Janis Joplin C/D, S/D

Saw this yesterday. Good, but I think there was a better film there. Going by the one biography I read (not seeing it on the bookshelf--Alice Echols'?), they basically dodge the matter of her sexuality. One lesbian relationship is briefly acknowledged, another alluded to, but mostly the story is her unhappy attempt to find the right man (and, after she does, losing him). I didn't mind the interviews, and was glad they relegated Pink and Melissa Etheridge to the end-credits, but I thought there was one conspicuous absence: Grace Slick, who besides being the most obvious female contemporary of Joplin's, also shared that one iconic image with her. I'm guessing she was approached and declined. (Happily, no Johnny Depp; Dick Cavett, who I've seen in three recent documentaries, is apparently becoming the new Johnny Depp.) The "Ball and Chain" Monterey clip, which I've seen a million times, seemed especially sharp and powerful. I always like seeing the original photos that were used on famous album covers, like the Pearl shots here. Not sure why "Mercedes Benz" is only used in the trailer. Bob Weir looks about as cool as you can look at almost-70.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/.a/6a00df351e888f8834011570edaa01970b-450wi

I prob mentioned this way upthread, but Howard Alk's Janis is a very satisfying doc. Much better performance/talk ratio than usual, and the interviews are at least mostly, maybe all with her, and mainly the Cavett, where she seems quite at ease, in her wry way---"Did you entertain in high school?" "Only when I walked down the aisles." She's announcing that she plans to check out her 10th Anniversary Port Arthur High School Reunion, comin' up soon (her mom did not care for the conduct of Bobby Neuwith and other rowdy, unsolicted-and-then-some house guests) Performances incl. several famous ones, some interesting studio interaction with Big Brother, a moving, in several senses, finale, playing for the troops and their families in Germany (Frankfurt base, I think).
Bio-wise, enjoyed first and second editions of Myra Friedman's Buried Alive; the first attempted to grapple with issues of substance abuse (apparently teen J was sent to a shrink because of alcoholism) and sexual behavior (more about how she behaved than with who, although both men and women are referenced), in ways unusual to "rock bios" of the time. The second edition, published much latter, includes follow-ups on some of the people in the first, and clarifications, but estate administrator Laura Joplin somewhat characteristically withdrew permission for Janis's letters in the first edition to be reprinted (so they're paraphrased in the second). But this time, Laura's switch-up had a positive outcome: she did indeed give us Love, Janis , a collection of letters which I found well-worth tracking down (guess I'm a boffin, whatever that means exactly).

The Howard Alk film--specifically the high school reunion footage--is the one I've been talking about for years, to the point where I started to wonder if I dreamed it up. It used to play on Canadian TV in the early '70s (makes sense, checking--Canadian film). But there it was yesterday, the same reunion footage (very poignant) I remembered from 40 years ago. Laura and Michael Joplin are featured prominently in the new one.

Never really remembered this tune "Oh, Sweet Mary" off of Cheap Thrills, but hearing it today, it is quite reminiscent of something The 13th Floor Elevators would do.

How’s the movie?

Listening to pearl again for the first time in nearly 20 years

Damn

A football player nicknamed her “Beat Weeds,” a reference to pubic hair. “When Janis walked down the hall,” George-Warren writes, “the jocks threw pennies at her and called her ‘whore’ and ‘slut.’”

Among the jocks at Joplin’s high school was Jimmy Johnson, future coach of the Dallas Cowboys. In 1993, he told Sports Illustrated, “Beat Weeds … never wore any panties.” George-Warren comments: “How Johnson came by this knowledge is unclear.”

Big Brother was so awesomely raw and crude, it is easy to see why Columbia records hearing this crossover vocalist would want to separate the singer from the band, but what a fuzzy racket.

The earliest recordings that I've heard have her singing Bessie Smith-type material (backed by an old-time jazz-blues band, like So and So's Riverfront Something, still got the tape somewhere, apparently legit but not seeing it on discogs etc), without any particular go-for-the-gusto imitation: actually it's a bit subdued, not like she's pulling her punches, but somebody who is thinking about the things she's gone through, is going through, will go through, not woe-is-me, not hesitating, but eyes open.
Past that of course, she got her trademark sound down and stayed with it, think she could have handled disco or anything else just fine. Can't find the thread, but somewhere I quoted Ellen Willis as pointing out that Joplin's voice cut through and over the noize like that of young Robert Plant, Axl Rose, the Nazareth dude I'd say, yknow that whole pre-Cookie Monster arena rock-to-metal screech---although I also added (I think I did, or should have) that Little Richard was maybe the first precedent for this sound, which goes w the androgyny of it----In thee anthology Trouble Girls: Women In Rock, Terri Sutton even cites an alternate rock history in which Planty suffers a tragic accident and is replaced in Zep by JJ (who supposedly, in our tyme line, was approached by the 13th Floor Elevators while Roky was unavoidably detained, but she was fixing to move to Frisco).

*And* this sound also incl. sensitivity to lyrics, not that she ever handles them too gingerly, but any distortion is just part of her vocabulary, to be used when nec., as w the best guitarists.

At some point in the early '70s, I owned Pearl. Probably on 8-Track, although it could have been one of the albums I bought and abused before I began collecting in earnest. That copy, whatever format it was in, is long gone.

Bought a used CD today, with four extra tracks. I almost want to poll it, but I suppose "Bobby McGee" would win going away (or maybe "Mercedes Benz" would finish a close second).

I wrote about my odd but powerful reverence for Joplin a few years ago here, in a blog entry about Big Little Lies:

https://heardjustwhatiseen.wordpress.com/2020/01/27/looking-out-at-the-rain/

Listening to Pearl in the car, I was surprised by how emotionally "Get It While You Can" hit me. Partly, I think, that was in trying to cast my mind back to 1970, how she might have felt recording it, or how someone might have felt hearing it. Mostly it was just the song, the performance, and her. Definitely got to me.

Possibly the best female vocalist in all rock history.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Saturday, April 16, 2005 10:34 PM (10 years ago)

i like janis just fine but this is kind of a stretch imo

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, February 4, 2016 6:16 PM (seven years ago)

not remotely a stretch, all it takes is one viewing of the Monterey performance, nobody else comes close