Janis Joplin

Because she was a dyke.

Lesbian, slovenly, not attractive therefore no one any gay guy would want to help with her makeup and hair, and she never professed her love for the homos publicly.

She was a hell of a talent, allegedly bisexual but notoriously troubled. Up there with Grace Slick, she was one of the first women to score as a singer in rock - not pop. I have decades old copies of all of her music, but after death I suspect the rapid transition to disco may have eroded her popularity.

Her only top ten was after her death, “Me and Bobby McGee”. Sure, as a DLEG you’d expect I’d know my Janises. But, what about the younger people? Ever listen to 60s rock of any kind (Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Doors)?

Gays gravitate towards divas who are glamorous, which Janis never was.

Poor Janis. She had a raw talent and the soul of a musician, but she lacked polish (in the name of "authenticity," I guess) and the glamour that the gays require of their divas. Our divas don't necessarily have to be conventionally beautiful, or thin, or sexually desirable, but they must have glamor.

I don't even think Janis was that homely.

Compare Janis with say, her contemporary, Grace Slick, who was the fantasy of straight men but also had the gays in her thrall at the time.

Well I for one adore Janis. Her voice, soul, fashion sense, intelligence, humor, sweetness. A real original. Plus she could dance and had a bangin body.

Question, did anybody else do the rock scream before Janis? Sometimes I think Robert Plant stole her style.

Because Janis hated and expressed snobbery toward the great ladies and gentlemen of night clubs, theater music and adult pop. She said it was all Musak. I could never figure out (then) if she was dumb or just competitive. Now I think it was both, and the fact that her musical taste was extremely limited. Next!

Her pussy stank.

Her Dick Cavett appearances.

R7 Weren't most "rock 'n' roller" baby boomers snobbish towards those genres? I don't think it's just a Janis thing.

They probably were, R9. However, no one expressed it as frequently and with as stupidly as Janis Joplin.

I remember when I first heard her sing "Me and Bobby McGee."

I thought it was meant to be humorous. I assumed someone was pretending they couldn't sing. It sounded like Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies.

Dirty Hippie Syndrome.

Janis had a pleasant face, with broad peasant features (as some would describe her). She could look quite pretty at times.

She struggled with her weight, with her bisexuality, and more so, with self-esteem issues her entire life.

The over-the-top hippie/druggie styling did her no favors.

[quote]Because Janis hated and expressed snobbery toward the great ladies and gentlemen of night clubs, theater music and adult pop. She said it was all Musak.

That's why it's so ironic that the awful movie loosely based on her life, "The Rose", used shlocky Muzak, not bluesy rock.

Iconic joyous Janis.

As a young gay man in the closet, her songs of loneliness spoke to my sadness. No white woman has ever sung the blues like Janis. As a rocker, she could bring the house down. Sadly many of her gay fans died young. All my gay friends loved her.

R6, I think Janis' rock screaming was lifted from blues artists like Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Big Joe Turner, and Howlin' Wolf. I don't know who started it in rock. Perhaps Little Richard.

She always said that Big Mama Thornton was one of her inspirations.

Janis and Grace.

and again....

She always looked dirty, smelly, drunk and high.

... and again

She really should’ve been a country & western singer. When she first showed up in CA she used to sing onstage wearing a matching pantsuit.

She had acne scars and considered herself unattractive so she said, “Fuck it. I’m gonna make my bad hair look even worse. I’m not going to wear makeup cover my bad skin. This is me.”

Women in rock and roll tried to keep up with the men, drinking, getting high, having lots of sex. Somewhere along the line it became cool to use heroin. It was part of the “true artist anguish” schtick. Even John & Yoko got addicted.

It wasn’t a good idea.

ImHO this is her best song and Around the 1:35 mark is the real Janis, sad, scared, lonely and wasted

Who ?

[quote] That's why it's so ironic that the awful movie loosely based on her life, "The Rose", used shlocky Muzak, not bluesy rock.

They had to do that because Bette Midler was playing the role. And Bette was never a rocker despite trying so hard to be one.

[R7] Weren't most "rock 'n' roller" baby boomers snobbish towards those genres? I don't think it's just a Janis thing.

