Janis Joplin

That brings me back to the original topic at hand:  If Germans and Dutch could fluently speak the language of rock and roll, how much easier is it for Canadian rock musicians to blend in seamlessly with the larger rock world.  Canadian rock stars are common, even if not everyone knows that they are Canadian:  Neil Young is a long-time favorite of mine who is from Toronto, Ontario; the Guess Who, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, had numerous hits in the 1960’s and 1970’s and had a spinoff band as well called Bachman-Turner Overdrive, with lead singer Burton Cummings also having a lucrative solo career; Steppenwolf evolved from a Canadian rock band called the Sparrows (Mars Bonfire, a former Sparrow wrote their massive hit “Born to be Wild”); and the band that Janis Joplin headed for her final album, Pearl (after she left Big Brother and the Holding Company), the Full Tilt Boogie Band is from Stratford, Ontario.  Even the seemingly quintessential American band called The Band was actually composed of Canadians with the exception of Levon Helm; they once released a single under the name the Canadian Squires. 

(April 2013)

Yet another song on Buffy Sainte-Marie’s album It’s My Way!, “Cod’ine” – adapted from codeine, a compound often found in cough syrup, but pronounced “co-dyne” – is one of the first songs to deal with the dangers of drug use.  The song “Cod’ine” is among those included on the above album, This is Janis Joplin 1965 that I was not previously familiar with; another track is an early version of her composition “Turtle Blues” that appears on the classic 1968 Big Brother and the Holding Company album, Cheap Thrills.  This album collects several songs that were originally recorded by Janis Joplin and her guitar; her bandmate in BB&HC, James Gurley added a full band to the tracks, and the album was released 30 years later, in 1995. 

(August 2013)

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The early female rock stars got a lot of attention for their bands, with Janis Joplin in Big Brother and the Holding Company and Grace Slick in Jefferson Airplane (and later in Jefferson Starship and Starship) being two of the biggest.  A current Broadway show called A Night with Janis Joplin features Mary Bridget Davies in the title role; Davies is good enough at her job to have previously toured with Joplin’s former band Big Brother and the Holding Company.   

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After Goldie and the Gingerbreads broke up, bandleader Goldie Zelkowitz changed her name to Genya Ravan and joined a brass-heavy rock band called Ten Wheel Drive in 1969, where Ravan was accompanied by 10 male musicians.  Before long, comparisons began to be drawn between Ravan and Janis Joplin.  

(October 2013)

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I saw the above album by Angie Pepper, It’s Just that I Miss You (2001) that was advertised in the Bomp! mailorder service as recommended for Blondie and Patti Smith fans, so I immediately ordered it.  Allmusic calls her music psychedelic blues-rock and compares her to Janis Joplin.  

(December 2013)

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Melissa Etheridge had a memorable appearance at the 2005 Grammy Awards, where she performed “Piece of My Heart” in a tribute to Janis Joplin.  She was slick bald at the time due to chemotherapy for breast cancer (from which she recovered); and the boldness of her appearance there – some years before Robin Roberts’ shorn locks on Good Morning America – only endeared her further to the American public. 

(January 2014)

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I have not meant to suggest in these various Women-in-Rock posts that women have just been doing what men do when they do rock and roll.  Sometimes women are the ones blazing a trail.  When Cheap Thrills, the breakthrough album for Big Brother and the Holding Company came out in August 1968, Janis Joplin had already wowed the crowd at the legendary 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.  

Cheap Thrills was a true sensation – as happened so often with the Beatles, Big Brother and the Holding Company staked out territory on this album that other rock artists could only admire; no one tried to follow them.  The front cover art by top “underground comics” artist R. Crumb still looks amazing; almost as well known is the dramatic pose by Janis Joplin on the back cover. 

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Fetchin Bones formed in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1983 and released a total of six albums.  Writing for Allmusic, Michael Sutton said that the band was “highlighted by [Hope] Nicholls’ powerhouse voice, which recalled Janis Joplin in its dirty intensity”. 

(February 2014)

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The striking photograph on the British cover of the group’s sole album, Blind Faith shows a young topless girl holding a shiny metal winged object that reminds me of a hood ornament.  The cover shot was created by photographer Bob Seidemann, a good friend and former flatmate of Eric Clapton who had also photographed Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead.  The image was titled “Blind Faith” by Seidemann, and that became the name of the band Blind Faith as well. 

(May 2014)

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Another major San Francisco band was Big Brother and the Holding Company; like pre-Grace Slick Jefferson Airplane, they were already a prominent all-male band before Janis Joplin joined up.  

(June 2014)

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Kris Kristofferson is probably better known as a songwriter – such as Janis Joplin’s posthumous hit song, “Me and Bobby McGee”, plus “For the Good Times” (a hit by Ray Price, among others), “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” (recorded by Johnny Cash) and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” (Sammi Smith’s version being the most successful), which were all #1 hits on one Billboard or Canadian chart or other – or as an actor in dozens of films, such as Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, A Star Is Born, the Blade films, and The Motel Life.  He has a rough-and-tumble reputation as a hard-liver, and in part, that fuels his interest in spiritual matters.  Jesus has clearly been on his mind over the years; his album names include Jesus Was a Capricorn (simply an observation that Christmas Day falls within that astrological sign). 

(July 2014)

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