From the Gulf Coast of Texas to the San Francisco Underground, Janis Joplin was the Queen of Blues when the Blues came from the Heart and Soul and Life or Death hung in the balance. It has been forty-five years since Janis died, at just 27 years old, when the world was just beginning to sit up and take notice. The following is her biography from A&E Network.
Bio. - A and E Network
To Love Somebody
Janis Joplin Biography
Singer (1943–1970)
Singer Janis Joplin rose to fame in the late 1960s and was known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals. She died of an accidental drug overdose in 1970.
Synopsis
Born on January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas, Janis Joplin developed a love of music at an early age, but her career didn't take off until she joined the band Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1966. Their 1968 album, Cheap Thrills, was a huge hit. However, friction between Joplin and the band prompted her to part ways with Big Brother soon after. Known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals, Joplin released her first solo effort, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, in 1969. The album received mixed reviews, but her second project, Pearl (1971), released after Joplin's death, was a huge success. The singer died of an accidental overdose on October 4, 1970, at age 27.
Wild Child
Janis Lyn Joplin was born on January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas. Breaking new ground for women in rock music, Joplin rose to fame in the late 1960s and became known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals. She grew up in a small Texas town known for its connections to the oil industry with a skyline and dotted with oil tanks and refineries. For years, Joplin struggled to escape from this confining community, and spent even longer to trying to overcome her memories of her difficult years there.
Developing a love for music at an early age, Joplin sang in her church choir as a child and showed some promise as a performer. She was an only child until the age of 6, when her sister, Laura, was born. Four years later, her brother, Michael, arrived. Joplin was a good student and fairly popular until around the age of 14, when some side effects of puberty started to kick in. She got acne and gained some weight.
At ThomasJeffersonHigh School, Joplin began to rebel. She eschewed the popular girls' fashions of the late 1950s, often choosing to wear men's shirts and tights, or short skirts. Joplin, who liked to stand out from the crowd, became the target of some teasing as well as a popular subject in the school's rumor mill. She was called a "pig" by some, while others said that she was sexually promiscuous.
Joplin eventually developed a group of guy friends who shared her interest in music and the Beat Generation, which rejected the standard norms and emphasized creative expression (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were two of the Beat movement's leading figures).
Early Musical Interests
Musically, Janis Joplin and her friends gravitated toward blues and jazz, admiring such artists as Lead Belly. Joplin was also inspired by legendary blues vocalists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Odetta, an early leading figure in the folk music movement. The group frequented local working-class bars in the nearby town of Vinton, Louisiana. By her senior year of high school, Joplin had developed a reputation as a ballsy, tough-talking girl who like to drink and be outrageous.
After graduating from high school, Joplin enrolled at Lamar State College of Technology in the neighboring town of Beaumont, Texas. There, she devoted more time to hanging out and drinking with friends than to her studies. At the end of her first semester at Lamar, Joplin left the school. She went on to attend Port ArthurCollege, where she took some secretarial courses, before moving to Los Angeles in the summer of 1961. This first effort to break away from wasn't a success, however, and Joplin thus returned to Port Arthur for a time.
In the summer of 1962, Joplin fled to the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied art. In Austin, Joplin began performing at folksings—casual musical gatherings where anyone can perform—on campus and at Threadgill's, a gas station turned bar, with the Waller Creek Boys, a musical trio with whom she was friends. With her forceful, gutsy singing style, Joplin amazed many audience members. She was unlike any other white female vocalist at the time (folk icons like Joan Baez and Judy Collins were known for their gentle sound).
In January 1963, Joplin ditched school to check out the emerging music scene in San Francisco with friend Chet Helms. But this stint out west, like her first, proved to be unsuccessful, as Joplin struggled to make it as a singer in the Bay Area. She played some gigs, including a side-stage performance at the 1963 Monterey Folk Festival—but her career didn't gain much traction. Joplin then spent some time in New York City, where she hoped to have better luck getting her career off the ground, but her drinking and drug use (she'd begun regularly using speed, or amphetamine, among other drugs) there proved to be detrimental to her musical aspirations. In 1965, she left San Francisco and returned home in an effort to get herself together again.
