WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today we are unpacking 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:07.339 a life that was just loud, messy, and undeniably 00:00:07.339 --> 00:00:10.000 brilliant. Yes. I think for most of us, if you 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:12.500 close your eyes and you think of the 1960s, and 00:00:12.500 --> 00:00:15.740 I mean the real gritty 1960s, not the, you know, 00:00:15.779 --> 00:00:19.140 flower crown commercial version, you hear a specific 00:00:19.140 --> 00:00:22.949 sound. Oh yeah? It's a rasp. It's a wail. It's 00:00:22.949 --> 00:00:25.809 the sound of someone shredding their vocal cords 00:00:25.809 --> 00:00:29.269 just to get an emotion across. We are talking, 00:00:29.309 --> 00:00:31.510 of course, about Jonas Joplin. A voice that could 00:00:31.510 --> 00:00:33.729 strip paint off the walls and break your heart 00:00:33.729 --> 00:00:35.710 in the same measure. And you're so right about 00:00:35.710 --> 00:00:38.549 that commercial version of the 60s. Often when 00:00:38.549 --> 00:00:40.750 we look back at icons from that era, especially 00:00:40.750 --> 00:00:43.250 the members of the so -called 27 Club, we tend 00:00:43.250 --> 00:00:44.689 to flatten them out. Right. We turn them into 00:00:44.689 --> 00:00:46.469 cartoons. We do. We turn them into cartoons. 00:00:46.670 --> 00:00:49.149 Yeah. With Jonas, the caricature is the wild 00:00:49.149 --> 00:00:52.009 child. You know, Carl, the one. with the feather 00:00:52.009 --> 00:00:54.289 boa in one hand and a bottle of southern comfort 00:00:54.289 --> 00:00:56.409 in the other exactly the party girl who lived 00:00:56.409 --> 00:00:58.630 fast and died young that's the t -shirt version 00:00:58.630 --> 00:01:02.109 of janice joplin it is but the mission for this 00:01:02.109 --> 00:01:04.989 deep dive is to really shatter that caricature 00:01:04.989 --> 00:01:07.590 because when you actually dig into the biographies 00:01:07.590 --> 00:01:09.969 the session logs the personal letters you find 00:01:09.969 --> 00:01:14.810 this this devastatingly complex paradox. You 00:01:14.810 --> 00:01:17.569 have this woman who was an electric force of 00:01:17.569 --> 00:01:20.450 nature on stage. I mean, commanding, aggressive, 00:01:20.689 --> 00:01:24.609 sexual, just powerful. But the second she stepped 00:01:24.609 --> 00:01:27.810 off that stage, she carried this bottomless well 00:01:27.810 --> 00:01:29.829 of vulnerability. It's like the stage was the 00:01:29.829 --> 00:01:31.969 only place the armor actually worked. That's 00:01:31.969 --> 00:01:34.310 a perfect way to put it. There's a quote from 00:01:34.310 --> 00:01:36.769 her that just haunts me. She said she felt laughed 00:01:36.769 --> 00:01:39.489 out of class, out of town, and out of the state. 00:01:39.670 --> 00:01:43.390 Wow. And yet, this same person became the biggest 00:01:43.390 --> 00:01:46.090 -selling album artist of her time. Posthumously, 00:01:46.150 --> 00:01:47.750 of course, which is the tragedy of it. Yeah. 00:01:47.829 --> 00:01:50.170 So we need to understand how that shy, bullied 00:01:50.170 --> 00:01:52.870 girl from Texas became the Janis Joplin the world 00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:54.950 knows. Let's start exactly there, because I think 00:01:54.950 --> 00:01:56.890 a lot of people assume she just sort of emerged 00:01:56.890 --> 00:01:59.049 fully formed from the Haight -Ashbury scene in 00:01:59.049 --> 00:02:00.969 San Francisco, like she was born in a commune. 00:02:00.969 --> 00:02:05.549 Far from it. She was born January 19, 1943, in 00:02:05.549 --> 00:02:08.909 Port Arthur, Texas. And we need to sit with the 00:02:08.909 --> 00:02:11.930 reality of Port Arthur in the 1940s and 50s. 00:02:11.930 --> 00:02:16.050 This is an oil town. It is industrial. It is 00:02:16.050 --> 00:02:19.250 deeply conservative. And it is conformist. The 00:02:19.250 --> 00:02:21.639 whole place smells like refineries. And her family 00:02:21.639 --> 00:02:23.560 wasn't exactly bohemian, right? This wasn't some 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:26.020 artistic household. Not at all. Her father was 00:02:26.020 --> 00:02:29.020 an engineer for Texaco. Her mother was a registrar 00:02:29.020 --> 00:02:31.879 at a business college. She had siblings. It was 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:34.860 a very standard middle class, church going American 00:02:34.860 --> 00:02:37.020 upbringing. So by all accounts, she should have 00:02:37.020 --> 00:02:39.560 grown up to be like a teacher, a secretary. Exactly. 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:41.960 Married a guy from the plant and settled down 00:02:41.960 --> 00:02:44.560 in Port Arthur. That was the path. But clearly 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:47.379 that standard path was not working for her. When 00:02:47.379 --> 00:02:50.180 does the friction really start? It starts early. 00:02:50.650 --> 00:02:52.770 But it explodes in high school. This is where 00:02:52.770 --> 00:02:55.210 the misfit narrative really, really takes hold. 00:02:55.430 --> 00:02:57.370 And we have to be blunt about the cruelty she 00:02:57.370 --> 00:02:59.949 faced. It wasn't just that she was weird. She 00:02:59.949 --> 00:03:02.210 went through a physical transformation that made 00:03:02.210 --> 00:03:04.870 her a target. She became overweight as a teenager. 00:03:05.090 --> 00:03:07.050 And on top of that, she suffered from absolutely 00:03:07.050 --> 00:03:10.189 severe acne. And high school is brutal enough 00:03:10.189 --> 00:03:13.469 if you look perfect. If you don't. It's a shark 00:03:13.469 --> 00:03:17.030 tank. The scarring from the acne was so bad that 00:03:17.030 --> 00:03:19.659 she actually required dermabrasion. which is 00:03:19.659 --> 00:03:21.740 a painful medical procedure. They're basically 00:03:21.740 --> 00:03:24.719 sanding your skin. Oh, that's awful. And the 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:27.639 kids in Port Arthur were just merciless. She 00:03:27.639 --> 00:03:30.300 was bullied relentlessly. There were stories 00:03:30.300 --> 00:03:32.659 of her being called names in the hallways, things 00:03:32.659 --> 00:03:35.919 I won't repeat. She was completely, utterly ostracized. 