No. Tina Turner, Ronstadt, Laura Nyro and Aretha all professed their love for traditional music, and performers, early in their careers.

In the 60's, my cousins would say "That's old lady music" when I listened to Broadway shows.

That said, I am always impressed when I hear her. She was certainly unique amongst white chicks of that day.

[quote]Women in rock and roll tried to keep up with the men, drinking, getting high, having lots of sex. Somewhere along the line it became cool to use heroin. It was part of the “true artist anguish” schtick. Even John & Yoko got addicted.

Linda Ronstadt wrote in her bio about touring as a rock performer, just a few years down the line from Janis, and being a woman who was 1) not self-destructive and 2) intelligent enough to not try to "be one of the boys." Yes, Linda traded on her beauty and image, but within her own comfort zone. She maintained her health. She really helped reinvent the paradigm for women in pop music.

And yes, that's a Cub Scout uniform, part of her stage drag in those days.

In 1969-70, Patty Duke let her weight and appearance go to hell to the degree that people told her she looked like Janis. This pic is from a movie, but you get the idea.

[quote]Patty Duke let her weight and appearance go to hell

Patty always was the more dominant personality. I tried to control her but she overtook me quite frequently.

I love Janis. To me she is the most important female vocalist of the rock era not that fatass Hateretha Franklin.

R16 How is Janis shitting on "old fashion" music when she's singing a fucking Rogers and Hart song?

I don't think Janis was ever really lacking appearance wise. She was average but put no care into her appearance because I don't think she wanted to. She dressed weird, wore over the top accessories, had wild hair and didn't wear any makeup. I love her for being the free spirit she as.

[quote]How is Janis shitting on "old fashion" music when she's singing a fucking Rogers and Hart song?

She also sang Gershwin.

Yes, she did sing Gershwin, but she didn't sing it like Eydie Gorme did. I like both, Janis didn't need to trash those who sang it differently with a Don Costa or Nelson Riddle arrangement.

Janis was notoriously insecure. She was especially intimidated by a fellow Texan, nicknamed “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes” who was way prettier, has tons of cred on the folk scene and had a powerhouse voice: Judy Collins.

I didn't know Judy Collins was from Texas.

Joni Mitchell came to resent Judy a great deal, BTW. I wonder what Joni thought of Janis.

I came to resent Judy too. I never liked that airy-fairy voice of hers. And PBS shills her concerts shamelessly.

R40 ""Janis Joplin was very competitive with me, very insecure. She was the queen of rock 'n' roll one year then Rolling Stone made me the queen of rock 'n' roll and she hated me after that," Mitchell says of the drug-addicted buzzsaw-voiced hellraiser. Laura Nyro, one of the more sedate singers of the era, gets short shrift too. "I had a hard time with her," says Mitchell. But it's the 67-year-old Baez who gets it with both barrels: "Joan would have broken my leg if she could have, or at least that's the way it felt.""

She was a very visceral performer, not to everyone's taste. And NO female performer in her day behaved and acted the way she did; she swigged Southern Comfort onstage, wore no makeup, sweated like a pig, gyrated and shook her ass, and wailed out her songs in that powerhouse voice of hers. She had no glamour; she was just all raw emotion. She wasn't for everyone.

I always found her very interesting, one of the most tormented rock stars ever, and that's saying something. She sought respite in booze, drugs and sex, that same old story. The best biography of her that I read was "Buried Alive (great title)" by Myra Friedman, her publicist. There's a new biography of her that's just been released, "Janis: her life and music" by Holly George-Warren. So she still continues to fascinate.

I guess she was bi-sexual, but her sexual experience with women seemed to stem more from loneliness than desire. I think it made her feel better about herself when someone was willing to have sex with her, and if the person happened to be a woman, well, that was ok. Janis wasn't picky when it came to sexual partners.

Anyone read Going down on Janis by Peggy Caserta? Supposedly one of Janis' lovers.

I always thought that was a trashy title. I can't imagine the book being much better.

"I guess she was bi-sexual, but her sexual experience with women seemed to stem more from loneliness than desire."

Yes, sure...I'm sure I believe that!