Back in Texas, Joplin took a break from her music and her hard-partying lifestyle, and dressed conservatively, putting her long, often messy hair into a bun and doing everything else she could to appear straight-laced. But the conventional life was not for her, and her desire to pursue her musical dreams wouldn't remain submerged for long.
Joplin slowly returned to performing, and in May 1966, was recruited by friend Travis Rivers to audition for a new psychedelic rock band based in San Francisco, Big Brother and the Holding Company. At the time, the group was managed by another longtime friend of Joplin's, Chet Helms. Big Brother, whose members included James Gurley, Dave Getz, Peter Albin and Sam Andrew, was part of the burgeoning San Francisco music scene of the late 1960s; among the other bands involved in this scene were the Grateful Dead.
Big Brother
Joplin blew the band away during her audition, and was quickly offered membership into the group. In her early days with Big Brother, she sang only a few songs and played the tambourine in the background. But it wasn't long before Joplin assumed a bigger role in the band, as Big Brother developed quite a following in the Bay Area. Their appearance at the now legendary Monterey Pop Festival in 1967—specifically their version of "Ball and Chain" (originally made famous by R&B legend Big Mama Thornton) brought the group further acclaim. Most of the praise, however, focused on Joplin's incredible vocals. Fueled by heroin, amphetamines and the bourbon she drank straight from the bottle during gigs, Joplin's unrestrained sexual style and raw, gutsy sound mesmerized audiences—and all of this attention caused some tension between Joplin and her bandmates.
After hearing Joplin at Monterey, Columbia Records President Clive Davis wanted to sign the band. Albert Grossman, who already managed Bob Dylan, the Band, and Peter, Paul & Mary, later signed on as the band's manager, and was able to get them out of another record deal they'd signed earlier with Mainstream Records.
While their recordings for Mainstream never found much of an audience, Big Brother's first album for Columbia, Cheap Thrills (1968), was a huge hit. While the album was wildly successful—quickly becoming a certified gold record with songs like "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime"—creating it had been a challenging process, causing even more problems between Joplin and band's other members. (The album was produced by John Simon, who'd had the band do take after take in an attempt to create a technically perfect sound.)
Cheap Thrills helped solidify Joplin's reputation as a unique, dynamic, bluesy rock singer. Despite Big Brother's continued success, Joplin was becoming frustrated with group, feeling that she was being held back professionally.
Solo Career
Joplin struggled with her decision to leave Big Brother, as her bandmates had been like a family to her, but she eventually decided to part ways with the group. She played with Big Brother for the last time in December 1968.
Following a historic performance at Woodstock (August 1969), Joplin released her first solo effort, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, in September 1969, with Kozmic Blues Band. Some of the project's most memorable songs were "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" and "To Love Somebody," a cover of a Bee Gees tune. But Kozmic Blues received mixed reviews, with some media outlets criticizing Joplin personally. Feeling uniquely pressured to prove herself as a female solo artist in a male-dominated industry, the criticism caused distress for Joplin. "That was a pretty heavy time for me," she later said in an interview with Howard Smith of The Village Voice. "It was really important, you know, whether people were going to accept me or not." (Joplin's interview with Smith was her last; it took place on September 30, 1970, just four days before her death.) Outside of music, Joplin appeared to be struggling with alcohol and drugs, including an addiction to heroin.
Joplin's next album would be her most successful, but, tragically, also her last. She recorded Pearl with the Full Tilt Boogie Band and wrote two of its songs, the powerful, rocking "Move Over" and "Mercedes Benz," a gospel-styled send-up of consumerism.
Tragic Death and Legacy
Following a long struggle with substance abuse, Joplin died from an accidental heroin overdose on October 4, 1970, at a hotel in Hollywood's Landmark Hotel. Completed by Joplin's producer, Pearl was released in 1971 and quickly became a hit. The single "Me and Bobby McGee," written by Kris Kristofferson, a former love of Joplin's, reached the top of the charts.