00:03:36.360 --> 00:03:38.539 So how do you survive that? I mean, usually a 00:03:38.539 --> 00:03:41.240 kid in that situation just tries to become invisible. 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:44.620 They try to blend in to stop the attacks. That's 00:03:44.620 --> 00:03:46.819 what's so fascinating. Janice did the exact opposite. 00:03:47.060 --> 00:03:49.400 If the mainstream rejects you, you have two choices, 00:03:49.460 --> 00:03:52.020 right? You can beg for reentry or you can reject 00:03:52.020 --> 00:03:54.310 the mainstream right back. even harder and she 00:03:54.310 --> 00:03:56.610 chose the latter she chose the latter she found 00:03:56.610 --> 00:03:58.810 the other outcasts a small group of boys who 00:03:58.810 --> 00:04:01.310 were into art and literature and they started 00:04:01.310 --> 00:04:03.270 looking for culture that wasn't on the radio 00:04:03.270 --> 00:04:06.030 in port arthur and that is where her musical 00:04:06.030 --> 00:04:08.509 education began this is where she finds the blues 00:04:08.509 --> 00:04:10.590 this is where she finds the blues they introduced 00:04:10.590 --> 00:04:13.259 her to these incredible artists Which makes sense. 00:04:13.419 --> 00:04:15.360 If you're a white middle class girl in Texas 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:18.180 feeling completely alienated and in pain, and 00:04:18.180 --> 00:04:20.959 then you hear Bessie Smith or Maharani. It resonates. 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:23.240 Yeah. She heard Lead Belly and Bessie Smith, 00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:25.319 and it was like a lighting bolt. She realized, 00:04:25.420 --> 00:04:28.680 wait, this sound matches how I feel inside. It 00:04:28.680 --> 00:04:31.120 wasn't just entertainment for her. It was a lifeline. 00:04:31.650 --> 00:04:33.970 She later credited Bessie Smith specifically 00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:36.569 with influencing her decision to even become 00:04:36.569 --> 00:04:38.970 a singer. So she found her voice by listening 00:04:38.970 --> 00:04:41.269 to other women who weren't afraid to sing about 00:04:41.269 --> 00:04:44.589 pain and grit. Exactly. And she takes this new 00:04:44.589 --> 00:04:47.269 identity, this new armor to college with her. 00:04:47.470 --> 00:04:50.129 But she didn't exactly thrive in academia. No, 00:04:50.230 --> 00:04:52.490 she tried. She graduated high school in 1960 00:04:52.490 --> 00:04:55.649 and went to Lamar State College. Then she transferred 00:04:55.649 --> 00:04:58.420 to the University of Texas at Austin. But she 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:00.819 never graduated. But her time at UT gives us 00:05:00.819 --> 00:05:02.899 one of my absolute favorite artifacts of her 00:05:02.899 --> 00:05:05.300 life. Is this the newspaper profile? I love this 00:05:05.300 --> 00:05:08.959 story. Yes. In 1962, the campus newspaper, the 00:05:08.959 --> 00:05:12.160 Daily Texan, ran a profile on her. And the headline 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:14.579 itself says everything. It was, she dares to 00:05:14.579 --> 00:05:18.079 be different. She dares to be different. That 00:05:18.079 --> 00:05:20.980 sounds like a compliment now. But in 1962, Texas, 00:05:21.100 --> 00:05:22.899 that's almost an accusation. It was definitely 00:05:22.899 --> 00:05:25.439 framed as a curiosity. Almost like they were 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:28.860 observing a rare bird in the wild. The article 00:05:28.860 --> 00:05:31.579 details her behavior, you know, noting that she 00:05:31.579 --> 00:05:33.680 went barefoot whenever she felt like it. Right. 00:05:33.779 --> 00:05:36.560 She wore men's Levi's to class, which you have 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:39.620 to remember, women just did not do that in 1962. 00:05:40.100 --> 00:05:43.600 Yeah. And my favorite detail, she carried an 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:46.540 auto harp everywhere she went. An auto harp. 00:05:46.639 --> 00:05:48.560 Just walking around campus with an instrument 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:51.480 ready to go at any moment. Exactly. The article 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:53.720 says, in case she gets the urge to break into 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:56.199 song. And while we can look back and say, oh, 00:05:56.240 --> 00:05:58.300 how charming, what a free spirit, we have to 00:05:58.300 --> 00:06:00.759 recognize what that was. That was armor. It's 00:06:00.759 --> 00:06:02.879 a defense mechanism. It's a total defense mechanism. 