‪ Sandy Denny is sometimes considered the U.K. equivalent of Janis. Both were on the rough side of Scots Irish looks, had bad, wiry hair, tended to gain weight and get a bit chubby faced, which was anathema to the world of rock and roll. She lived longer than Janice though, making it to age 31 before dying of multiple drunken crashes from the top of stairways.

I hadn't realized her bisexuality was either an issue or in question when I posted that above. It's pretty common knowledge that she had lesbian affairs as well as heterosexual lovers.

And I can't help but think that Janis would have despised Bette Midler in THE ROSE, which, unfortunately, is the extent of a few people's awareness of her. Janis was much more complicated and full of heart than that character. There have been numerous bio-pic projects in the works since then, but none of them has ever happened.

Fame didn't destroy Janis: She had a serious speed addiction when she was still an unknown. At one point her addiction got so bad, she went back home to Texas and tried to go to school and live a normal life. It didn't last, of course. Like Edie Sedgwick, fame added to Janis's problems, but she would have died young regardless.

[quote]Compare Janis with say, her contemporary, Grace Slick, who was the fantasy of straight men but also had the gays in her thrall at the time.

Grace was - and is - also very witty and funny. I listened to a podcast she did just a few weeks ago and was laughing out loud.

[quote]Sandy Denny is sometimes considered the U.K. equivalent of Janis.

I wonder if Janis was ever jealous of Dusty Springfield? "Son of a Preacher Man" seems like a song that Janis would crave.

I think the premise of the question is off base. Like R16 I was there, and "gays" of the time loved Janis. I suppose one could argue that the "gay opinion" since her death hasn't risen to the level of Streisand, Liza etc. But that's just aligned to another canard, that "gays" like popular music not rock, or disco, or club music, or torch songs etc etc. News flash - gay folk actually like rock, jazz, rap, 12 tone modern, ambient, folk, world music.... And R50 I still worship Sandy Denny... greatest unknown singer... lots of gay folk loved her. Lots of straight folk loved her. …….. etc.

She was just always getting in her way. She managed to thwart several big breaks that came her way that would have garnered her a much earlier success. Not showing up, sobriety issues, inner demons, you name it and she let it interfere. I don't think she believed she deserved good things to happen to her, she had a mental self worth 'block' of some kind. Her eventual success happened in spite of herself. Gays haven't embraced her because we relate to triumph over tragedy. Life sucker punching someone, leaving them with nothing but they overcome with tenacity and smarts. They get it all back and more. That's the Gay icon formula. Janis was none of that.

"Anyone read Going down on Janis by Peggy Caserta? Supposedly one of Janis' lovers."

It's was called "Going Down WIth Janis." Peggy Caserta was, I guess, her only real lesbian girlfriend. Caserta was a druggie and became a junkie like Janis. Her book is pure trash. The first line of it goes like this: "I was stark naked, stoned out of my mind on heroin, and the girl lying between my legs giving me head with Janis Joplin." Later Caserta claimed she had no say in the book and that her co-writer penned it without her input. “I didn’t write that smut about Janis,” she says. “I would never talk like that about our close association. But I lost control because I was strung out and making awful decisions.” Oh, please! Junkies lie a lot and Caserta is no exception. She tried to make money off Janis's corpse by playing up her association with her. These days she claimed Janis did NOT die of a heroin overdose but was murdered. Caserta is obviously crazy. But I think anyone reading "Going Down With Janis" would probably find it pretty funny. The first few pages describe a lurid sex scene and it has Janis overcome with ecstasy, "She started giggling then. It grew into wild laughter and then near hysterical moaning and shouting:

"Woooo-ooooooooo, baby. Do it to me."

Janis doing "Ball and Chain" at Monterey Pop is one of the greatest live performances ever. She was magnificent.

[quote]Life sucker punching someone, leaving them with nothing but they overcome with tenacity and smarts. They get it all back and more. That's the Gay icon formula.

That's not Judy Garland's formula.

Good question OP. Bump.

That was Judy's formula. She lived it several times during her life. She just didn't live long enough to recover from the last sucker punch.

Life didn't sucker punch Judy. She was a drug addict who continually made poor choices and died on the toilet.

