her heroic stand. Joplin, however, was unimpressed by The Lizard King’s behavior and refused to let Rothschild give Morrison her number. The pair never reconciled.
Woodstock
Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at Woodstock as if it were just another gig. But when she saw the size of the estimated 400,000 crowd from her helicopter taxi, she became unusually anxious. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving backstage, she and on-and-off groupie/girlfriend, Peggy Caserta shot heroin and drank alcohol. By the time she went on stage at 2:00 am, she was "three sheets to the wind".
22
oknamusic.online
Her voice was hoarse and she could barely dance but she made it through her set. The audience cheered for an encore, so Janis sang "Ball and Chain". The Who’s guitarist Pete Townshend watched her performance and said in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible.”
No Photos, Please!
If you’ve been to a music concert this century, you may have noticed a sea of smartphones taking pics and videos. Some performers, like Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Bjork, and Jack White have even banned people taking photos at their gigs. But Janis was first... kinda.
23
discogs.com
A film crew was filming the infamous hippie festival for the famous Woodstock Documentary. But Joplin didn’t feel her performance was good enough to be preserved for future generations and refused to let her set be part of the documentary.
I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!
Three weeks after Woodstock, Columbia Records released the album I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! on September 11th, 1969. Containing iconic hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", the LP was poorly reviewed on its initial release, due in part to its shift towards soul/R&B and away from the hard rock/psychedelic sound she was known for with Big Brother.
24
adamblueproductions.com
Record sales seemed to back up this fact - the public was immediately enamored and the album only made it to number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 but reached number five on the Billboard 200. Sales gained traction and I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! went gold within two months.
Influences
Janis was influenced by a gaggle of extraordinary musicians. From an early age, even before she wanted to be a professional singer, young Janis loved to listen to the blues. Her early favorites included Bessie Smith, Odetta, Big Mama Thornton, Billie Holiday, and iconic American folk and blues musician Leadbelly.
25
agaclip.com
As her music career progressed, she was influenced by other contemporaneous male and female singers like Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Tina Turner. She even got to perform with Tina once, in 1969, when Turner was performing at Madison Square Garden and Joplin joined her on stage.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Grave News
Joplin often mentioned she was inspired by and felt a kinship with blues singer Bessie Smith (1894–1937). The Empress of the Blues rocked the 1920s and ‘30s jazz era. When Janis found out her favorite singer had been laid to rest in an unmarked grave, she set about making things right. Joplin and Juanita Green, who worked for the Smith family, split the cost of a headstone so fans could finally pay respect to Bessie.
ADVERTISEMENT
26
mashpedia.com
On August 8th, 1970, as news circulated about her involvement with Smith's new gravestone, Janis performed at the Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, New York where she sang "Mercedes Benz" for the very first time in public.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
My Friends All Drive Porsches
With that in mind, what car do you think Janis drove? A Mercedez Benz, right? Wrong; after seeing a Porsche navigating the streets of San Francisco, she bought a 1964 Porsche 356 C Cabriolet in Beverly Hills. Her roadie Dave Richards did the paint job. After she died, the Porsche was found parked in the garage of the Hollywood hotel where she passed; her family took ownership and returned the car to its original Dolphin Gray color. Through extensive photographic records, the car was eventually returned to her bright colors.
ADVERTISEMENT
27
ebay.com
After spending 20 years on the main floor of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the car was finally sold at auction in 2015. The initial estimate was $400,000 to $600,000 but Janis’ Porsche 365 was sold for a whopping $1.76 million. Hopefully, the auctioneer told the winning bidder: "You know you've got it, and we hope it makes you feel good".
Falling Off the Wagon
By early 1970, it was obvious her heroin abuse and heavy drinking began adversely affecting her music. In February, Joplin traveled to Brazil. Amazingly, she quit her heroin and alcohol addiction and started a relationship with clean-cut drug-free backpacker David Niehaus. The couple was photographed at Rio di Janiero Carnival looking “like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
28
pinterest.se
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began hanging around with on-again-off-again junkie girlfriend Peggy Caserta and started using heroin again. Niehaus caught her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California, and ended the relationship. Just before they broke up, Niehaus had wanted Janis to take some time off to travel the world with him. Who knows, if she did, she might still be alive.
Full Tilt Boogie
Realizing that the Kozmic Blues band was not working, Janis also left this band, and in the last year of her life formed her final band... known for a short time as Main Squeeze, before they settled on the name Full Tilt Boogie. For a while, Janis was much happier, her new band was well-received by fans and critics alike but it wouldn't last.