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:05.720 She was signaling to everyone, I am not one of 00:06:05.720 --> 00:06:07.600 you. You can't reject me because I've already 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:09.939 decided I don't want to be like you. It's a preemptive 00:06:09.939 --> 00:06:12.480 strike against conformity. But eventually, Texas 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:15.139 just becomes too small or too hostile. It was 00:06:15.139 --> 00:06:17.800 both. She couldn't breathe there. So in 1963, 00:06:18.060 --> 00:06:20.300 she makes her first real escape. She hitches 00:06:20.300 --> 00:06:22.180 a ride to San Francisco with a guy named Chet 00:06:22.180 --> 00:06:24.779 Helms. You should remember that name. He's important 00:06:24.779 --> 00:06:27.420 later. She goes just to get away. This is her 00:06:27.420 --> 00:06:29.779 first stint in the city, way before the summer 00:06:29.779 --> 00:06:32.500 of love really kicked off. And musically, things 00:06:32.500 --> 00:06:34.740 start to happen there, or is it more of a personal 00:06:34.740 --> 00:06:37.899 journey? A little bit of both. Musically, she 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:40.339 recorded some early blues standards with Jorma 00:06:40.339 --> 00:06:43.160 Kalkonen, who would later go on to be the guitarist 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:46.040 for Jefferson Airplane. Wow. OK. But it's incredibly 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:48.079 lo -fi stuff. I mean, there's this one recording 00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:50.480 of Trouble in Mind where you can literally hear 00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:53.399 Jorma's wife typing on a typewriter in the background 00:06:53.399 --> 00:06:55.879 of the song. That is fantastic. Talk about raw. 00:06:56.120 --> 00:06:59.319 It's charming. But the reality of her life in 00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:02.839 SF during this period was anything but. This 00:07:02.839 --> 00:07:06.040 period from 63 to 65, it's really a descent into 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:08.180 hell for her. She wasn't just singing the blues. 00:07:08.279 --> 00:07:10.600 She was living a very, very dangerous life. She 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:14.079 developed a reputation as a speed freak, injecting 00:07:14.079 --> 00:07:16.620 methamphetamine. She's also dabbling in heroin. 00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:19.720 She gets arrested for shoplifting. This is the 00:07:19.720 --> 00:07:22.279 part of the story that gets really scary because 00:07:22.279 --> 00:07:25.759 we think of Janice as this robust, powerful figure. 00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:30.560 But the physical toll here. was extreme. It was 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.360 terrifying. Friends who saw her during this time 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:36.240 described her as skeletal. She was completely 00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:39.740 emaciated. At her lowest point, she weighed 88 00:07:39.740 --> 00:07:42.459 pounds. 88 pounds? I mean, that's near death. 00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:44.660 It was life -threatening. She was just dissolving. 00:07:45.220 --> 00:07:49.420 By May of 1965, her friends in the city, and 00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:51.540 these were people who were no angels themselves, 00:07:52.300 --> 00:07:54.360 They looked at her and they realized, if she 00:07:54.360 --> 00:07:56.860 stays here, she is going to die. So they had 00:07:56.860 --> 00:07:58.540 to do something. They did. They threw what they 00:07:58.540 --> 00:08:01.100 called a bus fare party. A fundraiser to send 00:08:01.100 --> 00:08:03.879 her away for her own good. Exactly. They passed 00:08:03.879 --> 00:08:06.240 the hat around, not to buy her concert tickets 00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:09.040 or drugs, but to buy her a Greyhound bus ticket 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:11.740 back to Port Arthur, Texas. They effectively 00:08:11.740 --> 00:08:14.519 deported her for her own survival. That is a 00:08:14.519 --> 00:08:17.100 heavy, heavy moment. You're being sent back to 00:08:17.100 --> 00:08:19.040 the place you hate because you failed to survive 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:21.259 in the place you love. So she goes back to Texas 00:08:21.259 --> 00:08:24.120 in 1965. And this is the chapter that always 00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:26.319 blows my mind. She tries to go straight. And 00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:28.040 I mean really straight. It's the struggle for 00:08:28.040 --> 00:08:30.319 normalcy. Yeah. She retreats to the safety of 00:08:30.319 --> 00:08:32.740 her parents' home. She enrolls at Lamar University 00:08:32.740 --> 00:08:34.899 again, this time majoring in anthropology and 00:08:34.899 --> 00:08:39.220 social work. A total 180. A total 180. And she 00:08:39.220 --> 00:08:41.379 changes everything about her appearance. She 00:08:41.379 --> 00:08:43.720 adopts a beehive hairdo. She wears conservative 00:08:43.720 --> 00:08:46.679 skirts and blouses. She stops the drugs completely. 00:08:46.940 --> 00:08:50.200 She is trying so, so hard to be the person Port 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:52.200 Arthur always wanted her to be. She even got 00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:56.740 engaged, right, to a very conventional guy. She 00:08:56.740 --> 00:08:59.220 did. She got engaged to a man named Peter DeBlanc. 00:08:59.480 --> 00:09:02.730 He worked with IBM computers. You cannot get 00:09:02.730 --> 00:09:05.429 more square in the 1960s than an IBM man. No, 00:09:05.429 --> 00:09:07.129 you can't. It really seemed like she was punching 00:09:07.129 --> 00:09:09.629 her ticket to a conventional suburban life. But 00:09:09.629 --> 00:09:12.029 it didn't stick. No. The occasion fell apart. 00:09:12.110 --> 00:09:14.309 He was the one who ended it. And for Janice, 00:09:14.350 --> 00:09:16.970 with her deep -seated history of rejection, this 00:09:16.970 --> 00:09:19.669 is a massive, massive blow. It reinforced that 00:09:19.669 --> 00:09:21.690 horrible idea in her head that she wasn't marriage 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:23.990 material. And there's a really insightful detail 00:09:23.990 --> 00:09:25.929 from this period. She was in therapy, right? 