My son John has posted a tribute on his blog. He's put up some music videos. I just want to put this up — something I saw at the time and have always remembered — Janis Joplin talking to Dick Cavett about attending her high school reunion. It's heartbreaking:
October 4, 2020
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If you could hang out with Dick Cavett for Janis Joplin - who would you chose?
I'd chose Dick Cavett. He's funny.
I wonder if, when she finally went to her high school reunion, her friends all had Porches.
Brigette Bardot is 89. Clean living.
I remember watching a bio that had an interview with one of JJ boyfriends from her time in San Francisco. He talked about how she would walk around the house with a large drinking glass full of Jack Daniels that she would drink from like it was a glass of water.
People who start drinking habits like that at a young age don't make it past their fifties. They simply don't have any liver left, and once the liver goes, the only fix is a transplant.
I get angry every time I hear her screeching voice. Crazy angry. I think of all those girls that bought into her. Especially the one that died.
She looks like a mischievous child.
Graduated high school in 62, dreaded the tenth reunion where I might learn of classmates killed overseas. We had a number who'd served but lost nobody.
I liked some of the songs she covered, when somebody else was doing them. "Bobby McGee" was probably the best of the lot.
I think Jimmie Football Johnson was one of her classmates.
My goodness! She was so young! Which makes me feel so old because I remember her death. And, I loved her unique voice.
Loved Janis Joplin - knew she was from Texas, did not know that she made the great West Coast migration (like my NYC parents did) to San Francisco in the late 60s. Janis was in the thick of the Haight-Ashbury madness. So was Charles Manson. So was Jerry Garcia. So was Jim Jones. So was Willie Brown, Jr. - whose protege Kammy Harris has a good shot at becoming VP - 50 years later.
Far out, Man.
Port Arthur, Texas was a hellish place to grow up and come of age for someone like Janis Joplin. Conformity was the rule, and that rule was rigidly enforced. I grew up just a few miles from Port Arthur, and I knew the rules well. To succeed, to blossom, to create, to be accepted, she had to leave Texas.
In the years since, Port Arthur has tried to claim her as one of its own, although a great many old-timers know better, including quite a few of the people at that reunion.
Why do you people care so much about dope addicts who just happen to be able to sing and then die by injecting themselves with more dope?
I'm watching the clip, and her Southeast Texas accent is so strong; it almost makes me homesick. Texas is so large that groups of people in different sections of the state have different accents, and Southeast Texas has its own way of speaking. I hear it in her voice; the West Coast hasn't blunted the drawl at all.
I remember singing Mercedes Benz on a canoe trip as a camper in 1970 or 71. First time I had heard the song.
"Brigette Bardot is 89. Clean living."
Along with: Gina Lollobrigida (93), Julie Newmar (87), Joan Collins (87), Sophia Loren (85), Ursula Andress (84); Jane Fonda (82); Claudia Cardinale (82). Good genes help.
"...Why do you people care so much about dope addicts ..."
Because she could sing and tell a story. Because she could sing her emotions and make the audience feel those emotions at the same time she did. She was tormented, and she could make the audience feel her torment, and at the same time feel the jubilation that comes from being able to sing a story so that the audience feels the story. Because she had a sort of genius and a God-given talent.
Yes, her death was an immense waste, just as the death of Hendrix and Morrison were a waste, but what she left us was art; art that humanity will be listening to in one hundred or five hundred years or a thousand years in the future.
You. What have you done or contributed that people centuries from now will discuss? Watch? Read? Hear? Admire? Respect? Anything ? Anything at all? I can assure you that no one will remember you or your sniping at an artist who left us some of the finest music ever written and performed.
Be. Ashamed.
I guess she didn't get the last laugh. I used to think her early death was tragic and poetic. That's the way young people think of early death. Later on, you just come to the realization that it's all just a stupid fucking waste. On the plus side, it added poignancy to some of the songs she recorded, but she certainly never got to savor the legend.....Amy Winehouse was a bigger waste. Janis Joplin at least left a body of work. With Amy Winehouse, you just think of all the songs you wish you had heard that fine voice sing.....I've read that they used to blind the caged nightingales. They said the extra added misery made them sing sweeter. It does seem that an enormous number of the best singers are maimed and desolate...You've got to hand it to Edith Piaf. The broken extremities made her tougher--for a while anyway.....I'm glad Doris Day lived such a long life and was never a great blues singer.