29
imgrum.net
Around this time, she met Kris Kristofferson; who would eventually become her lover and who also wrote her hit, "Me and Bobby McGee". During these last few months of her life, Janis began calling herself "Pearl" which, to her, represented the tough-talking, highly sexed, hedonistic, Southern Comfort swigging, truck driver side of her nature.
High School Reunion
Appearing on the Dick Cavett Show, Janis announced her plans to attend her high school reunion on August 14th, 1970. Now, this may sound like a mere trifle, some fluff to fill time on the chat show. But this reunion was hugely important to Janis. She told Cavett that during her time at high school in Port Arthur that her classmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state, man".
30
tumblr.com
Janis wanted to return to Texas to sock it to those who had bullied and ostracized her. She wanted to show them that she had made it after all. She might have had the fame and fortune but the truth was, her fragile inner child still craved acceptance from her hometown. Janis spent the reunion drunk and – having made several disparaging remarks about the town in the national press – didn’t exactly rub the townsfolks’ noses in it as she’d hoped. Not for the first time, she left Port Arthur feeling rejected, unapproved and unloved.
The Wrong Crowd
Upon returning to San Francisco, Janis's heroin usage increased significantly. In July 1970, she met Seth Morgan; a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, coke dealer, and future novelist from a wealthy East Coast family. He assured Janis he was not after her money, and even signed an agreement to say so. Seth was one of the popular boys Janis had always sought approval from. He also happened to share Janis’ father’s name – read into that what you will. He also went on to become a Tony Danza lookalike.
31
MyCast
Perhaps trying to deal with the feelings of inferiority that her disastrous high school reunion brought to the surface, this was her final attempt at finding the belonging and a more ordinary life that she so desperately craved. Janis and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September.
A Woman Left Lonely
Janis had been living in the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood while she recorded her Pearl album. Meanwhile, her fiancee Seth had been staying at Janis’ Larkspur home. Despite making a pact to stay away from each other, Joplin begged Peggy Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin admonished her; saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it.” Within a week, Joplin was a regular customer of Caserta’s heroin dealer.
32
cbc.ca
Janis recorded "Mercedes Benz" on October 1st, 1970. It was the last recording she ever made. On the same day, she changed her will. On Saturday, October 3rd – saddened that both Peggy and Seth failed to show up at the Landmark as planned the previous night – she visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day for the Pearl album. The track was great. Janis was on a high and producer Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
Bad News
The rumor was that Janis and Seth had been planning their wedding, but on that same Saturday, Joplin discovered by telephone that Seth had met other women at a Marin County restaurant, and invited them back to party at her home. She must have been devastated.
33
impremedia.net
Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie Band keyboardist Ken Pearson left Sunset Sound Recorders together and she drove him and a male fan in her Porsche to Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood where she drank two vodka and oranges. As Joplin and Pearson pulled up to the Landmark Motel, she expressed her fears that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might stop making music with her. Aside from the night shift desk clerk, Pearson was the last person to ever see Janis Joplin alive.
Tragedy Strikes
In the late afternoon of Sunday, October 4th, 1970, producer Paul Rothchild became concerned when Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders. In the evening, he phoned the Landmark Motor Hotel and reached Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, who was also staying there...
34
californiacuriosities.com
Rothchild expressed his worries that Janis hadn't shown up to the studio and asked Cooke to search for her. Cooke and two of his friends noticed her psychedelic Porsche in the hotel parking lot... but when he entered her room, John Cooke found his friend's’ lifeless body on the floor beside her bed. Janis Joplin was dead aged 27.
Post Mortem
Newspapers reported that no drugs or paraphernalia were found in the room but, according to a 1983 book by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend and later replaced after that person realized an autopsy would reveal narcotics were in her system.
35
nydailynews.com
The autopsy determined the cause of death was a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol. John Cooke believed she had been supplied with much stronger heroin than she was used to, as indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Though she was upset, let down, and low, her rampant alcohol and her heroin consumption set her on an almost inevitable collision course with meeting her maker, Janis’ death was ruled accidental, not suicide.
Falling on the Needle
Janis Joplin's former love interest, Peggy Caserta, was apparently blamed for the death. Caserta denied responsibility and instead said that Joplin died by "tripping and falling." Caserta even went as far as to say that it wasn't heroin that killed the singer, but rather "a lifelong battle with clumsiness." She continued, "She tripped and fell, honey. I'm positive of it."
36
taringa.net
After Caserta's Going Down With Janis was published, it was mentioned that the person who supplied Caserta with heroin was the same dealer who supplied Joplin with her last amount. Out of revenge, the dealer nearly killed Caserta's former girlfriend, Kim Chappell.
