{"id":20168,"date":"2024-04-11T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=20168"},"modified":"2024-04-09T18:37:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T17:37:21","slug":"janis-joplin-her-pain-and-her-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2024\/04\/11\/janis-joplin-her-pain-and-her-pride\/","title":{"rendered":"JANIS JOPLIN; Her Pain And Her Pride"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JANIS JOPLIN; Her Pain And Her Pride<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Olivia Abbercrombie, one of a loing line of excellent writers for the excellent Past magazine ,Janis Joplin\u2019s curse was that she was always going to stand out\u2014for better or for worse. From her unstoppable on-stage energy outshining her Big Brother and the Holding Company bandmates to seeing her creativity become alienated at the conservative Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur, Texas, she was always going to be different. My grandpa graduated high school with her in 1960, and he always told me, \u201cJanis was strange, but we knew she was going to do something big with her life.\u201d It seems like a lot of the ridicule Janis endured growing up was jealousy from those who preferred following the path before them rather than paving their own. Her curse weighed heavy on her heart, and she released so much of that pain into her music and, unfortunately, the drug habit that led to an early death at the age of 27. In her short life, however, she gave us incredible works with Big Brother and the Holding Company, and what is deemed by many as her best work in\u00a0Pearl<\/em>\u2014yet\u00a0I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama!<\/em>\u00a0is where we got more than just a piece of her heart, we got her radiant soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That album has been chosen as the second in a series of Time Capsules, following Live At The Old Quarter by Townes Van Zandt in a new Saturday series by Paste on-line magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After spending three years with Big Brother and the Holding Company, making hits like \u201cPiece of My Heart\u201d and creating historic performances like the band\u2019s turn at Winterland Ballroom in 1968, Janis felt the veil of complacency slowly descending upon her bandmates. Every night was starting to blend together, and after mostly kicking her drug habit, watching them indulge every night wasn\u2019t a part of her artistic vision. She had big plans for herself, and a mundane routine wasn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the summer of 1969, she began recording her first solo album, I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama!<\/em>, with dreams of creating a grand sonic atmosphere that could lift the power of her voice and nurture her blazing energy. Finally, on her own, she started to lean toward the inspirations that made her love music in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in the local First Christian Church choir and surrounded by music from a younger age\u2014because of her mother\u2019s past as a singer and her father\u2019s love of classical music\u2014Joplin always looked to music for comfort. In school, she was teased for her weight, having acne and holding liberal-leaning political views\u2014a period which haunted her throughout her life. She was a deeply sensitive soul, and the hatred from her peers fostered insecurity even after she became famous. While Janis is often labeled the queen of psychedelic rock, her soul lies with the blues legends who raised her. Back in Port Arthur, she found solace in a group of boys who introduced her to the likes of Bessie Smith, Lead Belly and Ma Rainey\u2014where they found these R&B records in a small conservative southern town, I\u2019ll never know, but without them, we may have never be graced with the greatness that is Janis Joplin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joplin\u2019s big plans of having an all-star backing band weren\u2019t entirely executed on I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama!<\/em>. Still, even with the lack of fluidity of the record\u2019s instrumentals, she could squeeze out every masterful note and dominate this album in a way she never could with Big Brother\u2014because it was her, front and center. All the years she spent studying the great blues singers led to an explosion of creativity that became her debut statement. It\u2019s far from perfect, arriving messy, loud and all over the place\u2014but isn\u2019t that exactly who Janis was?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Still, both then and now, people saw I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama!<\/em> as a trial run for the masterclass that would become Pearl<\/em>, yet there is an undeniable spirit in Janis Joplin\u2019s solo debut that sounds like she was finally finding her place. This was her do-or-die moment, having left behind her successes with Big Brother and the Holding Company because she wanted to create something Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Big Mama Thornton would have been proud of. She felt weighed down by her past band\u2019s psychedelic sound and wanted to bring a more complex approach to her own, but the shift from the hypo-rock that propelled her to stardom to a soulful R&B tapestry was not received too kindly. Where did the rugged psych-rock goddess go? Nowhere. She was just finally free to explore her blues roots and gave us a record that was all Janis. The spirit of her music ancestors was laced throughout the 26-year-old\u2019s solo debut\u2014an eight-song tracklist full of jazz licks, southern roots and bottomless gospel influences. It was a portrait of her short but undeniably vibrant life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially met with a lukewarm reaction by critics expecting the psychedelic prowess of her former performances, I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama!<\/em> found some praise from Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2014largely on account of Joplin\u2019s singing chops. While the ambitious spirit of Joplin explodes out of the record with an infectious energy, the album suffers due to the rush of Columbia wanting to get it out while still riding the high of Big Brother and the Holding Company\u2019s Cheap Thrills<\/em>. The instrumentation suffered from haste, but contrary to many critical opinions, there is still much of the musicality to enjoy, such as the incredible guitar work by Paul Butterfield Blues Band axeman Mike Bloomfield. However, as always, it\u2019s Janis\u2019 voice that is the star of the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Janis Joplin sang with more than just her voice, though. She sang with every fiber of her soul. After years of being weighed down by the cosmic might of the Holding Company, she needed to break free to truly let her voice unwind\u2014and her voice was as vulnerable as it was tough. The persona and personality Janis carried, too, mimicked this dichotomy; outwardly, she was a bluesy spitfire, always cradling a bottle of Southern Comfort, but on the inside, she only craved acceptance and adoration. Yet, without those dueling forces within, she would never have been the star she became.