My word, where has the time gone? Forty-one years... I can't believe it.
October 4, 2011 will mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Janis Joplin, an explosive force of nature that we still haven't seen the likes of cross our paths again. Janis was a broad, true and simple. She had stones the size of Buicks' and a voice that was even bigger still. Hell, here voice could give a microphone a hard-on.
Her style was unique, a cross of rock, soul, jazz and just plain gut-bucket blues. Her voice spread itself between raw, raspy and raucous all the way over to almost lullabyish and hurting so badly you could damn near taste the pain inside. She could erupt on stage like a volcano one moment and turn into a wounded bird the next and all the while taking you along for the ride of your life Visually she was much larger than life. Musically she was decades ahead of her time. And personally she was a bloody mess with enough baggage to move to Mars with. But it all served to make her who she was deep down inside: Pearl.
Always the outcast she never seemed to quite fit in anywhere. Her early life was a disaster. As to her youth in Port Arthur, Texas she said, "They laughed me outta class, they laughed me outta school and they laughed me outta town." To get even for that, several months before her death, she returned to Texas to attend her 10-year high school reunion. When she showed up she poured herself out of the back of the longest limo anyone had ever seen, awash in feathers, sequins and velvet and was descended upon by more news media than you can imagine. Guess what? Not only did no one remember her from high school they didn't even know who she was as a world famous performer!!! So much for Port Arthur. She snuck out the back entrance in tears and never looked back.
Less than 3 months later she was dead. While working on recording her upcoming new album she was found face down, dead, in her hotel room on the morning of October 4 1971. The coroner ruled her death the result of ingestion of large amounts of alcohol and almost pure heroin. From an underage high school chick that would sneak into honky-tonks and play for drinks to "the voice" of Big Brother and The Holding Company to fronting her own bands, Full Tilt Boogie and The Kozmic Blues Band, she managed to ride a lightning bolt bareback and barefoot. All with a smile on her face, an unmistakable cackle in her throat and a wisp of innocence about her that belied the hard wood that lay beneath. She left this plain at the height of her career and we will never know what might have been. I can only imagine what she would be like today at the age of 67. Whoa, doggies!!!
Pearl, I have everything that you ever recorded, I know every word to every song and I still hold that invaluable lesson that you taught me dear to my heart---you gotta "Try, Just A Little Bit Harder"...
No comments:
Post a Comment