Despite her untimely death, Janis Joplin's songs continue to attract new fans and inspire performers. Numerous collections of her songs have been released over the years, including In Concert (1971) and Box of Pearls (1999). In recognition of her significant accomplishments, Joplin was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and honored with a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards in 2005.
Dubbed the "first lady of rock 'n' roll," Joplin has been the subject of several books and documentaries, including Love, Janis (1992), written by sister Laura Joplin. That book was adapted into a play of the same title. Amy Berg’s documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2015.
.
Where do the beloved thoroughbred champions come from?
History
Founded
in 1898 by William B. Fasig and Edward A. Tipton, Fasig-Tipton has become one
of America’s
most powerful thoroughbred sales companies.
Fasig-Tipton Co. is North America’s oldest Thoroughbred auction company. Its
first headquarters were in MadisonSquareGarden
in New York,
and Fasig-Tipton initially sold high-class road and carriage horses in addition
to Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing stock.
Today,
it boasts a diverse calendar of high-profile boutique sales, two-year-old
auctions in Florida, Maryland,
and Texas and
a number of other sales that cater to regional markets. Yet
as North America’s oldest auction house, it also owns an enviable history, one
that is laden with iconic graduates ranging from Man O’War, who sold in 1918 at
the Saratoga Sale, to other breed-shapers such as Raise A Native, Seattle Slew,
Danzig, and Natalma.
Of
the 12 Triple
Crown winners, only two have ever been offered at public auction,
both by Fasig-Tipton: 2015 winner American Pharoah, sold at the 2013
Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale and 1975 Seattle Slew, sold at the 1973 Fasig-Tipton
July Sale in Kentucky.
After Fasig’s death in 1903, Tipton took on Enoch
James Tranter as his partner. Tranter changed the old catalogue pages, which
listed up to 30 dams, to focus on a horse’s immediate family members in
racetrack performance and production. That change is still reflected in the
sales catalogues of today. Fasig-Tipton also was the first auction company to
require certificates of health and pregnancy at broodmare sales.
Fasig-Tipton’s Saratoga
sale of selected yearlings is one of the premier horse auctions in the world.
It has roots that stretch back to 1917 when Fasig-Tipton formed an alliance
with some of the top Kentucky breeders to sell
their yearlings during the race meet in upstate New York. The great Man o’ War sold as a
yearling at the 1918 Saratoga
sale. The Saratoga
sale has produced numerous household names for international horsemen, such as
Raise a Native, Natalma, Hoist the Flag, Danzig,
Miswaki, Conquistador Cielo, and two-time champion filly Open Mind.
The list continues as 1991 Horse of the Year Black Tie Affair, ‘93 Belmont
Stakes winner Colonial Affair, ‘94 Kentucky Derby winner Go For Gin, ‘94
champion mare Sky Beauty, 2002 champion two-year-old male Vindication, ‘03
champion three-year-old male Funny Cide (New York-bred sale), and ‘05 Horse of
the Year Saint Liam all emerged from the venerable New York sale grounds.
Humphrey S. Finney, for whom the Saratoga
sales pavilion is named, announced his first sale for Fasig-Tipton in 1937. In
his 1974 autobiography "Fair Exchange", Finney wrote about an auction
company’s need to know about the horses and the value of what they are selling.
That commitment to horsemanship and customer service remains a focal point for
Fasig-Tipton today.
Kentucky
During World War II breeders could not freely ship
yearlings around the country, so the Saratoga
sale was put on hold. In 1943 Fasig-Tipton held the sale in a tent at Keeneland
Race Course in Lexington.
Fred W. Hooper Jr. purchased 1945 Kentucky Derby winner Hoop Jr. for $10,200 at
the ’43 sale.
It was not until 1972 that Fasig-Tipton established its permanent Kentucky headquarters in Lexington, from which it initiates a
year-round sales schedule for Thoroughbred auctions across the country.
The Kentucky
division was an immediate source of high class racing stock. Its classic
winning graduates include Seattle Slew, Genuine Risk, Dancing Brave, Rainbow
Quest, and Unbridled.
The highest-priced broodmare of all time, Broodmare of the Year Better Than
Honour, sold for $14-million at the 2008 Fasig-TiptonKentucky selected fall mixed
sale.