00:09:26.049 --> 00:09:28.389 She was. She was seeing a therapist, a social 00:09:28.389 --> 00:09:31.379 worker named Bernard Giarritano. And what did 00:09:31.379 --> 00:09:33.860 she tell him? What was the conflict? She presented 00:09:33.860 --> 00:09:36.480 him with this dilemma that she felt was life 00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:39.120 or death. She said she felt she had two choices. 00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:42.799 Option A, she doesn't sing, she stays in Texas, 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:45.159 becomes a key punch operator or a secretary, 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:48.120 and lives a mundane life that she was convinced 00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:51.039 would kill her spirit. Okay. Option B, she returns 00:09:51.039 --> 00:09:54.259 to music and singing, but, and this is the heartbreaking 00:09:54.259 --> 00:09:57.000 part, she was absolutely convinced that the music 00:09:57.000 --> 00:09:59.080 world would inevitably lead her right back to 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:03.149 drugs. That is devastating. She equated her art 00:10:03.149 --> 00:10:05.389 with her own destruction. She didn't think she 00:10:05.389 --> 00:10:07.289 could have the voice without the needle. Exactly. 00:10:07.990 --> 00:10:10.090 Geritano tried to tell her you can sing and stay 00:10:10.090 --> 00:10:12.470 clean, but she just didn't believe it was possible 00:10:12.470 --> 00:10:14.830 for her. She was terrified. But ultimately, the 00:10:14.830 --> 00:10:16.970 boredom of Port Arthur and the pull of the music 00:10:16.970 --> 00:10:19.350 were just too strong to resist. And this is where 00:10:19.350 --> 00:10:21.490 Chet Helms, the guy from the hitchhiking trip, 00:10:21.710 --> 00:10:25.179 reenters the picture. Right. It's 1966 now. The 00:10:25.179 --> 00:10:27.360 counterculture is starting to boil in San Francisco. 00:10:27.659 --> 00:10:30.080 Chet is now managing a band called Big Brother 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:32.360 and The Holding Company. Okay. They have this 00:10:32.360 --> 00:10:35.179 wild, psychedelic sound. But they need a singer. 00:10:35.299 --> 00:10:37.500 They need a voice who can cut through all that 00:10:37.500 --> 00:10:40.840 noise. And he thinks of Janice. He sends a friend 00:10:40.840 --> 00:10:44.059 to Texas to recruit her. Does she go willingly? 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:48.600 Or is there hesitation? She goes, but she lies 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:50.659 to her parents about it. She tells them she's 00:10:50.659 --> 00:10:53.120 just moving to Austin. She couldn't face telling 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:54.740 them she was going back to the city that almost 00:10:54.740 --> 00:10:56.679 killed her. But she tries to bring that clean 00:10:56.679 --> 00:10:58.580 version of herself with her, doesn't she? She 00:10:58.580 --> 00:11:00.679 doesn't just dive right back into the party scene. 00:11:00.899 --> 00:11:03.539 No, and this is so crucial to understanding her. 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:07.120 When she arrived in SF in 66, she was serious 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:09.519 about sobriety. She moved in with a guy named 00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:12.039 Travis Rivers, and they made a strict, no needles 00:11:12.039 --> 00:11:15.299 packed, no hard drugs in the house. Period. So 00:11:15.299 --> 00:11:17.179 she was really trying to protect herself. She 00:11:17.179 --> 00:11:19.500 was fighting for her life. There's a famous story 00:11:19.500 --> 00:11:21.419 where she came home one day and found people 00:11:21.419 --> 00:11:24.279 injecting drugs in her apartment. She didn't 00:11:24.279 --> 00:11:27.100 just get annoyed. She exploded. She was screaming, 00:11:27.159 --> 00:11:29.299 we had a pact. We had a pact. I can't stand to 00:11:29.299 --> 00:11:31.620 see that. She was terrified of slipping back 00:11:31.620 --> 00:11:33.539 into that world. But then the band starts to 00:11:33.539 --> 00:11:35.960 take off. She joins Big Brother. And we have 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:39.259 to talk about 1967, the Monterey Pop Festival. 00:11:39.419 --> 00:11:41.940 A turning point. The big bang for her career. 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:45.480 Before Monterey, Big Brother was a local San 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:49.059 Francisco curiosity. After Monterey, Janis Joplin 00:11:49.059 --> 00:11:51.440 was a global phenomenon. I've seen that footage. 00:11:51.899 --> 00:11:53.980 It's electrifying. She walked out on that stage 00:11:53.980 --> 00:11:56.059 and just unleashed everything. There's that famous 00:11:56.059 --> 00:11:58.220 shot of Mama Cass in the audience with her mouth 00:11:58.220 --> 00:12:00.940 just hanging open, watching Jonas in total awe. 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:03.980 And that performance directly leads to the album 00:12:03.980 --> 00:12:06.480 Cheap Thrills. This is the record with Peace 00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:08.799 of My Heart with Summertime. It hits number one. 00:12:09.259 --> 00:12:11.879 But the sound of this album, it's not polished 00:12:11.879 --> 00:12:14.320 at all. It's not the Beatles. It's so gritty. 