Judy had several come backs during her life. Her husbands and mangers robbed her blind. She was in constant formula mode. I think she's the definition of working your ass off to overcome hardship. She just wasnt able to sustain it once she emerged. But I'm not gonna derail a Janis Joplin thread getting into a Judy Garland (did she or didn't she) have tragedy and emerge from it , sidebar.

Perhaps everything would have been different had she lived longer. Her looks, her attitude, her self esteem, her audience.

Rolling Stone magazine called Janis "the Judy Garland of Rock and Roll." It was not meant as a compliment.

HA! Was Amy Winehouse at least mentioned ??

R51 I, too, love Sandy Denny. Such a lovely, natural, bewitching voice.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

The Janis Joplin biography Pearl is really good and has excellent detail on her early years. I used to have a copy and gave it away in a fit of spring cleaning. Now I wish I hadn't, as it's not available on Kindle.

Janis Joplin had looks and personality and a stage persona that went with her voice but it's hard to associate the angelic voice of Sandy Denny with the woman of excess that she was. She was as hard core as Joplin was when it came to booze and drugs, although I don't think she ever became a heroin addict. She was insecure about her looks like Joplin was; she was plump, and despaired at hearing herself described by critics. One of them referred to her "sweet, chubby face." I don't know if she was as promiscuous at Joplin. She married a fellow musician named Trevor Lucas (the marriage, of course, failed) and had a baby with him. She thought having a baby would solve all her problems. It didn't. She did drugs while pregnant and after the child was born she would drive drunk with the baby in the car. Finally her husband took the baby and fled back to his native Australia. Still drinking and drugging, Denny fell down at her parent's house, hitting her head. Her mother declined taking her to an emergency room, saying "you can't be seen drunk." She had headaches thereafter and while staying at a friend's house she took another fall and went into a coma. She later died of brain hemorrhage at age 31. What a tragedy, that lovely voice stilled forever.

I always loved her hair.

"One lovin' man to understand can't be too much to need....." I don't know about the rest of you, but I RESPONDED. She knew what it's like to feel BAD.

Sandy Denny was plain, but hardly hideous to look at.

These poor women. So talented. All they really needed was a good gay stylist, and some better life choices.

Fame. She's a bitch-goddess.

I love Janis, but her's isn't a pleasant voice. To me she is the female James Brown. Sometimes you are in the mood for her and sometimes not. For me, and I think she would approve, I mainly get in the mood to listen to her if I'm drinking Southern Comfort or smoking weed. Take her big hit, "Me and Bobby McGee" if I'm sober I much prefer Loretta Lynn's cover version, but if I'm feeling "good" I like Janis' original.

She was a complicated person. She liked to portray herself as a complete hedonist who only cared about sex, drugs and rock and roll. But she was in reality very intelligent and well read (she liked to keep that fact hidden; it didn't exactly do with her image). She wanted to get married and have children. She really wanted a stable life. She told a friend that if she had a man who would leave in the morning for work and come back home to her, and only her, she would "take that shit with the garage and the two tvs." The friend said "Janis! You're fucking kidding!" And she said "No man, I'm not kidding at all."

I love Janis Joplin more than all other female singers. Maybe I because I am from the same general area. I don't know, I think she's the best.

I remember first hearing Janis as a very young child when my teenage aunt moved in with us for a while. I knew every word to Piece of my heart (still to this day my favorite of hers) .Later in life I really began to understand what she was about when I started suffering heartbreaks of my own. I was astonished to find out she was engaged to one of my most favorite authors ever Seth Morgan (he wrote Homeboy) ! @ people I loved,who at one time loved each other.How cool was that ?

Whether or not she was your style or not, Janis Joplin is a legend. An amazing talent, voice, entertainer, performer, artist. She was a victim of the times and burnt out too soon due to drugs. But the woman certainly made her mark. She remains unique to this day. We’re still talking about her almost 60 years later. Janis Joplin will remain in our consciousness for many years to come.

Janis was the Garland of Rock'n'Roll! Why she has not been embraced by the Friends Of Judy .... I shall never know!!!!