Other prominent Kentucky
graduates include Kentucky Derby winners Go For Gin, Big Brown and Mine That
Bird; Dubai World Cup victor Captain Steve; as well as champions Artax,
Silverbulletday, Blind Luck, and Dubai Majesty.
Two-year-old sales
Finney and Joe O'Farrell, the pioneer of
Thoroughbred breeding in Florida and founder
of Ocala Stud, combined their talents in 1952 to put on the first two-year-olds
in training sale at HialeahPark. When additional
training sales started in California, Maryland, Kentucky, and Louisiana, it was
Fasig-Tipton conducting the auctions.
Fasig-Tipton’s Florida
two-year-old sale has long been the worldwide leader, producing more
stakes-winning graduates than any currently operating two-year-old in training
sale. Held at Calder Race Course from 1983-2010, the sale moved its
location in 2011 to PalmMeadowsTrainingCenter in Boynton
Beach – one of the finest training facilities in North
America. Monarchos, the 2001 Kentucky Derby winner, as well as
dual Classic winner Risen Star, Japanese Champion Kurofune, and North American
champions Left Bank, Stevie Wonderboy, and Gio Ponti are just a few of the
horses who have made “The Florida Sale” a premier event for international
buyers.
The Florida Sale also sold the most expensive horse of all time - $16-million
for The Green Monkey at the 2006 auction. The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic
two-year-olds in training sale counts 2001 champion three-year-old filly Xtra
Heat, 2005 champion three-year-old colt Afleet Alex, and 2009 champion female
sprinter Informed Decision among its graduates.
Since
May 2008, Fasig-Tipton has been under the ownership of the Dubai-based Synergy
Investments, a company headed by Dubai
businessman Abdulla Al Habbai, who purchased the auction house from a group of
shareholders led by the Hettinger family.
Following
the company’s sale to Synergy Investments, the importance of attracting new
faces to racing and improving customer focus were identified as long-term goals
by company officials. And it wasn’t long before some of those plans were in
motion, with Fasig-Tipton reducing the time between selling and payment for
horses sold at that year’s Kentucky July Yearling Sale.
“Sale houses are small
companies who are the custodians of a product,” said Terence Collier, director
of marketing, “and the corporate policy reflects the personalities of their
people. Our entire philosophy revolves around maintaining key relationships
with people, the vendors, and sellers.
“Since
we came under new ownership, we have sought professional advice and input from
outside management consultants,” he said. “The overriding theme arising from
that has been the importance of continuing to build relationships.”
Powerful
rebranding of various sales - the Kentucky Selected Mixed Fall Sale became
simply “The November Sale” – was another measure taken following the company’s
sale in line with a particularly dynamic approach to marketing. The promised
increased customer focus also came to fruition. As presenting partner of the
2012 Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita, Fasig-Tipton went to extreme lengths to
facilitate the attendance of interested participants at that year’s The
November Sale, staged two days later in Kentucky,
by securing a special charter flight from Los Angeles
to Lexington.
At
the track, a strong presence has been maintained by high-profile race
sponsorship. For instance, from 2009 to 2012 Fasig-Tipton backed the Fountain
Of Youth Stakes, run at GulfstreamPark in the month prior to the prestigious Florida
Sale at the nearby PalmMeadowsTrainingCenter. Since 2009, the
company has hosted the Fasig-Tipton Festival of Racing ahead of their August
sales in Saratoga, a celebration of
Fasig-Tipton’s strong ties to New
York racing ahead.
In
the meantime, the Kentucky, Maryland,
and Saratoga
sale grounds underwent extensive upgrades. The Kentucky office and sales pavilion were
transformed from a single-story structure into a building of three levels, in
part to accommodate a growing staff. Saratoga
also underwent an extensive redesign.
“Improving
those facilities was a major expense,” Collier said. “But apart from improving
the various physical fronts of the company, new ownership has allowed us to
focus further on key sales and develop those markets, in particular The
November Sale. And with that, the management sells those flagship sales with
confidence, in particular internationally.” An
early visit to Fasig-Tipton for Michael Donohoe of BBA Ireland, Ltd. in 2006
resulted in the $60,000 purchase of Idonea, subsequently a Listed winner at Dusseldorf. Since then,
the Co. Kildare-based agent has become a regular European face at the company’s
sales, both in New York and Kentucky.