00:12:14.460 --> 00:12:17.200 It's incredibly raw. It's designed to sound like 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:19.980 a sweat -soaked club. On the track Turtle Blues, 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:22.519 if you listen really closely, you can hear the 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:24.860 sound of a drinking glass smashing on the floor 00:12:24.860 --> 00:12:27.580 and then being swept up by a broom. They left 00:12:27.580 --> 00:12:29.539 that in the final mix. They left it in. They 00:12:29.539 --> 00:12:32.379 said it created atmosphere. Now, musically, this 00:12:32.379 --> 00:12:36.090 is a point of debate that's gone on for... Critics 00:12:36.090 --> 00:12:37.970 have argued about Big Brother and The Holding 00:12:37.970 --> 00:12:40.850 Company forever. Some say they were amateurish, 00:12:40.909 --> 00:12:43.269 that they were sloppy, and that Janice was just 00:12:43.269 --> 00:12:45.549 way too good for them. That's the narrative you 00:12:45.549 --> 00:12:48.009 hear a lot, that she outgrew them. Right. But 00:12:48.009 --> 00:12:50.110 there is another school of thought, and I tend 00:12:50.110 --> 00:12:54.070 to agree with it. That sloppiness, that loose, 00:12:54.129 --> 00:12:57.759 psychedelic, improvisational chaos. was actually 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:01.340 the perfect bed for Janice's voice. Oh, so. Well, 00:13:01.460 --> 00:13:03.240 if she had been with a tight, disciplined band, 00:13:03.399 --> 00:13:05.600 she might have felt constrained. Big Brother 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:08.759 gave her room to be messy, to scream, to drag 00:13:08.759 --> 00:13:11.139 the beat wherever she wanted. They followed her 00:13:11.139 --> 00:13:13.500 emotional lead. They didn't dictate it. But the 00:13:13.500 --> 00:13:15.960 industry pressure was probably immense. Everyone 00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:17.919 was telling her, ditch the band, you're the star. 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:20.700 So she leaves Big Brother to go solo. She does. 00:13:21.159 --> 00:13:25.559 In 1969, she forms the Cosmic Blues Band. And 00:13:25.559 --> 00:13:28.039 she wanted to pivot. She loved Otis Redding. 00:13:28.059 --> 00:13:30.940 She loved Tina Turner. She wanted a full on soul 00:13:30.940 --> 00:13:33.799 review horns, brass, tight session musicians. 00:13:34.019 --> 00:13:36.700 She wanted to be a real band leader, not just 00:13:36.700 --> 00:13:39.519 a finger in a jam band. And how did the fans 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:42.259 and critics take that change? It was mixed. Rolling 00:13:42.259 --> 00:13:44.120 Stone was actually really mean about it. I think 00:13:44.120 --> 00:13:47.240 they called the new band a drag. Oh. Yeah. But 00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:49.830 then the Washington Post loved it. The transition 00:13:49.830 --> 00:13:51.889 was rough for her personally, though. She was 00:13:51.889 --> 00:13:54.230 suddenly the boss, dealing with payroll and musical 00:13:54.230 --> 00:13:57.029 arrangements, and the stress was mounting. And 00:13:57.029 --> 00:13:59.450 sadly, that fear she had back in Texas, it came 00:13:59.450 --> 00:14:02.710 true. By early 1969, she was back on heroin. 00:14:02.889 --> 00:14:04.950 How bad was it? Biographers claim she was spending 00:14:04.950 --> 00:14:07.870 up to $200 a day on the habit, which was a fortune 00:14:07.870 --> 00:14:09.769 back then. Which brings us to the most famous 00:14:09.769 --> 00:14:13.690 concert in history, Woodstock, August 1969. Now, 00:14:13.710 --> 00:14:15.429 if you just buy the poster, Janice, as a highlight, 00:14:15.629 --> 00:14:18.029 but if you were there or if you ask her, it wasn't 00:14:18.029 --> 00:14:20.429 a triumph at all. No, this is where the myth 00:14:20.429 --> 00:14:24.149 really clashes with the reality. Jonas was not 00:14:24.149 --> 00:14:26.970 at her best at Woodstock. And a lot of it just 00:14:26.970 --> 00:14:29.370 had to do with the terrible logistics of that 00:14:29.370 --> 00:14:32.240 festival. She arrived ready to play, but everything 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:34.559 was running hours and hours behind schedule. 00:14:34.740 --> 00:14:36.960 And for an addict, waiting 10 hours backstage 00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:39.639 is not just annoying, it's incredibly dangerous. 00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:42.159 Exactly. You have 10 hours to kill backstage 00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:45.639 with nothing to do. So she spent that time drinking 00:14:45.639 --> 00:14:47.779 and shooting heroin with her friend Peggy Caserta. 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:50.360 By the time she finally hit the stage, I think 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:53.220 it was around 2 a .m., she was visibly intoxicated. 00:14:53.419 --> 00:14:55.620 Pete Townsend of The Who commented on this, didn't 00:14:55.620 --> 00:14:58.820 he? He did. He said she wasn't at her best, but 00:14:58.820 --> 00:15:02.080 he added this lovely caveat. Even Jonas on an 00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:04.960 off night was incredible, and she was. She powered 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:07.940 through it, but she knew. She was humiliated 00:15:07.940 --> 00:15:10.159 by that performance. Oh, what did she do? When 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:11.919 the Woodstock documentary and soundtrack were 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:14.679 being put together in 1970, she insisted that 00:15:14.679 --> 00:15:17.200 her performance be left out. Oh, she actually 00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:19.200 blocked the release of the footage initially. 00:15:19.539 --> 00:15:22.330 She did. She was a perfectionist about her craft. 00:15:22.590 --> 00:15:25.149 She didn't want the world to see her sloppy and 00:15:25.149 --> 00:15:27.710 out of control. It was only released much, much 00:15:27.710 --> 00:15:29.889 later. And the chaos wasn't just at Woodstock. 