That clip makes me think of Ashley McBride, her song A Girl Going Nowhere, and her quick little Fat and Famous ditty.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fLuMdBnVsSg
"On August 14th, Joplin attended her high school reunion at Thomas Jefferson High School. She was accompanied by fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and her younger sister, Laura. Dressed in the popular San Francisco hippie fashion of the day with feathers and beads and her trademark purple-tinted glasses, Joplin answered questions at a press conference, during which some of her more painful high school days came up again. All in all, it wasn’t a pleasant visit for Joplin. Generally, this visit home to Port Arthur for the reunion did not achieve what she had hoped, and once again she left town feeling rejected and unloved. She soon returned to California to work on her music."
https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/janis-joplin-high-school-reunion/
A song about Janis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pekuZglq-Sg
Dick Cavett is a good guy. His favorite song is little toy trains. He is well groomed and well manered. He keeps his sexual curiousity as polite as possible and does not go home angry. I prefer passive agressive myself.
Staying away from trouble and responsibility makes him a wiser example.
Keeps me alive, I do not play with drugs or the opposite gender.
Janis Joplin has crossed a line of no return ended with a heroin overdose. Kurt Cobain similar age of no return on heroin, yet a shotgun suicide. Amy Winehouse died at the same age. There are other retrobutions in retrospect to just go and have fun. Responsibility is challenged. I can say that in bias since I only get one bias. The two individual personalities are too extreme for me, balanced may make a certain other personality.
Yeah, I would not return to a Texas High School reunion myself. I wouldn't even return to a California High School reunion. Facebook keeps re-opening my account and I did not ask to return.
Almost forgot about fm Christmas songs this year round.
Yes, very heavy lyric'd musicians for a mind over maybe 5 years or so.
You can see the hard living written all over her- 27 going on 47.
I'm a fan of Joplin's work, and she was historically important. She was arguably the first female rock star, though you can make a strong case for Tina Turner. Her influences on subsequent female artists, from Stevie nicks on, is evident. Nicks was in a band called Fritz in the early 70's that once opened for Joplin, and Nicks described it as having a big impact on her singing. Joplin was in the tradition of the old blues belters like Bessie Smith and Big Mama Thorton.
My mentor saw Janis perform live when he stumbled onto the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, though was billed as the band she was fronting, Big Brother and the Holding Company. He recalled she was wearing a yellow mini skirt and was swigging from a Jack Daniels bottle between songs. My mother is also a big fan. Pearl was on regular rotation in my house growing up. I remember being shocked when I learned she was only 27 when she died. I had always assumed she was much older.
Bette Midler's film debut The Rose began as a Joplin biopic, but the family refused to grant rights. It became an "inspired by" situation, but they kept the basic outline of Joplin's personality: a drug-addicted rock and roller with a desperate need for approval
I lived in Beaumont during 1984-86 and made sales calls on many refineries and chemical plants
throughout the Golden Triangle (Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange, TX). I have a fairly strong recollection of seeing a plaque or marker identifying Janis Joplin as having attended Nederland High School. Curious, as both Nederland HS was in existence during Janis' HS years,
and Port Arthur had 3 High Schools in existence during those same years. I don't know what it means, maybe she had transferred from one to another at some point. Growing up, I had been a huge fan of her music- I still have some BB&THC albums collecting dust & mildew. She ODed on 10/04/1970. Jimi Hendrix had ODed just before Janis on 9/18/1970, another of the greats of that era. I still, have some of his albums as well.
Whenever a song of hers comes on I turn the channel.
Her voice is annoying beyond belief.
I will never understand the appeal...
Screechiness in spades.
Btw, 'Bobby Magee' is in my top ten of the worst written/recorded songs ever.
"Brigette Bardot is 89. Clean living."
"Et Dieu... créa la femme"
And God created woman - well, he seems to have made that particular one in the custom shop.
I care as much now as I did then. Not a whit.
RIP JJ and thank you for the memories Pearl girl.
I invited Dick Cavett to my high school reunion and it was a disaster. Cavett had never drank in Wisconsin before. I still have his car keys from that evening. I don’t know how he got home.
@Full of Soup, if you spell the name “Jimmy,” as in the Hall of Fame Coach, then Wikipedia says you’re right.
She may have some cultural significance. I'm of the tail end of the boomers, the "I-don't-have-anything-in-common-with-those-people" years. For me, Joplin's pretty close to the front of the line of the boomers' Emperor's New Clothes figures.
She has much softer features than I imagined. It is sad that, for all her success, she’s still so scarred by how she was treated in high school that she's going back just to rub her success in their faces.
"She was arguably the first female rock star, though you can make a strong case for Tina Turner."
Grace Slick was ahead of her.
How great an interviewer is Dick Cavett. He’s from Nebraska.