“The
team there look after you very well,” he said. “Their hospitality is second to
none and that is right across-the-board.
“Their
facilities have improved enormously in Kentucky
and New York.
I liken the Kentucky
grounds to Goffs – it’s very easy to work with the barns being so near to the
sale ring.” Synergy
Investment’s purchase of Fasig-Tipton coincided with the final heady years of
the bloodstock market, which included the record $16 million sale of The Green
Monkey to Demi O’Byrne at the 2006 Calder 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale. In
fact, the first November Sale
under Synergy’s ownership in 2008 was highlighted by the sale of Better Than
Honour to Southern Equine Stables for $14 million, a world-record price for a
broodmare.
But
as with the bloodstock world in general, Fasig-Tipton was not immune to the
effects of the recession, which hit the industry so hard from late 2008.
However, last year was a particularly successful one for the company, with
Fasig-Tipton turning over close to $231 million in total sales, up 21 percent
from 2012 (a year that was boosted by the $10 million sale of Havre De Grace at
The November Sale).
One
vendor to enjoy a particularly good November Sale last year was Three Chimneys
Farm in Kentucky,
who sold $9.675 million worth of horses including Love And Pride for $4.9
million to Borges Torrealba Holdings.
“Two
things set Fasig-Tipton apart,” said the farm’s President Case Clay. “The
team's hustle and their ‘make it work’ approach to recruiting and selling. I
have also never had an experience with Fasig-Tipton in which they were not
flexible to our or our clients' needs.”
SARATOGA
Top-class
racing and elite yearlings combine to make The Saratoga Sale one of the most
prestigious auctions of its kind worldwide.
A
boutique event staged over two evening sessions that coincides with Saratoga
Race Course’s August meeting just blocks away, The Saratoga Sale is followed by
the New York Preferred Yearling Sale, a thriving auction on the Fasig-Tipton
calendar that is confined to New York-breds.
Both
sales are staged in the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion, which was opened in 1968
and underwent major renovations shortly after Fasig-Tipton’s sale to Synergy
Investments. The multi-million dollar project was carried out in two stages and
comprised a redesign of the pavilion, expansion of the restaurant, and
construction of a new walking ring and horse-holding area.
On
the track, business remained normal as Fasig-Tipton’s flagship sale continued
to churn out top-class runners, a tradition that stretches back to Man O’War, a
graduate of the 1918 Saratoga Sale.
Saratoga graduates Cross
Traffic and Midnight Lucky each garnered Group 1 honors in 2013, taking the
Whitney Handicap and Acorn Stakes respectively. In February, they were joined
on the roll of honor by Lochte, winner of the Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap who
sold to Newmarket-based agent Anthony Stroud for $475,000 in 2011.
A
regular European visitor to Saratoga, Stroud
also signed for the 1000 Guineas
and Irish Oak heroine Blue Bunting in 2009.
Another
European agent who regularly makes the trip is BBA Ireland’s Donohoe.
“If
someone said to me ‘I would like to buy a top yearling at a place that is fun,’
I would definitely take them to Saratoga,”
he said.
“It’s
a little like Royal Ascot. It’s great fun. You have top-class racing, there are
lots of parties and a few celebrities are in town from New York. And to top it all off, the cream
of the American yearling crop are on offer.”
Its
location in relation to Saratoga Race Course is also a major advantage.
“A
lot of the American trainers are based at Saratoga
for the meeting and so are the owners - they can just walk across the street,”
Donohoe said. “So obviously it’s that much easier to attract buyers.”
The
Saratoga Fall Mixed and Horses of Racing Age Sale was introduced in 2012, but
despite its short history, already boasts a Grade 1-winning graduate in the
aforementioned Lochte, sold for $60,000 to Carolyn Vogel last October.
Max Hodge - Vice President for Client Services and married to my niece
DYNAMIC
MARKETING
Fasig-Tipton
has long been a forward-thinking company that employs an aggressive approach to
its marketing.