00:15:29.950 --> 00:15:32.769 It seemed like 1969 was a year of very public 00:15:32.769 --> 00:15:35.750 meltdowns. It was an escalating spiral. She was 00:15:35.750 --> 00:15:37.929 arrested in Tampa for cursing at police from 00:15:37.929 --> 00:15:41.009 the stage. She screamed, don't F with those people 00:15:41.009 --> 00:15:43.710 when she saw cops hassling the audience. And 00:15:43.710 --> 00:15:45.690 then there was that infamous concert at Madison 00:15:45.690 --> 00:15:48.549 Square Garden with Tina Turner. That sounds like 00:15:48.549 --> 00:15:50.789 a dream duet, right? Jonas and Tina. It should 00:15:50.789 --> 00:15:52.929 have been legendary. It should have been. But 00:15:52.929 --> 00:15:55.669 Jonas was so drunk and so stoned that it was 00:15:55.669 --> 00:15:58.529 described by her biographer, Myra Friedman, as 00:15:58.529 --> 00:16:03.330 a complete disaster. She called Jonas an institutionalized 00:16:03.330 --> 00:16:06.889 psychotic rent by mania. She was just flailing 00:16:06.889 --> 00:16:09.250 on stage, not singing, just screaming into the 00:16:09.250 --> 00:16:11.330 void. It's so hard to hear that. You see someone 00:16:11.330 --> 00:16:13.529 with so much talent just completely losing control. 00:16:13.950 --> 00:16:16.389 And while all this professional turbulence is 00:16:16.389 --> 00:16:19.169 happening, her personal life is just as complicated. 00:16:19.740 --> 00:16:21.779 We talked about her deep need for acceptance. 00:16:22.100 --> 00:16:24.659 How did that play out in her relationships? Her 00:16:24.659 --> 00:16:27.620 love life was frantic in a way. She was always 00:16:27.620 --> 00:16:30.500 looking for the one. And her sexuality was very 00:16:30.500 --> 00:16:32.539 fluid, which was just another way she refused 00:16:32.539 --> 00:16:35.179 to be categorized by society. She had relationships 00:16:35.179 --> 00:16:38.039 with men and women. She did. She had high -profile 00:16:38.039 --> 00:16:39.960 relationships with men country Joe McDonald, 00:16:40.279 --> 00:16:43.659 Chris Christopherson, and later her fiancé Seth 00:16:43.659 --> 00:16:47.639 Morgan. But she also had these... deep, significant 00:16:47.639 --> 00:16:50.580 relationships with women like Jay Whitaker and 00:16:50.580 --> 00:16:53.159 especially Peggy Caserta. And there were rumors 00:16:53.159 --> 00:16:55.600 about this at the time, right? Oh, constant rumors. 00:16:55.720 --> 00:16:58.039 People in the press would call her a dyke. Yeah. 00:16:58.159 --> 00:17:00.440 And there's this quintessential Janice quote 00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:02.580 when she heard that rumor. She told her road 00:17:02.580 --> 00:17:05.220 manager, tell them that Janice says she's gotten 00:17:05.220 --> 00:17:07.200 it on with a couple of thousand cats in her life 00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:08.960 and a few hundred chicks and see what they can 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:10.579 do with that. See what they can do with it. I 00:17:10.579 --> 00:17:13.259 love that. It's such a power move. I'm too big 00:17:13.259 --> 00:17:16.000 for your labels. Precisely. But we do have to 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:19.680 talk about the dynamic with Peggy Caserta. Peggy 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:22.160 was a boutique owner in Haight -Ashbury, and 00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:24.920 she was one of Jonas' main lovers. But their 00:17:24.920 --> 00:17:27.319 relationship was deeply fueled by their mutual 00:17:27.319 --> 00:17:30.400 heroin addiction. So it was a bond? but a really 00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:33.660 toxic one. Incredibly toxic. They abled to each 00:17:33.660 --> 00:17:36.519 other's worst habits. And that profound loneliness 00:17:36.519 --> 00:17:38.500 we talked about earlier, it never really went 00:17:38.500 --> 00:17:40.799 away, despite all these people in her life. Even 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:43.500 toward the very end, there was this confusing, 00:17:43.619 --> 00:17:46.380 messy situation involving a threesome that never 00:17:46.380 --> 00:17:49.460 happened. Giannis had this idea that she, Peggy, 00:17:49.539 --> 00:17:51.599 and her fiancé, Seth Morgan, would all be together. 00:17:51.980 --> 00:17:54.299 In her final day, she was literally waiting for 00:17:54.299 --> 00:17:56.779 them to show up at her hotel, and they didn't. 00:17:57.099 --> 00:17:59.480 It just contributed to this profound sense of 00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:02.019 abandonment she felt right before she died. So 00:18:02.019 --> 00:18:05.400 let's move to 1970, the final year. It actually 00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:07.619 starts with a glimmer of hope. She tries to get 00:18:07.619 --> 00:18:10.220 clean again. She does. In February 1970, she 00:18:10.220 --> 00:18:13.599 travels to Brazil for Carnival. She gets clean. 00:18:13.680 --> 00:18:15.579 She kicks the heroin. And while she's there, 00:18:15.619 --> 00:18:18.259 she meets a guy named David Niehaus. And who 00:18:18.259 --> 00:18:20.440 was he? Was he a musician, part of the scene? 00:18:20.599 --> 00:18:22.720 No. And that was the beauty of it. He was an 00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:24.960 American tourist, a teacher, completely removed 00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:27.579 from the music world. He wasn't a druggie. There's 00:18:27.579 --> 00:18:29.880 these photos of them in Rio. And Giannis looks, 00:18:30.059 --> 00:18:33.279 she looks unrecognizable. In a good way. In the 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:35.940 best way. She looks healthy. She's smiling, a 00:18:35.940 --> 00:18:38.420 real smile, not a stage smile. They were traveling 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:40.880 through the jungle, just having this incredible 00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:43.599 adventure. It sounds like that option A she talked 00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:45.740 about with her therapist, a life without all 00:18:45.740 --> 00:18:48.720 the madness. It was. But she had to come back 00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:51.160 to the U .S. And that was the tragedy. The environment 00:18:51.160 --> 00:18:54.660 just swallowed her up again. She relapsed. And 00:18:54.660 --> 00:18:58.880 David Niehaus. who really cared for her, caught 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:02.140 her shooting drugs at her home in Larkspur, California. 