Janis knew Seth Morgan for a few weeks near the end of her life. She met him when he delivered drugs to her house. From a well off family, he was nonetheless the scum of the earth. He was only 21 when they hooked up. She, being very lonely, had a fantasy that they would marry and have children and lead a nice, normal life. But if she had lived there is no doubt that the relationship would have been just another disaster for her. Years later Morgan callously said they might have married if not for her "untimely check out." He also said that if she had been "any old body" he would not have looked at her twice. Morgan would go on to be a pimp and and would rob people (many of them women) on highways. He of course ended up in jail. He wrote his nasty book "Homeboy" which was a truly overrated piece of shit, but was considered a big deal at the time. Drunk and high, he got on a motorcycle and ended up killing himself, along with the woman who was riding the cycle with him. One of Janis's friends described him succinctly as a "sleazy motherfucker." An acquaintance of his said this of his death: "I believe he did it on purpose, to set himself up as a literary myth. I think he was a psychopath. ... He was brilliant, but that's the only nice thing I can say."

I wouldn't describe her voice as a powerhouse. "Pushed", "forced" - those are the kind of descriptors that come to mind.

I'd rather hear Garnet Mimms & Co. sing "Cry Baby", Lorraine Ellison sing "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)," Erma Franklin "Piece of My Heart" etc.

r77 none of them had the electricity that Janis had.

My favorite story about her is that she was voted Ugliest Man on Campus when she was a student at the University of Texas at Austin. I think she was more of a 70s lesbian in Birkenstocks with hairy legs icon.

R78 I agree, Janis had just something in her voice... something that's way beyond technique or anything, just pure emotion. You don't even need to know much about her life (I certainly don't) to get that. Love her.

It's called soul.

Interesting R76 . I never knew that about Seth Morgan. I disagree about Homeboy,I think its a fabulous book. Maybe because I knew people such as the ones in the book . Believe me,his characterizations were deadly accurate.

I think she was talented but that talent was very overstated. Her technique and delivery made every song sound predictably the same. Personally, I hated the nasal quality of her voice. I think Ann Wilson is a far better singer and just as unattractive as Joplin although fatter. Gays didn't embrace her either.

Are you kidding, r83? Heart has always been big with gays. Heart is one of the few things that gay men and lesbians can agree on.

R84, if that's true, that's surprising and great. The Heart threads on DL are usually very short affairs with the exception of the one about when Ann Wilson's pimp choked Nancy's sons.

I'd also put the Bonnie Raitt above Joplin.

The gays to Janice

I like Janis's voice a lot and recognize her talent, but the aforementioned reasons sum up why she never became an icon among gay men. She was too butch. She had very little feminine energy about her. I could be wrong, but my instincts tell me she's more popular among lesbians than she is gay men.

There’s interviews with people who knew her back in Texas on utube. For all her bravado she really craved acceptance from the people who had rejected her, which is very sad. She couldn’t stop going back to that dry well.

That's true. Not long before she died, she went to her 10th high school reunion back in Texas. She showed up in full rock star drag, thinking it would impress the folks who ostracized her in high school. It didn't. As always, they treated her like a freak they just wanted to go away. Hurt over being rejected once again might have contributed to her final binge/overdose.

She was no Mama Cass.

To appreciate Janis, you have to appreciate how no one can imitate her or effectively sing like she sang. Not Melissa Etheridge or Bette Midler in The Rose, or any other singer who tries. They go about the motions but there's something missing.

Bette Midler can barely immitate Bette Midler.

And Melissa Ethridge is totally forgettable as a singer.

I think she wasn't around long enough. Social media wasn't invented. The only way to read about Janis was newspapers or Rolling Stone magazine. She toured plenty, but again, nothing like today's coverage of her everyday movements.

True, R93, but she was all over TV, even stick-up-the-ass Ed Sullivan. I never saw her tour, but I sure as hell knew who she was and I bought her LP (I was 13).

How many years between her getting very famous and dying?

Barely three years, R95.