It
was one of the first sale companies to champion the use of interactive
web-based catalogues and embrace the concept of supplementary entries - 66 late
additions were accepted to the 2014 Kentucky Winter Mixed Sale in the weeks
following publication of the original catalogue.
Accomplished
graduates are celebrated via a “Horse of the Week” page on the Fasig-Tipton
website, where the achievements of each horse can be viewed on film, on some
occasions complete with comments from the consignor or buyer. The page is an
integral part of “Fasig-Tipton TV”, where promotional videos, such as footage
of the $10 million sale of Havre De Grace, and under tack videos (including
archives) can also be viewed.
Fasig-Tipton
also maintains a prominent presence on Twitter and encourages industry players
to keep up to date with news through its e-newsletter.
From the Gulf Coast of Texas to the San Francisco Underground, Janis Joplin was the Queen of Blues when the Blues came from the Heart and Soul and Life or Death hung in the balance. It has been forty-five years since Janis died, at just 27 years old, when the world was just beginning to sit up and take notice. The following is her biography from A&E Network.
Bio. - A&E Network
Janis Joplin Biography
Singer (1943–1970)
Singer Janis Joplin rose to fame in the late 1960s and was
known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals. She died of an accidental drug
overdose in 1970.
Synopsis
Born on January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas, Janis Joplin developed a
love of music at an early age, but her career didn't take off until she joined
the band Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1966. Their 1968 album, Cheap
Thrills, was a huge hit. However, friction between Joplin and the band prompted her to part ways
with Big Brother soon after. Known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals, Joplin released her first
solo effort, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, in 1969. The
album received mixed reviews, but her second project, Pearl
(1971), released after Joplin's
death, was a huge success. The singer died of an accidental overdose on October
4, 1970, at age 27.
Wild Child
Janis Lyn Joplin was born on January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas.
Breaking new ground for women in rock music, Joplin rose to fame in the late 1960s and
became known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals. She grew up in a small Texas town known for its
connections to the oil industry with a skyline and dotted with oil tanks and
refineries. For years, Joplin
struggled to escape from this confining community, and spent even longer to
trying to overcome her memories of her difficult years there.
Developing a love for music at an early age, Joplin sang in her church choir as a child
and showed some promise as a performer. She was an only child until the age of
6, when her sister, Laura, was born. Four years later, her brother, Michael,
arrived. Joplin
was a good student and fairly popular until around the age of 14, when some
side effects of puberty started to kick in. She got acne and gained some
weight.
At ThomasJeffersonHigh School, Joplin began to rebel. She eschewed the
popular girls' fashions of the late 1950s, often choosing to wear men's shirts
and tights, or short skirts. Joplin, who liked to stand out from the crowd,
became the target of some teasing as well as a popular subject in the school's
rumor mill. She was called a "pig" by some, while others said that
she was sexually promiscuous.
Joplin
eventually developed a group of guy friends who shared her interest in music
and the Beat Generation, which rejected the standard norms and emphasized
creative expression (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were two of the Beat
movement's leading figures).
Early
Musical Interests
Musically, Janis Joplin and her friends gravitated toward blues and jazz,
admiring such artists as Lead Belly. Joplin
was also inspired by legendary blues vocalists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and
Odetta, an early leading figure in the folk music movement. The group
frequented local working-class bars in the nearby town of Vinton,
Louisiana. By
her senior year of high school, Joplin
had developed a reputation as a ballsy, tough-talking girl who like to drink
and be outrageous.
After graduating from high school, Joplin
enrolled at Lamar State College of Technology in the neighboring town of Beaumont, Texas.
There, she devoted more time to hanging out and drinking with friends than to
her studies. At the end of her first semester at Lamar, Joplin left the school. She went on to attend
Port ArthurCollege,
where she took some secretarial courses, before moving to Los Angeles in the summer of 1961. This first
effort to break away from wasn't a success, however, and Joplin
thus returned to Port Arthur
for a time.