00:19:02.500 --> 00:19:04.779 And he didn't stick around after that. He couldn't. 00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:07.579 He broke up with her. It's this devastating sliding 00:19:07.579 --> 00:19:10.140 doors moment. You know, if she had stayed in 00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:12.240 Brazil or if she had managed to keep him, maybe 00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:14.460 things go differently. But she lost the relationship 00:19:14.460 --> 00:19:17.720 and she dove right back into her work. But musically, 00:19:17.799 --> 00:19:19.660 she was actually finding her footing again in 00:19:19.660 --> 00:19:23.480 1970. She formed a new band, the Full Tilt Boogie 00:19:23.480 --> 00:19:27.039 Band. And this, to me, is the great artistic 00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:29.660 tragedy of her story. The Full Tilt Boogie Band 00:19:29.660 --> 00:19:31.859 was arguably the best fit she ever had. Really? 00:19:32.059 --> 00:19:33.819 Better than Big Brother? In a different way. 00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:36.279 It was a group of Canadian musicians, no horns 00:19:36.279 --> 00:19:39.220 this time, just a tight, driving rock rhythm 00:19:39.220 --> 00:19:42.759 section. And Yanis finally felt like she was 00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:46.839 in control. She used to say, it's my band. They 00:19:46.839 --> 00:19:49.220 supported her voice perfectly without ever competing 00:19:49.220 --> 00:19:51.660 with it. So she has the band, she has the songs, 00:19:51.779 --> 00:19:54.559 but before she records the final album, she decides 00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:59.039 to do something that seems, well, almost masochistic. 00:19:59.279 --> 00:20:01.359 She goes to her 10 -year high school reunion 00:20:01.359 --> 00:20:04.519 in Port Arthur, August 1970. Why do any of us 00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:08.190 go to our reunions? We want validation. She wanted 00:20:08.190 --> 00:20:10.009 to walk in there as a global rock star and show 00:20:10.009 --> 00:20:11.569 all those people who bullied her. Look at me 00:20:11.569 --> 00:20:13.150 now. She even brought a camera crew with her. 00:20:13.210 --> 00:20:15.029 Did it work? Did she get that validation? It 00:20:15.029 --> 00:20:17.549 was a disaster. It backfired completely. She 00:20:17.549 --> 00:20:20.029 wore feathers and velvet and bell bottoms. And 00:20:20.029 --> 00:20:22.690 the town just looked at her like she was an alien 00:20:22.690 --> 00:20:24.950 from another planet. She felt judged all over 00:20:24.950 --> 00:20:27.269 again. There was a press conference where a reporter 00:20:27.269 --> 00:20:29.289 asked her, so what was it like for you to be 00:20:29.289 --> 00:20:32.240 in high school? And she just crumbled. She felt 00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:34.480 humiliated. It reopened every single one of those 00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:36.759 old wounds right before she went into this studio. 00:20:36.980 --> 00:20:39.500 So she takes all that pain and all that baggage 00:20:39.500 --> 00:20:42.799 back to Los Angeles to record what would become 00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:45.019 Pearl. She's recording with Paul Rothschild, 00:20:45.140 --> 00:20:48.079 who was famous for producing The Doors. So top 00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:50.839 tier producer. And despite all the emotional 00:20:50.839 --> 00:20:53.299 turmoil, the sessions were going incredibly well. 00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:55.680 She was singing better than ever. She was engaged 00:20:55.680 --> 00:20:57.819 to Seth Morgan, though that relationship was 00:20:57.819 --> 00:21:00.089 volatile. And he was not a statalizing force 00:21:00.089 --> 00:21:02.170 in her life at all. And we have to talk about 00:21:02.170 --> 00:21:04.630 the song Mercedes -Benz. The story of that song 00:21:04.630 --> 00:21:07.750 is just legendary. It captures her spirit perfectly. 00:21:08.609 --> 00:21:10.470 A few months earlier, she was at a place called 00:21:10.470 --> 00:21:12.569 the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York. 00:21:12.970 --> 00:21:16.009 She's at a nearby bar, a gin mill, with songwriter 00:21:16.009 --> 00:21:18.329 Bob Neuwirth and the actors Geraldine Page and 00:21:18.329 --> 00:21:20.349 Rip Torn. That's quite a career to be drinking 00:21:20.349 --> 00:21:22.910 with. Right. And she just starts riffing. She 00:21:22.910 --> 00:21:24.930 starts pounding a rhythm on the table and writing 00:21:24.930 --> 00:21:27.630 lyrics on bar napkins. Oh, Lord, won't you buy 00:21:27.630 --> 00:21:30.430 me a Mercedes Benz? It was social commentary. 00:21:30.490 --> 00:21:33.569 It was a prayer. It was a joke all at once. How 00:21:33.569 --> 00:21:36.130 did it end up on the album? When they were in 00:21:36.130 --> 00:21:39.109 the studio recording Pearl on October 1st, 1970, 00:21:39.450 --> 00:21:42.289 she just started singing a cappella between takes. 