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her fierce rasp blares over a chugging beat on \u201cTry (Just a Little Bit Harder),\u201d the album\u2019s opening track, packed with a big band energy competing with the sonic force that is Janis Joplin\u2019s mezzo-soprano vocals. The background harmonies from Sam Andrew and Snooky Flowers on this track are laughable at best and, if anything, they could have tried a touch harder to hammer the beauty home. Though this is the weakest song on the album\u2014which is tough, considering it\u2019s the introduction\u2014it still blazes with Joplin\u2019s electricity, drawing you into the rest of I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama!<\/em> like a firecracker going off. In a flash, we are gifted with one of the most inconceivably marvelous rock vocal performances ever on \u201cMaybe,\u201d a creative re-arrangement of the Chantels\u2019 doo-wop song original. It\u2019s a beautiful display of the deep pain Joplin could access through her voice, as she drags us through the mud\u2014bringing out emotions I could never access without her kaleidoscopic voice to guide me through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Texas darling brings us all the way home on \u201cOne Good Man,\u201d opening with the sting of a gospel-inspired organ from Richard Kermode and a wailing riff from Bloomfield. We are transported right under the burning Southern sun, as the fire of \u201cOne Good Man\u201d finds Janis fighting with the guitar licks as much as she fights with herself. This was the only track on the album she wrote completely solo, and the narrative displays the raw honesty she was<\/em> capable of but didn\u2019t always step into the limelight to show off. The world knew her as a rambunctious, wild child who did whatever she wanted without hesitation but, deep down, she was at war with herself and her desire to live a \u201cproper\u201d life. Growing up in Texas painted a picture of blue skies, white picket fences and a man coming home to you at night. That is how Janis Joplin grew up, after all. \u201cHoney, I love to go to parties \/ And I like to have a good time \/ But if it gets too pale after a while \/ Honey and I start looking to find \/ One good man,\u201d she cries out on \u201cOne Good Man,\u201d digging up the repressed, forgotten desires of that little Texas girl who once just wanted to fit in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019re then met with a stretch of the band playing around with funky grooves before Joplin\u2019s voice cuts through to deliver an onslaught of wails and vibrato, showing off her massive voice. \u201cAs Good As You\u2019ve Been To This World\u201d is essentially a big jam session with Joplin riffing over the top. It\u2019s a bit of brassy fun before you are blasted with an aching bluesy version of the Bees Gees\u2019 (left)<\/strong><\/em> \u201cTo Love Somebody.\u201d Joplin\u2019s effort recalibrates it from a pop ballad into a soulful rocker, adding a new level of heartache to an already vulnerable track. \u201cTo Love Somebody\u201d picks up pace during the chorus, aiding Janis\u2019s belting, and slows down to let her air out her softer side\u2014though still not lacking in her distinctive rasp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album\u2019s sixth track cracks open with melancholic keyboard flourishes from Kermode, Gabriel Mekler and Goldy McJohn before Joplin\u2019s voice slashes through it, crying, \u201cTime keeps moving on \/ Friends they turn away \/ I keep moving on \/ But I never found out why.\u201d \u201cKozmic Blues\u201d is the only other track Joplin wrote on I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama!<\/em> (alongside Mekler), and it makes me once again wish we had gotten more of that raw, unedited pensiveness on the album (and in her career altogether, as she\u2019d only write two songs again on Pearl<\/em>). When her personal stories connect with the ache of her skyscraping rasp, a different kind of tangible, electrocuted magic happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While Janis Joplin had a talent for pouring her own emotions into other people\u2019s words, like that of Nick Gravenites and Kris Kristofferson and Bobby Womack, it\u2019s special to hear language burst out of her with liberation. To this day, it floors me that \u201cLittle Girl Blue\u201d wasn\u2019t written by Joplin, as it has that sorrowful yearning for acceptance and love that she captures so perfectly in her short discography. The original writers\u2019 (Broadway composers Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers) story might as well be her own\u2014an insecure outsider with a tendency to self-medicate using booze. Her version of the theater classic displays a balance of empathy and catharsis, almost as if knowing other people felt uncomfortable in their own skin, too, helped ease her grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joplin was an unstoppable force\u2014always craving more from life\u2014and \u201cWork Me, Lord\u201d is the culmination of all those years of strife, pain, addiction and yearning for belonging poured into a six-and-a-half-minute purgative finale. Janis\u2019s one fundamental flaw was that she could never sit still\u2014because she would never be content, no matter how well she did. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to find anybody \/ Not anybody who could say that they tried like I tried \/ The worst you can say all about me \/ Is that I\u2019m never satisfied,\u201d she confesses, over a soaring brass symphony (executed by Terry Clements, Snooky Flowers and Luis Gasca) the way she always dreamed. Look to I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama!<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll find a blueprint for boisterous female rock leads like Liz Phair, the Wilson sisters, Cat Power, Fiona Apple (right)<\/em><\/strong> and so on. Janis Joplin\u2019s staying power will never fade away and, at the end of the day, she was just a girl trying to find herself in a world that couldn\u2019t quite hold her style. Little did she know, she was in the right place all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

acknowledgements<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The primary sources for this piece was published by Paste in print and on line media Authors. Other sources have been attributed in our text wherever possible<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images employed have been taken from on line sites only where  categorised as images free to use.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a more comprehensive detail of our attribution policy see our for reference only post on 7th<\/sup> April 2023  entitled Aspirations And Attributions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She You\u2019ll find a blueprint for boisterous female rock leads like Liz Phair, the Wilson sisters, Cat Power, Fiona Apple (right) and so on. Janis Joplin\u2019s staying power will never fade away and, at the end of the day, she was just a girl trying to find herself in a world that couldn\u2019t quite hold her style. Little did she know, she was in the right place all along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,13,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-literary","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20168"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20436,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20168\/revisions\/20436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}