Putting the Fun in Funeral
Joplin didn’t want a big fussy funeral. In fact, in her will, she left her friends and family $2,500 to throw a wake party, which was held at The Lion’s Share in San Anselmo, California on October 26th, 1970. According to party-goers, everyone got as drunk as possible, which might have been the best way to honor their beloved friend.
37
bbhc.com
Her funeral service was much more understated. Somewhat surprisingly, only three people attended: her parents and her aunt. Her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean along Stinson Beach, Marin County, California.
Lost Love Letter
Around the time of her death, Joplin’s ex-boyfriend, David Niehaus – who had helped get her off the drugs – had sent her a telegram containing the words, “Love you Mama, more than you know…” Heartbreakingly, the telegram never reached her.
38
blogspot.ca
Despite the fact he ended their relationship when she started on the heroin again, it seemed Niehaus still had feelings for Janis. If only that telegram had arrived a few days earlier, it might have turned out to be a happier ending.
The 27 Club
Janis became one of the founding members of the prestigious 27 Club; a group of artists – usually musicians – who died tragically at the tender age of 27. Janis died only weeks after Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose aged 27 on 18th September 1970. Less than a year after Joplin’s death, Jim Morrison lead singer of The Doors was also found dead, at the same age... again by the foul hand of narcotics.
39
24smi.org
The Lizard King died two years to the day after The Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones died aged 27. Three years after Jim passed, his girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27. The 27 Club includes more recent members like Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain.
Big Shoes To Fill
While several biopics about Janis have been rumored to be in the pipeline, none have actually made it to production. Over the years, many actresses have been ready to play Joplin including Courtney Love, Reese Witherspoon, Zooey Deschanel, Renee Zellweger, Laura Theodore, Lili Taylor, Brittany Murphy, and singer Melissa Etheridge to name but a few!
40
tumblr.com
A couple of years back, two rival Janis biopics were close to being greenlit. They were to star Amy Adams and Michelle Williams respectively. Amy's movie got canceled so – while all is quiet on the Western Front for now – we're counting on you, Michelle!
Legacy
Joplin completed her Pearl album before her death, but it wasn’t released until after she died. She never knew it went on to be her best-selling album, nor did she know that her song "Me and Bobby McGee" would become her first number one song.
41
jazzradio.fr
In the years since she died, 18.5 million albums have been sold and she finally received the recognition she deserved. Just a few of the female recording artists she’s inspired include Juliette Lewis, Joan Jett, Alicia Keys, Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac, and P!nk. In 1995, 25 years after her death, Janis was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2013, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her brother and sister, Michael and Laura attended the ceremony.
*written by Leonard Cohen for Janis Joplin*
Tragic Turbulent Talent: the Life Story of Janis Joplin
yas! | By Allison Diamond | December 28, 2020
This article was originally published on thewindompeak.com and has been republished here with permission.
Everyone knows that Janis Joplin was the original rock queen and there will never be anyone quite like her. She died tragically young and went on to become a musical icon. But her life was always harrowing and self-destructive. Plagued by drink and drugs, she felt she never fit in and craved approval.
1
abcdn.pro
Today, we’re going to dig deep into her childhood, the bullying, pain, and crippling insecurity she endured, her career, her relationships, and ultimately, her death. So, grab a drink and let's see what made musical maestro Janis Joplin tick.
Southern Belle
Janis Lyn Joplin is best remembered for her Haight-Ashbury years, but did you know she was actually born in the racially-segregated town of Port Arthur, Texas? She came into the world on January 19th, 1943, the first daughter of Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college and Sunday school teacher, and Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), who worked as an engineer for Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura.
2
pbs.org
Exceptionally curious and bright, Janis first sang in her church choir when she was just a little girl. Her strict mother expected her to conform to the rules and wear dresses to look like the other little girls. But as she got older, her relationship with her mother became turbulent, often becoming a battle of wills.
Wanted Dead Or Alive!
Her father Seth was an intellectual who enjoyed reading and was much more liberal and tolerant than Dorothy. In a stroke of genius, Seth would take young Janis down to the post office to look at the pictures of wanted men as a form of entertainment! That’s the kind of dad and role model we all wanted. It’s a wonder she didn’t end up dying in a hail of bullets like Bonnie and Clyde!
3
dnevnik.bg
What with the mixed messages from her mother’s nagging and high expectations plus her father’s love of outlaws, it’s no wonder Janis became rebellious. She would go on to develop a complete and utter disregard for fitting in, etiquette, convention, the laws of the land, and all that baloney, instead pioneering woman’s liberation, and gender and civil rights.