You are right about Grace Slick. Tina became a true star a little later. I first saw Tina at a college dance in Indiana about 1968. when it was the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Saw her again in Milwaukee about 1972 when she was the opening act for Chicago, so her mega-stardom came later.
Big Mike- that is how I meant to spell Jimmy. Thanks!
"...as having attended Nederland High School..."
She graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur; I doubt she was connected to Nederland in any way. My father graduated from TJ in 1957; if he ever knew her he never said. TJ was the white school in Port Arthur prior to 1965, while Abraham Lincoln High School was for the blacks.
Anyone who wants a really good look at the environment, time and place where Janis Joplin grew up should read "The Liar's Club" by Mary Karr, who grew up in a small town adjacent to Port Arthur. Her book nails the attitudes and voices of the people of Port Arthur and the surrounding towns. Great reading.
Only a raging alcoholic could have written The Great Gatsby or a drug addict Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. The great vocalists also bring a tortured soul to their work. Listen to Judy Garland on Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas...a voice in severe emotional pain. Same with Joplin, that voice is a cry from the guts.
Ann Althouse said... Grace Slick was ahead of her.
I was madly in love with Grace Slick in the late 60's. I can't say the same for Janis.
However, I did not see Grace as a rock star because Jefferson Airplane was the draw. Big Brother and the Holding Company were not the draw. Janis was.
" I can assure you that no one will remember you or your sniping at an....." Sure, we still talk about someone who had a remarkable talent who despite that, despite being able to never have to work again still killed herself by choice by abusing alcohol and chemicals. The same asinine choice, yes choice, made by others similarly talented. Such a talent who made such a foolish choice. Also, most of us live our lives in obscurity. Raise our families ,teach our children and send them off to be successful in the world and in life. All done without fame or celebrity. And, quite frankly , most of those "celebrities" and famous people are ignorant snots, garbage people. Undeserving of the public accolades and respect. Read what they say, what they publish. Janice while talented wasted her talent by her own choice and her own hand, how foolish. Let alone those around her who did nothing to help her, indeed many of those idiots actively aided her in her self destruction. Funny no one is talking about them.
"Be. Ashamed." Nope, no need. Not a damn chance of that. Pointing out that someone shot themselves in the foot is not shameful in the least.
What a sublime paring, Janis Joplin and Dick Cavett. A supernova and a large cup of decaf coffee.
I was a huge fan of both of them. And though we've had a lot of talent since those days, I still regard Janis Joplin as one of the greatest of all time. Janis and Jimi left way too early, with so much left to offer.
There's a great article about JJ's writing of "Mercedes Benz" on a road trip with Rip Torn. I assumed I read about it here, but I don't see it under the tag. WSJ, so behind the paywall.
Grace Slick was ahead of her.
That's true. But just barely. White Rabbit and Somebody To Love had hit a few months earlier. They both had a big following in San Francisco. I think Slick was the better singer, but her on stage persona was more aloof and mysterious. Joplin was a powderkeg. She was also a tomboy and probably a lesbian. She was also not very attractive and had bad pockmarks on her face. She was pretty ruthlessly tormented by other students while in high school. Slick, on the other hand, was gorgeous, a former model, and someone who frequently relied on her sexuality.
Interestingly, Slick and Joplin were both from educated, well off families. Joplin's father was a Texaco engineer and Slick's an investment banker. Neither were boomers. Back when Grace was 60, she said: "Politically I'm just a little bit to the left of a Sandinista, but for financial stuff I always listened to my father, a Republican investment banker. He told me if I always pay my bills with one-third, save one-third and screw around with the last third, I'll be okay, no matter how much I earn. It's the one thing he said that I listened to, and I have never been in any financial trouble."
cornroaster:
Tina became a true star a little later. I first saw Tina at a college dance in Indiana about 1968. when it was the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Saw her again in Milwaukee about 1972 when she was the opening act for Chicago, so her mega-stardom came later.
Ike & Tina had their first Top 40 hit in 1960 with A Fool in Love. They had some early success but then faded for a while. Turner did River Deep, Mountain High with Phil Spector in the mid-60's, but they didn't really peak until the late 60's and early 70's.
Tina definitely came before Slick or Joplin. But does she qualify as a rockstar? She was performing in the R&B genre, though A Fool in Love did crossover to the pop charts, and their next big hit, It's Gonna Work Out Fine, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock & Roll Performance in 1962. Ike Turner is a major rock pioneer and innovator. His Rocket 88 is what inspired Little Richard to take up the piano. Tina was pushing Ike to adopt a more rock and roll sound throughout the 60's, culminating in covers of Come Together and Honkey Tonk Woman and then their biggest hit, Proud Mary, which did win them a Grammy.
Okay, I've convinced myself. Tina Turner is the first female rock star.
