Janis Joplin on Paper

You may have noticed a Janis Joplin documentary on Netflix currently called Little Girl Blue that includes Chan Marshall aka Cat Power  narrating.

Here is the trailer to that film:

Janis is best known for her unbridled vocal performances and wild child charisma however she first began expressing herself through drawing and painting in grade school. The film never goes into her interest in making art or her original desire to be a fashion designer so I took to the internet to seek out some of these sketches myself.

I love this snapshot (below) of her drawing the scarecrow from Oz. It is particularly wild to see Janis looking more like a cast member of Leave it to Beaver as a kid.

Her transition into life as an outcast began in grade school when she stood up against segregation in Texas when few in her community would. She was threatened for her belief in equality as well as mercilessly teased for bad skin, frizzy hair, and being slightly overweight all throughout her school years. Her response was to explore art, read beat writers, start dying her hair, and spend weekends hanging out drinking in Blues bars with a small circle of beatnik friends - all the opposite of what accepted ladylike behavior was by the mainstream. The peak of cruelty from others came when she was named "Ugliest Man on Campus" by Texas University frats in college. She left Texas and tried never looking back however the years of being tormenting had already taken their toll. Drinking and taking drugs were one coping mechanism but luckily for music fans, so was overcoming her haters to pursue her passion of making music.

 

"You are what you settle for"

                                   -Janis Joplin

 

 

Janis Joplin never settled. She was the child of a 1940s/1950s reserved family living in an equally conservative state yet she had the courage to push back against the masses no less allowed herself the freedom to reinvent herself. She defied her gender expectations by being among the first women to use screaming to enhance her vocal performances. She looked exactly as she pleased, including a tattoo which was nearly a half century before it was trendy no less acceptable for a women to have. She crossed color barriers by belting out her own raw take of the Blues. She was as a single, bi-sexual woman forging her way in a mostly male dominated music world. She had no mentor cutting the path for her. She led the way alone. The making and eventually breaking of this star had a lot to do with being a victim of bullying (eventually also leading to her body dysmorphia). For nearly a decade she carried a relentless drive to show the world that she was worthy of love and had something special by channeling that pain and self doubt into her art. The tragic irony of her life is the strife that helped fuel her talent would also be the same thing that helped extinguish her flame.

Friend of Joplin's Country Joe McDonald once stated that "Sexism killer her." and this quote haunts me. Janis refused to buy into conventional beauty or what a female front person should behave/sound like and she paid the price for it. She was finally earning the love and respect she craved from fans but for most of her short life, her trusted inner circle never delivered the kind of support system she needed desperately. Joplin also sadly lacked the self love to rise above the criticism. She found it difficult to escape feelings of loneliness and never learned to cope with the lows that followed the high of performing to large and enthusiastic audiences that wasn't in a bottle or drug.  

Joplin's life was over by the unbelievably young age of 27 in 1970. Her official cause of death was a heroin overdose but her heart had also been broken one too many times. We have had the opportunity to hear her bravely express herself unlike anyone who came before her through her voice but I appreciate seeing an added dimension to her character through her pictures.

The bulk of Janis Joplin's artwork below was created before music took over from approximately age 12 to 20.

As a final side note, in my search online I discovered that Joplin's niece Malyn Joplin has created a fashion line inspired by Janis called Made for Pearl.

New Album Alert : Lantern's Black Highways and Green Garden Roads

My playlist would look like something like this: The Who, The Fresh & Onlys,The Kinks, Ty Segall, The Monkees, Guided By Voices, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Beatles, King Tuff,  The Sonics, Them, Moon Duo, ELP, The Pretty Things, Wooden Shjips, something from The Rolling Stones His Satanic Majesties Request, The Byrds, Thee Oh Sees, Roy Orbison, Love, The Beach Boys, Jay Reatard, The Troggs, The Shangri-Las, and Shannon and the Clams.

Placed firmly in the mix would be a song from Lantern's 2016 release Black Highways and Green Garden Roads. This Philly/Montreal trio deliver 41 minutes of the best of the sixties without sounding painfully derivative. I am particularly crazy for their male/female vocal harmonies, something so few bands have the lineup and talent to pull off.

Rock solid retro, Lantern comes highly recommended.

Throwback Thursday w/ a Purpose : X

It is MS Awareness Week and in tribute to the disease that took my mother's life, I have chosen the band X as member Exene Cervenka announced in 2009 her diagnosis of this often debilitating disease of the brain and central nervous system. In MS the immune system attacks the protective cover of nerve fibers that causes the communication between the brain and the rest of the body. Over time, these nerves begin to deteriorate and can become permanently damaged causing a variety of symptoms including the inability to walk, use of arms, and major cognitive issues.

X is an American band that has been making music on and off since 1977. They feature a distinctive male/ female dueling vocals straddling the line between punk and roots Rock. Many thought at the time that a punk band could never cross over into the mainstream but X were among the first groundbreaking bands to do just that.

Elvie Thomas & Geeshie Wiley

There are few more haunting American mysteries in Blues than that of Elvie Thomas and Geeshie Wiley. These African American women recorded just a small handful of music in 1930 and '31 (78 rpm format) and other than that, very little was ever known about them . . .  until John Sullivan wrote this tremendous interactive New York Time's article last year.

The story is really a coin with two faces. It is one part staggering detective novel and one part fascinating biography and historical account. There are VERY few record collector's of this format of music and genre that would also have any sort of helpful leads in piecing together their collective story. Even more importantly there is a race against the clock to scavenger hunt for people who are family members or knew these women because we are fast approaching a century later. There is almost no one left alive to tell this story from first hand experience.

As it turns out, there are also very few detailed records kept for two poor, black women who may have also been lovers. 

For a person like myself who wasn't terribly educated on either Blues or Gospel music, this quote from the article made me painfully aware that I had some homework to do.

"There was a place for lesbians in the blues world. Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Gladys Bentley, Ethel Waters, many others — you can’t tell the story of the early blues without the lesbians. And according to the music historian and gospel producer Anthony Heilbut, whose “The Fan Who Knew Too Much” gets into these questions, there was a place for lesbianism in the gospel world as well. I wrote to Heilbut and asked him what he thought about L.V. He knew “Motherless Child Blues” well and said he was confident that any black person listening to it in the late 1920s would have recognized her delivery as “butch.” But would the church have made a place for her? Could you be both?"

This mystery has it all: A child prodigy, female musicians who paved the way for other women and held their own against the best male players of their generation, lesbian history, a scavenger hunt for clues, eerie music, murder, record collectors that border on hoarders, illegal liquor, religion, and an inconspicuous furniture company from Wisconsin.