Rebel Yell
Soon, young Janis started wearing pants and acting like one of the boys, which may go some way to explaining her many masculine qualities and later bisexuality. As a teenager, she loved painting, reading, and writing poetry. As a teenager, she befriended a group of misfits and began listening to and singing blues and folk music with friends at Thomas Jefferson High School. Remember that school, it’s an important part of Janis’ origin story.
4
deviantart.com
Despite her artistic ways – always feeling alienated, the lifelong pain that led to her tortured soul, drug use, and singing the blues – she craved her mother’s and her Texas high school peers' approval and validation. Janis spent her whole life torn between being an artistic ne’erdowell while, at the same time, desperately wanting to fit in and be accepted as “normal”.
Little Girl Blue
Poor Janis wasn’t the most popular kid growing up. She recalled she was ostracized and bullied in high school, including by ex-Dallas Cowboys football coach Jimmy Johnson. In her own words, "The whole world turned on me". In her mid-teens, she became overweight and suffered from acne, leaving her with deep scars that required dermabrasion. Her hair was too frizzy and, unlike most of her 1950s Texas school peers, she got along with Black people.
5
auctions.yahoo.co.jp
Fellow students would tease her calling her a freak or a pig. Janis once said, “I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought. I didn’t hate Black people.” During her time at the University of Texas, some mean-spirited boys campaigned – and succeeded – to have Joplin named “Ugliest Man on Campus.”
She Dares to be Different
Janis never actually graduated from college, but she attended both Lamar State College of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin. The campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27th, 1962. The headline read “She Dares to Be Different.”
6
imgur.com
The article began, "She 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. Her name is Janis Joplin." How cool is that?
Waller Creek Girl
During her time at the University of Texas, Joplin often performed with a folk trio called The Waller Creek Boys. Well, they were boys until they heard Janis' incredible vocals and let her join the band. Perhaps they should have changed their name to The Waller Creek Boys and Girl.
7
taringa.net
Joplin styled herself after her favorite blues heroines and the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student. She herself said, “This is a song called 'What Good Can Drinkin' Do', that I wrote one night after drinkin' myself into a stupor."
Country Road
Joplin left Texas in January 1963 "...just to get away… because my head was in a much different place" and hitchhiked with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Soon after, she was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the next two years, her drug use increased and she made a name for herself as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user in the Bay Area.
8
etsy.com
If she never left Texas, Janis never would have become the singing legend we know and love today. Or, if she had become a singer, but stayed in Texas, her songs would have been very different. She may have sung “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedez Benz, my friends all ride horses, I must make amends.”
Singing The Blues
Even before she was famous, drugs were taking their toll on this brilliant young woman’s life. Janis and the blues were a match made in heaven. Her songwriting frequently demonstrated trials and tribulations of love, heartbreak, loneliness, alienation, addiction, injustice, hopelessness, and being a down-and-out deadbeat but longing for a better life so often associated with singing the blues.
9
infobae.com
In 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a collection of blues songs in San Francisco. One session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.
You’re Either On The Bus...
By 1965, Joplin’s health was on a rapid downward spiral due to her drug use. She was severely underweight to the point that her friends thought she looked skeletal. They really thought it was best that she go home to recover and hopefully get clean. They even threw her a bus fare party so she could afford the trip back to Texas.
10
autocarsmagazine.pro
Back in Port Arthur, Texas in the spring of 1965, her parents grew concerned about her health. She weighed 88 pounds (40kg) but Janis changed her lifestyle for the better. She avoided drugs and alcohol, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar while sporting a beehive hairdo like Amy Winehouse would years later.
A Life More Ordinary
Did you know that in the fall of 1965, Janis got engaged to be married? The man in question was Peter de Blanc, whom she courted toward the end of her first stint in San Francisco. Now living in New York where he worked for IBM Computers, he visited her to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Janis and her mom began planning the wedding but De Blanc, who traveled lots for work, broke off the engagement soon afterward.
11
radionos.com.br
A few years later, Janis stated she had no interest in just being a secretary or being a wife like all the other women she knew at the time. So, while he took another little piece of her heart, it’s actually a good job Peter skedaddled as Janis would never have made music if he stuck with her.
Choose Life
Through 1965 and 1966, Janis had regular therapy sessions with a psychiatric social worker by the name of Bernard Giarritano, also in Beaumont, Texas. Interviewed by biographer Myra Friedman after Janis’ death, he described Janis as “diffused”. Friedman went on to call her “spewing, splattering, splaying all over, without a center to hold…” One of the things that most bothered Janis was how she could possibly have a successful career in music without being tempted back to drugs. Giarritano tried his best to reassure her that she did not have to use drugs to be a successful artist.
