just heard on the radio that today is Janis Joplin's birthday,

Happy birthday Janis


http://www.officialjanis.com/

Janis Lyn Joplin was born January 19, 1943 and died October 4, 1970. In between she led a triumphant and tumultuous life blessed by an innate talent to convey powerful emotion through heart-stomping rock-and-roll singing. Born and raised in Port Arthur, Texas, a small Southern petroleum industry town, she gravitated to artistic interests cultivated by parents Seth and Dorothy Joplin.


Janis broke with local social traditions during the tense days of racial integration, standing up for the rights of African Americans whose segregated status in her hometown seared her youthful ideals. Along with fellow band beatnik-reading high school students, she pursued the non-traditional via arts and literature, especially music. They gravitated to folk and jazz with Janis especially taken with the blues. Discovering an inborn talent to belt the blues, Janis began copying the styles of Bessie Smith, Odetta and Leadbelly. She played the coffee houses and hootenannies of the day in the small towns of Texas. She later ventured to the beatnik haunts of Venice, North Beach and the Village in New York, eventually landing in Austin, Texas as a student at the University of Texas. Jumping into the on-the-edge lifestyle cultivated by the beats, Janis thrilled at her creativity, but almost lost herself in experiments with drugs and alcohol, especially speed.


Returning home for a year to question her life direction, she excelled at college but was never content. Music still called her to her in spite of its dangerous association with drugs. "The two aren't wedded," her friends counseled. When old Austin friend, Chet Helms, then in San Francisco, called to offer her a singing audition with an up-and-coming local group, Janis was tempted. She found a vital San Francisco community, turned upside down by the flower children of 1966, and was offered the singing position in a relatively obscure group called "Big Brother and the Holding Company."

n e x t

for remuneration. A bottle of beer at Threadgill's, the place has grown over the years, but it is still there. Robert Crumb did the album cover-he drew Mr. Natural, Keep on Trucking, Fritz the Cat, and myriad of others. I have that album by the way, a lot of them packed up when I had to go. Just got them back recently from the attic at my folks where they had languished for many years. Lots of old one's but my Brother scarfed the valuable ones-original Blind Faith, Spirit in the Sky. Grrrr...

And if you don't know that name, you weren't there . . .

No, no, know it just can't be
No it just can't be
There's got to be some kind of answer.
No it just can't be
And everywhere I look, there's none around
No it just can't be
Whoa, it can't be
No it just can't be, oh no!
Whoa, hear me now.

Yeah, she could belt out the blues.

I lived a couple of blocks away from her old apartment in Noe Valley up until a couple of years ago, and on every anniversary of her death there would be piles of flowers on the sidewalk in front of it. San Francisco hasn't forgotten her.

I miss you

Wish you were here.