How great an interviewer is Dick Cavett. He’s from Nebraska.
So was Carson.
"john said...
I wonder if, when she finally went to her high school reunion, her friends all had Porches."
JJ had a Porsche, a 1964 356 Cabriolet. One of her roadies put a custom paint job on it. It sold at auction for almost $2 million.
I’ve been a big Dick Cavett hater all my life. His cardinal sin? Wittiness. I hate witty. I like funny. Cavett was the Ted Talk of Comedy. His audience was midwits who thought they were all superior intellectually.
#WittyIsBad
Going to a party and coming home with your girlfriend's name tattooed on you - worst party favor ever.
The tattoo artist she mentions has a Wikipedia page. There are also lots of images and articles about him - he died last year.
So Joplin's art was to make other people "feel her torment". Some legacy.
"Whenever a song of hers comes on I turn the channel.
Her voice is annoying beyond belief.
I will never understand the appeal..."
What he said.
As Michael alludes: there is no shortage of sad, heartbreaking personal stories among famous singers, entertainers, and writers. I've reached a point that I can no longer read or hear about the details of these stories. There is an argument to be made that these folks achieved what they did in their chosen field in part as a result of their personal torment and addictions.
Mercedes Benz remains one of my all time favorites of hers. I especially like the way she wraps it up, "That's it!" with a giggle.
Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin were lovers. They seem to me like an odd couple. From the little I know about them, neither one was picky.
JZ said...
Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin were lovers.
Really?
I was not a fan of Leonard Cohen until 10 years ago when he was an old man trying to recoup his financial losses. It's hard to imagine him with Janis. He was a poet and she was a blues singer.
OK. I can see it.
I liked JJ but I found your "heartbreaking" comment more interesting. I am amazed at the damage high school can do and how long it lasts. I went to a Jesuit college prep in the 60's and it was "Lord of the Flies" level. Vicious as hell, and I later regretted some of my own contributions to the culture. (But I took my share of shots, too - no one was immune.) I know some of the class of 69 never got over it, which is sad.
Althouse and Farmer:
"She was arguably the first female rock star, though you can make a strong case for Tina Turner."
Grace Slick was ahead of her.
————————————————
Seems like you too are getting pedantic about “Star”. Diana Ross and the Supremes, stars plural, were bigger than either Joplin or Slick.
Leslie Gore.
Meh. Never got the appeal. More Boomer worship.
It's not in this clip, but the saddest part of the interview for me, in retrospect, anyway, was when they talked about Robert Crumb, and Joplin said she wanted to meet him. Cavett said something to the effect of "oh, Bob Crumb," that he had met and talked with him. I thought she should have been able to meet him somehow, but I guess she never did.
Saw some reruns of Cavett's show. One with Jack Paar telling stories. THAT guy was very funny. And nuts. He holds up. Cavett, lo these decades later, comes across as a smug, smartass, NY weenie. Tho quick as Bruce Lee.
@Paul asks (reasonably):
Why do you people care so much about dope addicts who just happen to be able to sing and then die by injecting themselves with more dope?
It's a fair question -- perhaps we are romanticizing the past. I profoundly detest the politics of the hippies counter-culture, but because I grew up in it, well, I have some fond memories. And, to simply ignore the impact they had on the country is naive -- ya gotta navigate around it.
The hippies famously proclaimed: "Sex, Drugs and RockNRoll". Well, two out of three ain't bad! Sex and music, were/are positive goods. There were a handful of skeptical folks ((like me) who saw that the drug use and abuse was absolutely destructive, and stayed away from it. But it wasn't that hard for me - because I was a kid, seeing it wreck the adults.
Anyway, I would take the Hippies of the 60's over the current woke, violent, lockdown, Karen mobs of this generation any day of the week.
But, as always, I could be wrong.
""On August 14th, Joplin attended her high school reunion at Thomas Jefferson High School. She was accompanied by fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and her younger sister, Laura. Dressed in the popular San Francisco hippie fashion of the day with feathers and beads and her trademark purple-tinted glasses, Joplin answered questions at a press conference, during which some of her more painful high school days came up again. All in all, it wasn’t a pleasant visit for Joplin. Generally, this visit home to Port Arthur for the reunion did not achieve what she had hoped, and once again she left town feeling rejected and unloved. She soon returned to California to work on her music."
Thanks, Half Moon.
You can tell in the Cavett interview what a terrible idea it is, and her aim was not to feel the love that had been denied to her when she was just another one of the students. So that quote is wrong about what she "hoped" (unless she was misrepresenting herself in the Cavett interview). You can see that she's quite resentful toward the students. She feels they mistreated her, and she things she'll be able to pay them back by showing up as a big star and laughing at them. It was about contempt and payback, so misguided. That they resisted her bullshit is just fine. She didn't deserve to get what she hoped for, which was revenge (against people she knew as a teenager).