Monterey Pop was a media artifact that helped launch a cultural upheaval, the counterculture, the hippie "revolution".... Janis at Monterey Pop was central to that documentary. I think the whole discussion of Janis' positioning as a gay icon is kind of irrelevant. I am gay elder who was "part" of that countercultural movement - e.g. I still really value Bob Dylan, saw him this fall, think he deserved the Nobel. Is Bob Dylan a gay icon? What an irrelevant question, right? Janis was... a force of nature. Then she died. Any younger person interested in how she fit into that movement, seek out the movie Festival Express - the Grateful Dead, the Band, Janis - her performance on state and informally on the train with Jerry etc. Last, backing up the Sandy Denny love upthread... one of the greatest singers of the period who is hardly known now. Here's one with that intense British folk passion she exemplified...

I have to take Joplin in small doses, but her performance at Monterey Pop was one for the ages.

I think Ann Wilson is a far better singer and just as unattractive as Joplin although fatter."

You've got to be kidding. Although Ann Wilson always had a weight problem she had a very pretty face. Some flack told Nancy Wilson that when it came to the band's sexiness "Ann's got the face and you' ve got the ass!" Yes, Nancy did get the thin gene, so she always had a nice figure. But Ann was always large. Later on she really blew up. Although she lost weight due to bypass surgery she still remained very big.

Ann is a poster girl for fatties who get told that they have a pretty face, why don't you lose weight. She loses weight only to find out she's not that pretty after all. Of course, she was way better looking than Joplin but what a low hurdle.

Kris Kristofferson wrote this song about her, "Black and Blue":

Her close friends have gathered.

Lord, ain't it a shame

Grieving together

Sharing the blame.

But when she was dying

Lord, we let her down.

There's no use cryin' It can't help her now.

The party's all over

Drink up and go home.

It's too late to love her

And leave her alone.

Just say she was someone

Lord, so far from home

Whose life was so lonesome

She died all alone

Who dreamed pretty dreams

That never came true

Lord, why was she born

So black and blue?

Oh, why was she born

So black and blue?

Wow.

"Chelsea Hotel," by Leonard Cohen, was about Janis. I thought it was about Edie Sedgwick.

And to add to songs composed about her, Mimi Fariña wrote, "In the Quiet Morning," wh. Joan Baez covered on what I consider to be her best album, "Come From the Shadows."

And this is deffo OT, but Jesus Fucking Christ, if there's one thing about my life that I never have been able to handle, it's the knowledge that somebody died before their time due to complications from cancer. I know I'm not the only one who lives with survivor's guilt [I was treated for stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma - there is no Stage V - February through June 2010. As far as I know it's in remission] . I don't expect it will ever be something I can simply brush off and de-emotionalize. But onto to happier and more productive means of using my time today.... like looking for more online porn [half a joke].

"The Rose" was originally set to be a Joplin biopic called "Pearl", but her family refused to cooperate and they had to settle for the shitty songs they gave Midler to sing. I always felt Midler was great in the role but the script and music are just shit.

I thought Bette Midler was ridiculous in "The Rose." The very semitic looking Midler with her brassy Broadway voice, playing a Texas rock/blues singer? It really didn't work. And I thought her version of "When A Man Love A Woman" really sucked.

She told us THEN, so that she wouldn't have to tell us NOW.

Some of us gays do enjoy Janis' music.

Janis could have been pretty if she "tried"

Someone on YT commented how cool she thought JJ was on Dick Cavett, Gloria Swanson was the other guest and was old. Now JJ seems like a caricature while GS seems kind of timeless.

I think JJ said that DC was a better lay and had a bigger dick that Joe Namath

[quote]I think JJ said that DC was a better lay and had a bigger dick that Joe Namath

What would she know? She was a lesbian.

Janis wasn't a lesbian, she was bi and she would fuck anyone.

This was the only time Joplin ever got to me. Not the studio version but this live version on the Tom Jones Show. Unlike other songs, you know she understands and identifies with it and give it all up. Some of her phrasings are actually quite pretty. When she finishes "I know just how you feel", she really gave me goosebumps.

I loved Janis back in the day too but I agree with R70. I have to be in the mood. In my old age, her voice grates on me although I can still listen to summertime. She doesn't yell so much on that song. I always loved Grace Slick too. I Recently Saw a video of her singing at I think it was Woodstock and she sang White Rabbit live. She held that last note just like she did in the studio. It was really impressive.

