Janis Joplin
Blues legend Janis Lyn Joplin was born on January 19th 1943, the eldest child of parents Seth and Dorothy Joplin. Janis was born and raised in the small Southern petroleum industry town of Port Arthur, Texas. Her father was a canning factory worker, her mother a registrar at a local business college. Her non-abberational upbringing coupled with the atmosphere of Port Arthur at the time; generally restrictive, intolerant, and unnurturing must've made even Janis' early childhood difficult. By all accounts, however, Janis seems to have been a "normal" and happy child, who fitted society's usual definition of "pretty". It was in Janis' adolescence that the hang-ups and hassles that were to affect the path of the rest of her life. In a sense, her rigid upbringing played a large part in making Janis who she was. This would never have been admitted at the time, but, predictably, the "Port Arthur" ethic created a fire inside Janis (the fire which later made her so famous) and kept it burning until her death. Janis' troubles began, when, as a teenager, her "good looks" gradually began to disintegrate, her soft blonde hair turned into an unruly brown mane. She also developed severe acne, which would scar her mentally as well as physical
ly. Hence, Janis became something of a loner, an "ugly duckling"- somebody who no longer fitted society's absurd notion of "pretty." She soon began avoiding mirrors, and her anxiety about her looks was made worse by the constant taunts by peers, who rejected her and often made fun of her. When Janis found that society had rejected her, she simply rejected it. The band played at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium, and, famously, at the Monterey Pop Festival, California, where Janis gave a legendary performance. Janis raised on classical music and omnipresent country music back in Texas, discovered the blues of Louisiana. Janis was soon inspired to both learn and appreciate music, and its roots- her idols included Odettea, Leadbelly and Bessie Smith, who would have great influence on her subsequent musical career, especially her vocal style. By the time Janis graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1960, she had already decided she wanted to be a singer, and left home. Then, ironically, a fed-up Janis headed back to Austin, where she had previously experienced such hostility, and stayed there for a further seven months before she was on the move again this time to San Francisco, where the next, and most important, chapter of her life was to begin. Janis decided against going solo and instead joined another band entitled the Kozmic Blues Band. She appeared with them at the great Woodstock festival, and they released one album together: "I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again, Mama", released in September 1969, which, although it showed the maturity of her sound, received mixed reviews. Rolling Stone, in particular, slated the album. It was a somewhat different sound from Big Brother, with more emphasis on R&B than previously. In the summer of 1965, Janis returned home to Port Authur for a year to question her life direction. Drugged-up and burned-out, she attempted, unsuccessfully, to conform to a "straight" lifestyle.
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Approximate Word count = 1343
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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