or the weak-minded
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not to be viewed by juveniles or the weak-minded |
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MUSIC SECTION
 
Starting singing in local coffee houses, by 1960 she was earning a living and singing in clubs in Austin and Houston, including a residency at the Purple Onion as part of the Waller Creek Boys trio. After touring Texas and a brief visit to Greenwich Village, in 1963 she hitched to San Francisco and appeared at various venues, often with Jorma Kaukonen (later of Jefferson Airplane), but despite her impressive three octave vocal range, she obtained insufficient gigs to make enough to keep herself in her increasing use of amphetamine, so the following year she returned to Texas, gave up singing, enrolled in college and prepared to be married. When she received a telephone call from Chet Helms in June 1965 she had already resumed singing and abandoned both marriage plans and college. Helms, whom she had met in Austin and was now managing a band with a residency at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, invited her to audition as vocalist. She went and was immediately accepted by Big Brother and the Holding Company, a band which she quickly came to dominate. During the two and a half years she stayed with the band, owing to a combination of heavy touring schedule and being completely disorganised, only two albums were produced, both of dubious, or at least mixed, quality. Mainstream at first refused to release Big Brother and the Holding Company, the band’s first album, citing that it was too sloppy, until Joplin’s growing cult status changed their minds and it finally appeared in August 1967. Cheap thrills (1968) was made after Mainstream sold their contract to Columbia. Its original title ‘Dope, Sex and Cheap Thrills’ was shortened at the label’s insistence. With a cover design by Robert Crumb, it unfortunately contains much splicing from both live and studio recordings. Nevertheless there are some good tracks. Joplin left Big Brother and first appeared with her new band in December 1968. Temporarily named Janis and The Joplinaires, the Kozmic Blues Band appeared live at many large festivals and venues and released I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama! (1969). Throughout the year there are many changes of personnel and after October a lack of gigs leads them to disband in December. 
Two former members of Big Brother and the Holding Company who have been playing with Country Joe and the Fish reform the band with other new personnel in February 1970. Joplin appears with them in April, after making perhaps her best studio recording with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (produced by Todd Rungren) on 28th March. By May she has formed a new band, the Full Tilt Boogie Band. This group was more suited to her inasmuch as it complemented her vocals rather than competed with them. A new album Pearl, started in September, is unfinished at her death on October 4th, less than two months after she has paid for a headstone for Bessie Smith. It is completed and released posthumously and reaches US No. 1 in February 1971. During her career Joplin was recorded live at many venues and consequently there are quite often several different versions of the same number. Various albums of compilations of both studio and live recordings have been issued. Tracks to look out for are anything recorded before 1966 but especially the 'Typewriter Tapes' with Jorma Kaukonen, One Night Stand (studio, with Paul Butterfield Blues Band 28/3/70), Piece of My Heart, Summertime (Big Brother and the Holding Company), Tell Mama (Full Tilt Boogie Band, Canadian Festival Express, 28/6/70), Ball and Chain (Full Tilt Boogie Band, live).
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anis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, a small oil town, on 19th January 1943, into a happy stable family. At high school she became interested in folk and blues music, in particular Huddie Leadbetter, Odetta and above all Bessie Smith.