R113 That was the core of Janis... under her shouting was the yearning and lonely heart looking for love. Anyone not moved by that live performance of Little Girl Blue needs to have their Gay Certificate revoked.

In the bridge of the song, Janis moves to the back and you see how vulnerable she was, so eager to please and make a good impression. It really makes the song amazing.

This is from the "Festival Express" concert tour, 3 months before she died. She's completely wasted, as she was on and off stage for most of the tour, but has so much energy. It's a great documentary. Love her.

Like John Lennon said when asked why the Beatles got caught up in the Maharishi's cult following, "We're human." Joplin was a flawed, imperfect woman whose art transcended her. What I see in the performance @ R113 is she got out of the way and let the songs roar through her. It's raw and not always pretty and that's why Tom Jones called her the "legendary" Janis Joplin; what she expressed was powerful and universal.

I wonder if she got Tom Jones' big dick in her.

Actually, the Tom Jones clip is the most accessible I've ever seen her. She's doing Rogers and Hart so the construction of the song is, IMO, better than her norm. But she lets the song build and doesn't just start start wailing at the very start so there's actually someplace for her to go. Her voice is more pleasing here than usual although the way she improvises and causes the melody to get lost over her vocals is a little annoying.

She performed at Woodstock, didn't she? I seem to recall that she did, and was a train wreck; totally stoned on heroin and sweating buckets.

"Try" at Woodstock, with a stoned intro.

I haven't read any of this thread but I'm sticking my nose in to say that woman was ugly and vulgar in appearance, sound and speech and had no respect for lyrics.

Many people felt that way about her, [R123]. Many people didn't . A matter of taste and experience. Traditionally, trained musicians and vocalists would have had apoplectic fits. When she started out singing in coffee houses, she sounded almost like Joan Baez. Her family saw her perform with Big Brother in San Francisco. Her mother is reported to have said to her, "Why do you sing like that? You have such a beautiful voice?"

Her performance at Woodstock was so pitiful, especially in comparison to her brilliance at Monterey Pop. I read in a biography of her that before going onstage at Woodstock she shot up in a portable toilet. How truly disgusting.

I think the first priority at Woodstock was drugs, and music came a distant second. I don't think her performance was disgusting, just a stoned rambling vocal jam for fun. I'm not sure the crowd expected or needed anything else.

DL posts on Janis Joplin seem dominated by middle class Methodist disapproval. She was an icon of the counterculture... she meant to offend exactly you.

I loved her Woodstock performance . Im grateful for this thread as it reminded me of how much I loved Janis. Its been a while since I really listened to her ,though I truly love her.Life does you that way sometimes. I cant believe I was 10 years old when she died !

She didn't like Tom Jones...perhaps she thought him the kind of Las Vegas crooner that she hated.

R118 sounds like charlie. It comes into a thread, makes a speak and expects applause.

R127, you're completely wrong. She wanted the approval of Middle America more than anything else.

She did sort of look like Danny Bonaduce in drag. She should have played Mrs. Partridge.

"I don't think her performance was disgusting, just a stoned rambling vocal jam for fun. "

I wasn't commenting on her performance; I thought that shooting up smack in a portable toilet (brimming with shit, like the toilets at Woodstock were) was what was truly disgusting. As for her performance, well, it was just bad. She was way off her game, just a stoned mess.

[quote]DL posts on Janis Joplin seem dominated by middle class Methodist disapproval.

You rang?

Chaka Khan was Janis' heir apparent...or are only White girls allowed in this clubhouse?

Actually, Janis got it from Tina Turner, which she admitted but Turner went way ahead.

R133: Early Chaka Khan was like a cross between Aretha and Janis. Soul with Rock and Roll abandon

Courtney Love took the mantle of the screaming "ugly" (although they weren't) woman who felt it all. Unfortunately only one lived to tell the tale. Imagine Janice in a rocking chair telling her stories circa 2019.

Janis Joplin’s need really resonates. She’s naked.

There’s a sense she’s singing from her soul and hurling it all out on the table.

Whether artistic manipulation or real (or a combination of both), to deliver that is rare.