12
reddit.com
Janis faced the age-old crossroads. Avoid singing professionally by becoming a secretary, and then a wife and mother, like all the other women in Port Arthur… or becoming a singer and risking relapsing into drug use. What would you choose to do? Live a long, comfortable but unfulfilled life as a secretary or live a short life in the fast lane and become a legend?
Leap of Faith
In 1965, Janis recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition of the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. You can hear these demo version tracks as they were later released as a new album in 1995, This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
13
pinterest.co.uk
In 1966, Janis Joplin’s life was about to change forever. She became a secretary. Only kidding… Joplin's raspy, soulful, bluesy vocal style and powerful mezzo-soprano range attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. The band was popular among the hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. The date was June 4th, 1966, and Janis Joplin joined the band she would become world-famous with.
It’s Not What You Know...
Janis had been recruited to Big Brother and the Holding Company by her old friend Chet Helms - the same friend she’d hitchhiked to San Fran with three years prior. In the meantime, he’d become a hot-shot promoter and Big Brother’s manager. Chet sent his friend Travis Rivers to find Janis in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.
14
bbhc.com
Aware of her previous drug addiction in San Francisco, Helms and Rivers insisted that she inform her parents face-to-face of her plans, and Helms drove her to Port Arthur – waiting outside in his car while she told her mom and dad the good news (and presumably promising them she wouldn’t relapse into drug use) – before they began their long drive to San Francisco, where stardom... and heavy drugs awaited.
Broken Promises
Due to the magical persuasive powers of keyboardist and friend Stephen Ryder, Janis avoided drugs for several weeks. She made Travis Rivers, with whom she shared an apartment in San Francisco, promise that using needles was banned in the house. But when bandmate, drummer Dave Getz, drove her home one night, Travis Rivers was not there, but guests he’d invited were injecting drugs…
15
"One of them was about to tie off," recalled drummer Getz. "Janis went nuts! I had never seen anybody explode like that. She was screaming and crying and Travis walked in. She screamed at him: 'We had a pact! You promised me! There wouldn't be any of that in front of me!' I was over my head and I tried to calm her down. I said, 'They're just doing mescaline,' because that's what I thought it was. She said, 'You don't understand! I can't see that! I just can't stand to see that!'”
Debut Album
In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California. They often partied with fellow psychonauts, The Grateful Dead, who lived nearby. Janis had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
16
picclick.ca
The band traveled to and from Los Angeles to record ten tracks including "Down on Me", "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo" between December 12th and 14th, 1966, which appeared on the band's debut album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, released in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival.
Keep On Truckin’
Journalist Kim France reported in her 1999 New York Times article, "Nothin' Left to Lose", that, "Once she became famous, Joplin cursed like a truck driver, did not believe in wearing undergarments, was rarely seen without her bottle of Southern Comfort and delighted in playing the role of sexual predator."
17
ebay.com
Janis was bisexual but, in 1970, once told her old friend Richard Hundgen, the Grateful Dead's San Francisco-based road manager: “I hear a rumor that somebody in San Francisco is spreading stories that I'm a dyke. You go back there and find out who it is and tell them that Janis says she's gotten it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life and a few hundred chicks and see what they can do with that!”
Stardom Beckons
In 1968, Big Brother embarked on an East Coast Tour. On April 7th – three days after Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination, Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King Jr. concert in New York. The band recorded their Live at Winterland '68 album at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco a week later.
18
ebay.com
On July 31st, 1968, Joplin hit the big time when she and the band made their first national TV appearance on This Morning with Dick Cavett who, it’s rumored, was among Janis’ long list of lovers! So was Leonard Cohen, by the way. Sometime after releasing their second album, Cheap Thrills, the band became Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. The media coverage Janis was receiving ranked her bandmates, who believed their diva was on a star trip. Meanwhile, people were telling Joplin that she ought to dump Big Brother as they were “a terrible band”. Joplin's last performance with Big Brother was at a Chet Helms benefit in San Francisco on December 1st, 1968.
Going Solo
Janis went solo and formed a funky new backing group, the Kozmic Blues Band, which she spelled with a K in honor of Franz Kafka. They comprised of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, ex-Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew, and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The Kozmic Blues Band incorporated horns and were funkier, poppier... more influenced by Stax-Volt R&B and soul bands of the 1960s, like Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays compared to Big Brother and the other psychedelic bands around at the time.