"Seems like you too are getting pedantic about “Star”. Diana Ross and the Supremes, stars plural, were bigger than either Joplin or Slick.
Leslie Gore."
Why not Patti Page, then?! Why not Doris Day?!!
You're fixing on the wrong word. The limiting word is "rock." Diana Ross wasn't in a rock band.
Althouse wheels out the “no true rock star”.
Leslie Gore hit #1 and #2 and the top ten several times on the very same chart as the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the Doors.
And if we are genre-splitting then Joplin's biggest hits were country music. Rock is a broad term.
Interesting and hard to watch. I feel for her and she sounds like my family that's still in Texas.
The amazing thing to me is how young she is. I was born right about the time she died, but looking at her, she's so young and sad.
What is the first rock song, as opposed to rock and roll, to hit No. 1 in America? I think it's House of the Rising Sun in the fall of 1964, followed by Satisfaction in the summer of 1965. Is that right?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-one_singles_from_1958_to_1969
You can see that she's quite resentful toward the students. She feels they mistreated her, and she things she'll be able to pay them back by showing up as a big star and laughing at them.
Some people come back to reunions to relive the long ago days when they were somebody. Others to rub their successes in the face of old classmates. My high school graduating class included people who went on to successful careers and people who never amounted to much. Some died in Vietnam, one came home with a Medal of Honor. Some good people, some not. Sorry to say, but it has been so long that I don’t even miss people who were once very close friends.
I had an opportunity to attend my 10 year high school reunion. Then I decided that a pleasant evening out with my girlfriend would be much more enjoyable and a better use of my time than waltzing down memory lane with strangers known as kids a decade ago. No regrets, and we've been married 35 years next spring.
Is there any record of Janis Joplyn attending the reunion?
Did she indeed laugh at her former classmates, in person?
Meh. Never got the appeal. More Boomer worship.
From Wikipedia...
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul and blues music.
Born 1943? Not a Boomer.
"They seem to me like an odd couple. From the little I know about them, neither one was picky.”
You told me then you preferred handsome men, but for me you would make an exception.. - Leonard Cohen, Chelsea Hotel.
Ha! That was just a guess based on your ‘picky’ comment, but it turns out that it was about Janis.
Introducing this song in concert, Leonard Cohen sometimes admitted that he wrote it about a very brief affair he had with Janis Joplin in 1968, explaining that she came to the Chelsea Hotel looking for Kris Kristofferson, and when they ended up in an elevator together, he told her that he was Kristofferson. She knew he wasn't, but figured he would do on this particular evening. "We fell into each other's arms through some process of elimination," Cohen said.
Joplin left in the morning, and he saw her only a few times after that. She eventually did find Kristofferson, and recorded his song "Me And Bobby McGee," which became a #1 hit when it was released after her death.
"After the death of Janis Joplin, Cohen came to regret linking her name with the song. In a 1994 BBC radio interview, he referred to it as "the sole indiscretion in my professional life." He added regarding his kiss and tell: "Looking back I'm sorry I did because there are some lines in it that are extremely intimate.”"
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were famous, your heart was a legend
You told me again you preferred handsome men
But for me you would make an exception
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty
You fixed yourself, you said: "Well, never mind
We are ugly, but we have the music"
My neighbor, who I talk with a fair amount, was closest friends with Janis. She bought her Porsche for her. They did drugs together. One thing she is adamant about is that though Janis was high she didn’t OD. She tripped on a shag rug due to the high heels she had on and hit her head. No one was there to help with the seriousness of that. There wasn’t the usual signs of an OD. They knew how to keep from getting too high.
Nobody who saw that interview—and I did in real time—ever forgets it.
Nobody who saw that interview—and I did in real time—ever forgets it.
The tattoo part at the end was kind of amusing. Janis was decades ahead of her time, because today, nobody would say 'boo' about her tattoos, but in 1970, respectable women did not have tattoos. Neither did men unless they were bikers, military men, felons or circus freaks. Of course, when what was transgressive becomes normal, one must move farther and farther out to stay transgressive.
Hard-boiled John Gilmore wrote movingly about his relationships with a very young Janice Joplin as well as James Dean in Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Machine. I enjoy his prose, but it's probably not to everyone's liking.
In some shots she looks about 14; in others like a little old lady. Poor kid. Of course, I have never even been invited to any of my class's reunions. Still too smart and good-looking for 'em, is my theory.
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