In the summer of 1962, Joplin fled to the University of Texas
at Austin,
where she studied art. In Austin, Joplin began performing
at folksings—casual musical gatherings where anyone can perform—on campus and
at Threadgill's, a gas station turned bar, with the Waller Creek Boys, a
musical trio with whom she was friends. With her forceful, gutsy singing style,
Joplin amazed
many audience members. She was unlike any other white female vocalist at the
time (folk icons like Joan Baez and Judy Collins were known for their gentle
sound).
In January 1963, Joplin ditched school to
check out the emerging music scene in San
Francisco with friend Chet Helms. But this stint out
west, like her first, proved to be unsuccessful, as Joplin struggled to make it as a singer in
the Bay Area. She played some gigs, including a side-stage performance at the
1963 Monterey Folk Festival—but her career didn't gain much traction. Joplin
then spent some time in New York City, where she hoped to have better luck
getting her career off the ground, but her drinking and drug use (she'd begun
regularly using speed, or amphetamine, among other drugs) there proved to be
detrimental to her musical aspirations. In 1965, she left San Francisco and returned home in an effort
to get herself together again.
Back in Texas, Joplin took a break from her music and her
hard-partying lifestyle, and dressed conservatively, putting her long, often
messy hair into a bun and doing everything else she could to appear
straight-laced. But the conventional life was not for her, and her desire to
pursue her musical dreams wouldn't remain submerged for long.
Joplin slowly returned to performing, and in
May 1966, was recruited by friend Travis Rivers to audition for a new
psychedelic rock band based in San
Francisco, Big Brother and the Holding Company. At the
time, the group was managed by another longtime friend of Joplin's, Chet Helms.
Big Brother, whose members included James Gurley, Dave Getz, Peter Albin and
Sam Andrew, was part of the burgeoning San
Francisco music scene of the late 1960s; among the
other bands involved in this scene were the Grateful Dead.
Big Brother
Joplin blew
the band away during her audition, and was quickly offered membership into the
group. In her early days with Big Brother, she sang only a few songs and played
the tambourine in the background. But it wasn't long before Joplin assumed a bigger role in the band, as
Big Brother developed quite a following in the Bay Area. Their appearance at
the now legendary Monterey Pop Festival in 1967—specifically their version of
"Ball and Chain" (originally made famous by R&B legend Big Mama
Thornton) brought the group further acclaim. Most of the praise, however,
focused on Joplin's
incredible vocals. Fueled by heroin, amphetamines and the bourbon she drank
straight from the bottle during gigs, Joplin's unrestrained sexual style and
raw, gutsy sound mesmerized audiences—and all of this attention caused some
tension between Joplin and her bandmates.
After hearing Joplin at Monterey, Columbia Records President Clive
Davis wanted to sign the band. Albert Grossman, who already managed Bob Dylan,
the Band, and Peter, Paul & Mary, later signed on as the band's manager,
and was able to get them out of another record deal they'd signed earlier with
Mainstream Records.
While their recordings for Mainstream never found much of an audience, Big
Brother's first album for Columbia,
Cheap Thrills (1968), was a huge hit. While the album was wildly
successful—quickly becoming a certified gold record with songs like "Piece
of My Heart" and "Summertime"—creating it had been a challenging
process, causing even more problems between Joplin and band's other members. (The
album was produced by John Simon, who'd had the band do take after take in an
attempt to create a technically perfect sound.)
Cheap Thrills helped solidify Joplin's
reputation as a unique, dynamic, bluesy rock singer. Despite Big Brother's
continued success, Joplin
was becoming frustrated with group, feeling that she was being held back
professionally.
Solo
Career
Joplin
struggled with her decision to leave Big Brother, as her bandmates had been
like a family to her, but she eventually decided to part ways with the group.
She played with Big Brother for the last time in December 1968.
Following a historic performance at Woodstock
(August 1969), Joplin
released her first solo effort, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!,
in September 1969, with Kozmic Blues Band. Some of the project's most memorable
songs were "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" and "To Love
Somebody," a cover of a Bee Gees tune. But Kozmic Blues received
mixed reviews, with some media outlets criticizing Joplin personally. Feeling uniquely pressured
to prove herself as a female solo artist in a male-dominated industry, the
criticism caused distress for Joplin.