19
ebay.com
On the surface, her life was going well, but scratch beneath the surface and she was a hot junkie mess. By early 1969, Joplin was shooting $200 worth of heroin a day even though efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Janis had lived in producer Gabriel Mekler’s Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence specifically so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-taking friends.
Sing Sing
In 1969 while performing in Tampa, Florida to a restless crowd, the police asked Joplin if she would help them calm down the crowd. Joplin instead shouted at the police, berating, cursing, and calling them everything under the sun! The funny thing is; it worked! The raucous crowd actually calmed down. Reverse psychology.
20
69.16.194.131
Not unsurprisingly, the cops didn’t particularly like being screamed at so they arrested Janis as soon as the show came to a close. The singer spent the night in Sing Sing but all charges were dropped when the presiding judge decided she was just practicing her freedom of speech. Please note, don’t take that as permission!
Break On Through
In the late 1960s, Janis and Jim Morrison were the queen and king of rock. The Doors’ lead singer was so enamored with Janis he just had to get a date with her. Joplin wasn’t interested, but Morrison wouldn’t take no for an answer. After a party at Hidden Hills in Los Angeles, when Joplin was about to disappear into the night with record producer Paul Rothschild, Morrison allegedly reached into the car and grabbed Janis by her hair, trying to pull her out of the car.
21
aol.com
Joplin reacted instinctively, grabbed a bottle of Southern Comfort, and smashed Morrison across the head with it, sending him sprawling to the ground and knocking him out. Even that wasn’t enough to change Jim’s opinion of her. After the incident, he was quoted as saying, “What a great woman! She’s terrific!” In fact, he seemed all the more obsessed after her heroic stand. Joplin, however, was unimpressed by The Lizard King’s behavior and refused to let Rothschild give Morrison her number. The pair never reconciled.
Woodstock
Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at Woodstock as if it were just another gig. But when she saw the size of the estimated 400,000 crowd from her helicopter taxi, she became unusually anxious. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving backstage, she and on-and-off groupie/girlfriend, Peggy Caserta shot heroin and drank alcohol. By the time she went on stage at 2:00 am, she was "three sheets to the wind".
22
oknamusic.online
Her voice was hoarse and she could barely dance but she made it through her set. The audience cheered for an encore, so Janis sang "Ball and Chain". The Who’s guitarist Pete Townshend watched her performance and said in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible.”
No Photos, Please!
If you’ve been to a music concert this century, you may have noticed a sea of smartphones taking pics and videos. Some performers, like Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Bjork, and Jack White have even banned people taking photos at their gigs. But Janis was first... kinda.
23
discogs.com
A film crew was filming the infamous hippie festival for the famous Woodstock Documentary. But Joplin didn’t feel her performance was good enough to be preserved for future generations and refused to let her set be part of the documentary.
I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!
Three weeks after Woodstock, Columbia Records released the album I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! on September 11th, 1969. Containing iconic hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", the LP was poorly reviewed on its initial release, due in part to its shift towards soul/R&B and away from the hard rock/psychedelic sound she was known for with Big Brother.
24
adamblueproductions.com
Record sales seemed to back up this fact - the public was immediately enamored and the album only made it to number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 but reached number five on the Billboard 200. Sales gained traction and I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! went gold within two months.
Influences
Janis was influenced by a gaggle of extraordinary musicians. From an early age, even before she wanted to be a professional singer, young Janis loved to listen to the blues. Her early favorites included Bessie Smith, Odetta, Big Mama Thornton, Billie Holiday, and iconic American folk and blues musician Leadbelly.
25
agaclip.com
As her music career progressed, she was influenced by other contemporaneous male and female singers like Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Tina Turner. She even got to perform with Tina once, in 1969, when Turner was performing at Madison Square Garden and Joplin joined her on stage.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Grave News
Joplin often mentioned she was inspired by and felt a kinship with blues singer Bessie Smith (1894–1937). The Empress of the Blues rocked the 1920s and ‘30s jazz era. When Janis found out her favorite singer had been laid to rest in an unmarked grave, she set about making things right. Joplin and Juanita Green, who worked for the Smith family, split the cost of a headstone so fans could finally pay respect to Bessie.
ADVERTISEMENT
26
mashpedia.com
On August 8th, 1970, as news circulated about her involvement with Smith's new gravestone, Janis performed at the Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, New York where she sang "Mercedes Benz" for the very first time in public.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
My Friends All Drive Porsches
With that in mind, what car do you think Janis drove? A Mercedez Benz, right? Wrong; after seeing a Porsche navigating the streets of San Francisco, she bought a 1964 Porsche 356 C Cabriolet in Beverly Hills. Her roadie Dave Richards did the paint job. After she died, the Porsche was found parked in the garage of the Hollywood hotel where she passed; her family took ownership and returned the car to its original Dolphin Gray color. Through extensive photographic records, the car was eventually returned to her bright colors.
ADVERTISEMENT
27
ebay.com
After spending 20 years on the main floor of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the car was finally sold at auction in 2015. The initial estimate was $400,000 to $600,000 but Janis’ Porsche 365 was sold for a whopping $1.76 million. Hopefully, the auctioneer told the winning bidder: "You know you've got it, and we hope it makes you feel good".
Falling Off the Wagon
By early 1970, it was obvious her heroin abuse and heavy drinking began adversely affecting her music. In February, Joplin traveled to Brazil. Amazingly, she quit her heroin and alcohol addiction and started a relationship with clean-cut drug-free backpacker David Niehaus. The couple was photographed at Rio di Janiero Carnival looking “like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."
28
pinterest.se
When Joplin returned to the U.S., she began hanging around with on-again-off-again junkie girlfriend Peggy Caserta and started using heroin again. Niehaus caught her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California, and ended the relationship. Just before they broke up, Niehaus had wanted Janis to take some time off to travel the world with him. Who knows, if she did, she might still be alive.
Full Tilt Boogie
Realizing that the Kozmic Blues band was not working, Janis also left this band, and in the last year of her life formed her final band... known for a short time as Main Squeeze, before they settled on the name Full Tilt Boogie. For a while, Janis was much happier, her new band was well-received by fans and critics alike but it wouldn't last.
29
imgrum.net
Around this time, she met Kris Kristofferson; who would eventually become her lover and who also wrote her hit, "Me and Bobby McGee". During these last few months of her life, Janis began calling herself "Pearl" which, to her, represented the tough-talking, highly sexed, hedonistic, Southern Comfort swigging, truck driver side of her nature.
High School Reunion
Appearing on the Dick Cavett Show, Janis announced her plans to attend her high school reunion on August 14th, 1970. Now, this may sound like a mere trifle, some fluff to fill time on the chat show. But this reunion was hugely important to Janis. She told Cavett that during her time at high school in Port Arthur that her classmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state, man".
30
tumblr.com
Janis wanted to return to Texas to sock it to those who had bullied and ostracized her. She wanted to show them that she had made it after all. She might have had the fame and fortune but the truth was, her fragile inner child still craved acceptance from her hometown. Janis spent the reunion drunk and – having made several disparaging remarks about the town in the national press – didn’t exactly rub the townsfolks’ noses in it as she’d hoped. Not for the first time, she left Port Arthur feeling rejected, unapproved and unloved.
The Wrong Crowd
Upon returning to San Francisco, Janis's heroin usage increased significantly. In July 1970, she met Seth Morgan; a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, coke dealer, and future novelist from a wealthy East Coast family. He assured Janis he was not after her money, and even signed an agreement to say so. Seth was one of the popular boys Janis had always sought approval from. He also happened to share Janis’ father’s name – read into that what you will. He also went on to become a Tony Danza lookalike.
31
MyCast
Perhaps trying to deal with the feelings of inferiority that her disastrous high school reunion brought to the surface, this was her final attempt at finding the belonging and a more ordinary life that she so desperately craved. Janis and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September.
A Woman Left Lonely
Janis had been living in the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood while she recorded her Pearl album. Meanwhile, her fiancee Seth had been staying at Janis’ Larkspur home. Despite making a pact to stay away from each other, Joplin begged Peggy Caserta for heroin, and when Caserta refused to provide it, Joplin admonished her; saying, "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it.” Within a week, Joplin was a regular customer of Caserta’s heroin dealer.
32
cbc.ca
Janis recorded "Mercedes Benz" on October 1st, 1970. It was the last recording she ever made. On the same day, she changed her will. On Saturday, October 3rd – saddened that both Peggy and Seth failed to show up at the Landmark as planned the previous night – she visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded earlier that day for the Pearl album. The track was great. Janis was on a high and producer Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.
Bad News
The rumor was that Janis and Seth had been planning their wedding, but on that same Saturday, Joplin discovered by telephone that Seth had met other women at a Marin County restaurant, and invited them back to party at her home. She must have been devastated.
33
impremedia.net
Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie Band keyboardist Ken Pearson left Sunset Sound Recorders together and she drove him and a male fan in her Porsche to Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood where she drank two vodka and oranges. As Joplin and Pearson pulled up to the Landmark Motel, she expressed her fears that he and the other Full Tilt Boogie musicians might stop making music with her. Aside from the night shift desk clerk, Pearson was the last person to ever see Janis Joplin alive.