"That was a pretty heavy time for me," she later said in an interview
with Howard Smith of The Village Voice. "It was really important,
you know, whether people were going to accept me or not." (Joplin's
interview with Smith was her last; it took place on September 30, 1970, just
four days before her death.) Outside of music, Joplin appeared to be struggling with alcohol
and drugs, including an addiction to heroin.
Joplin's
next album would be her most successful, but, tragically, also her last. She
recorded Pearl
with the Full Tilt Boogie Band and wrote two of its songs, the powerful,
rocking "Move Over" and "Mercedes Benz," a gospel-styled
send-up of consumerism.
Tragic
Death and Legacy
Following a long struggle with substance abuse, Joplin
died from an accidental heroin overdose on October 4, 1970, at a hotel in Hollywood's Landmark
Hotel. Completed by Joplin's producer, Pearl was released
in 1971 and quickly became a hit. The single "Me and Bobby McGee,"
written by Kris Kristofferson, a former love of Joplin's, reached the top of the charts.
Despite her untimely death, Janis Joplin's songs continue to attract new
fans and inspire performers. Numerous collections of her songs have been
released over the years, including In Concert (1971) and Box of
Pearls (1999). In recognition of her significant accomplishments, Joplin was posthumously
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and honored with a
Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards in 2005.
Dubbed the "first lady of rock 'n' roll," Joplin has been the subject of several books
and documentaries, including Love, Janis (1992), written by sister Laura
Joplin. That book was adapted into a play of the same title. Amy Berg’s
documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue, premiered at the Toronto Film
Festival in September 2015.
.
Every few months I take
time to review the readership stats of the CPT to try and learn who is
interested in our reporting. Of course
the most glaring stat may be who is not reading it.
No residents of Coltons
Point read the Coltons Point Times.What
does that tell me about having found a home?This village has been settled for 380 years, the oldest chartered
community to be continuously occupied in the original thirteen colonies.
There are actually families
here today that date back to the boat people.If you want some fascinating history check out the articles highlighted at
the end of this story.
Basically no one from Southern Maryland reads the Coltons Point Times even
though there is some degree of evidence that people reside in this area with
the ability to read and even a casual interest in what happens outside this
area.
Be that as it may, even
the State of Maryland
has always been far down the list of readers by state usually showing up in the
bottom 25 states. New
York, California, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, Ohio and Virginia have always dominated the USA readers.
But the real story to me
is that citizens of the United States
only represent 48% of my readers, meaning the rest of the world is more
interested in what is happening in America, at least from my
perspective, than Americans.
Over the past couple of
months Germany
at 26% has remained a strong second.Canada continues at #3 with 6% but the most
surprising new member of the top ten is China
at #4, with the combined China
and Hong Kong readers over 5%.Rounding out the top ten are Poland and France
at 4% each, Sweden 3%, Ukraine 2%, United
Kingdom and Iraq at 2%.
Depending on the hot
topics of the week other counties like Russia,
Brazil, Romania, Ireland,
Australia, India and the Netherlands have popped in and out
of the top ten.I urge all of you to
encourage people to check out the Coltons Point Times and especially those
people in China
as I will be doing a series of articles on the Chinese history, culture and
future in the near future.
Of course what happens in America continues to be the main draw of readers
and the international dominance of readers indicates how the events in America can
influence the rest of the world. I thank
you for wanting to be informed and ask you to please tell others about us.
As we celebrate our 8th
anniversary publishing the Coltons Point Times we are proud to remain the only
news service on the Internet with no advertising allowed.
St. Clements IslandMaryland Colonial History - The
Rest of the Story
Maryland and the nation owe a great deal to
the brave colonists who ventured across the Atlantic
in 1633 and landed on St. Clements Island in early 1634. St. Clements Manor,
established within a couple of years, remains the oldest continually settled
chartered community in colonial America.
The following series of articles gives the latest research and solves the
enduring mysteries about the colonial days in England and Southern Maryland giving a fascinating
glimpse into the lives and politics of the colonial era.