Tragedy Strikes
In the late afternoon of Sunday, October 4th, 1970, producer Paul Rothchild became concerned when Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders. In the evening, he phoned the Landmark Motor Hotel and reached Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, who was also staying there...
34
californiacuriosities.com
Rothchild expressed his worries that Janis hadn't shown up to the studio and asked Cooke to search for her. Cooke and two of his friends noticed her psychedelic Porsche in the hotel parking lot... but when he entered her room, John Cooke found his friend's’ lifeless body on the floor beside her bed. Janis Joplin was dead aged 27.
Post Mortem
Newspapers reported that no drugs or paraphernalia were found in the room but, according to a 1983 book by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend and later replaced after that person realized an autopsy would reveal narcotics were in her system.
35
nydailynews.com
The autopsy determined the cause of death was a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol. John Cooke believed she had been supplied with much stronger heroin than she was used to, as indicated by overdoses of several of her dealer's other customers during the same weekend. Though she was upset, let down, and low, her rampant alcohol and her heroin consumption set her on an almost inevitable collision course with meeting her maker, Janis’ death was ruled accidental, not suicide.
Falling on the Needle
Janis Joplin's former love interest, Peggy Caserta, was apparently blamed for the death. Caserta denied responsibility and instead said that Joplin died by "tripping and falling." Caserta even went as far as to say that it wasn't heroin that killed the singer, but rather "a lifelong battle with clumsiness." She continued, "She tripped and fell, honey. I'm positive of it."
36
taringa.net
After Caserta's Going Down With Janis was published, it was mentioned that the person who supplied Caserta with heroin was the same dealer who supplied Joplin with her last amount. Out of revenge, the dealer nearly killed Caserta's former girlfriend, Kim Chappell.
Putting the Fun in Funeral
Joplin didn’t want a big fussy funeral. In fact, in her will, she left her friends and family $2,500 to throw a wake party, which was held at The Lion’s Share in San Anselmo, California on October 26th, 1970. According to party-goers, everyone got as drunk as possible, which might have been the best way to honor their beloved friend.
37
bbhc.com
Her funeral service was much more understated. Somewhat surprisingly, only three people attended: her parents and her aunt. Her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean along Stinson Beach, Marin County, California.
Lost Love Letter
Around the time of her death, Joplin’s ex-boyfriend, David Niehaus – who had helped get her off the drugs – had sent her a telegram containing the words, “Love you Mama, more than you know…” Heartbreakingly, the telegram never reached her.
38
blogspot.ca
Despite the fact he ended their relationship when she started on the heroin again, it seemed Niehaus still had feelings for Janis. If only that telegram had arrived a few days earlier, it might have turned out to be a happier ending.
The 27 Club
Janis became one of the founding members of the prestigious 27 Club; a group of artists – usually musicians – who died tragically at the tender age of 27. Janis died only weeks after Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose aged 27 on 18th September 1970. Less than a year after Joplin’s death, Jim Morrison lead singer of The Doors was also found dead, at the same age... again by the foul hand of narcotics.
39
24smi.org
The Lizard King died two years to the day after The Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones died aged 27. Three years after Jim passed, his girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27. The 27 Club includes more recent members like Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain.
Big Shoes To Fill
While several biopics about Janis have been rumored to be in the pipeline, none have actually made it to production. Over the years, many actresses have been ready to play Joplin including Courtney Love, Reese Witherspoon, Zooey Deschanel, Renee Zellweger, Laura Theodore, Lili Taylor, Brittany Murphy, and singer Melissa Etheridge to name but a few!
40
tumblr.com
A couple of years back, two rival Janis biopics were close to being greenlit. They were to star Amy Adams and Michelle Williams respectively. Amy's movie got canceled so – while all is quiet on the Western Front for now – we're counting on you, Michelle!
Legacy
Joplin completed her Pearl album before her death, but it wasn’t released until after she died. She never knew it went on to be her best-selling album, nor did she know that her song "Me and Bobby McGee" would become her first number one song.
41
jazzradio.fr
In the years since she died, 18.5 million albums have been sold and she finally received the recognition she deserved. Just a few of the female recording artists she’s inspired include Juliette Lewis, Joan Jett, Alicia Keys, Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac, and P!nk. In 1995, 25 years after her death, Janis was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2013, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her brother and sister, Michael and Laura attended the ceremony.
It is Well with My Soul
![[Image: SyAa0qj.png]](https://i.imgur.com/SyAa0qj.png)
![[Image: 96zOOGN.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/96zOOGN.gif)
![[Image: pOoU403.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/pOoU403.gif)