00:21:42.430 --> 00:21:45.430 And Rothschild had the foresight to roll the 00:21:45.430 --> 00:21:48.269 tape. He rolled the tape. And that single take. 00:21:49.109 --> 00:21:51.730 raw, funny, full of her personality, was the 00:21:51.730 --> 00:21:54.269 very last vocal she ever recorded. That gives 00:21:54.269 --> 00:21:56.130 me chills. The last thing she gave the world 00:21:56.130 --> 00:21:58.369 was that little off -the -cuff prayer. It really 00:21:58.369 --> 00:22:00.470 is haunting. And there was another track she 00:22:00.470 --> 00:22:02.410 was working on, a song called Buried Alive in 00:22:02.410 --> 00:22:05.410 the Blues. The band had laid down the instrumental 00:22:05.410 --> 00:22:08.009 track. She was scheduled to come in on Sunday, 00:22:08.089 --> 00:22:11.150 October 4th, to record the vocals. And she was 00:22:11.150 --> 00:22:13.289 really excited about it. But she never made it 00:22:13.289 --> 00:22:15.170 to the studio. Let's walk through that final 00:22:15.170 --> 00:22:19.549 weekend, October 3rd and 4th. 1970. So Saturday, 00:22:19.650 --> 00:22:21.809 October 3rd, she's at Sunset Sound Recorders 00:22:21.809 --> 00:22:24.329 in L .A. She listens to the instrumental of Buried 00:22:24.329 --> 00:22:26.289 Alive in the Blues, and she's happy with it. 00:22:26.309 --> 00:22:27.710 She tells Rothschild she'll see him tomorrow. 00:22:28.029 --> 00:22:30.910 But personally, she's agitated. Why? She knows 00:22:30.910 --> 00:22:33.190 her fiancé, Seth Morgan, is back in the Bay Area, 00:22:33.309 --> 00:22:36.710 and he's not calling. She suspects, correctly, 00:22:36.950 --> 00:22:39.390 that he's playing around with other women. She 00:22:39.390 --> 00:22:41.549 just feels ignored and abandoned. So she leaves 00:22:41.549 --> 00:22:44.029 the studio. She goes out for drinks at Bronnie's 00:22:44.029 --> 00:22:46.799 Beanery. with her keyboardist, Ken Pearson. They 00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:49.359 have a few drinks, nothing crazy. Then she drives 00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:51.599 back to the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood. 00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:54.720 She's driving her famous psychedelic Porsche. 00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.779 Is she alone at this point? She's alone. She 00:22:57.779 --> 00:23:00.640 gets to the hotel, has a brief, totally normal 00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:02.759 conversation with the hotel clerk in the lobby. 00:23:03.500 --> 00:23:05.440 I think she asked for change for the cigarette 00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:09.160 machine. And then goes up to her room, and that 00:23:09.160 --> 00:23:11.619 was it. She went to her room and injected heroin. 00:23:11.839 --> 00:23:13.859 And she was found the next day. Sunday evening. 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:17.240 Her road manager, John Byrne Cook, got worried 00:23:17.240 --> 00:23:19.940 when she hadn't shown up to the studio. He went 00:23:19.940 --> 00:23:22.019 to the hotel, saw the portion of the parking 00:23:22.019 --> 00:23:24.180 lot, and had to break down the door to her room. 00:23:24.420 --> 00:23:26.440 He found her dead on the floor. The official 00:23:26.440 --> 00:23:29.980 cause was a heroin overdose. Heroin, likely compounded 00:23:29.980 --> 00:23:32.180 by alcohol. But, and this is very important for 00:23:32.180 --> 00:23:34.480 understanding what happened, there is a specific 00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:36.660 theory about why she overdosed that particular 00:23:36.660 --> 00:23:39.599 night. Because Giannis was an experienced user. 00:23:40.039 --> 00:23:42.460 She knew her limits. This is the hot shot theory, 00:23:42.599 --> 00:23:44.579 right? Explain what that means for people who 00:23:44.579 --> 00:23:47.259 might not know the terminology. Right. So street 00:23:47.259 --> 00:23:50.680 heroin is never pure. It's cut with fillers like 00:23:50.680 --> 00:23:53.240 sugar or talcum powder to increase profits and 00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:56.059 lower the potency. An addict gets used to a certain 00:23:56.059 --> 00:23:59.240 strength. John Byrne Cook and others believe 00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:01.619 that the batch Giannis bought that weekend was 00:24:01.619 --> 00:24:04.579 a hot shot, meaning it was nearly pure heroin 00:24:04.579 --> 00:24:07.359 or at least significantly more potent than what 00:24:07.359 --> 00:24:09.519 was usually on the street. So she takes her normal 00:24:09.519 --> 00:24:11.359 dose thinking she knows what she's doing. But 00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:14.059 because the purity is so high, that normal dose 00:24:14.059 --> 00:24:16.900 becomes lethal. It's like drinking a glass of 00:24:16.900 --> 00:24:20.380 water only to find out it's pure vodka. And the 00:24:20.380 --> 00:24:23.039 evidence for this is strong. Cook found out that 00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:25.259 several other regular customers of the same dealer 00:24:25.259 --> 00:24:28.559 also overdosed that exact same weekend. Wow. 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:31.140 It suggests this wasn't Janice being reckless 00:24:31.140 --> 00:24:33.019 or trying to kill herself. It was an accidental 00:24:33.019 --> 00:24:35.339 poisoning. essentially. That makes it even more 00:24:35.339 --> 00:24:37.440 tragic. It was a mistake. A fatal mistake. A 00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:40.059 fatal miscalculation. And there was some weirdness 00:24:40.059 --> 00:24:42.220 at the scene, too. The famous coroner Thomas 00:24:42.220 --> 00:24:44.460 Noguchi wrote a book where he claimed that when 00:24:44.460 --> 00:24:47.200 police first arrived, the room was clean. No 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:49.759 drugs, no needles, no paraphernalia. Someone 00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:52.539 cleaned it up. Allegedly, yes. A friend arrived 00:24:52.539 --> 00:24:55.140 before the police, panicked, and removed the 00:24:55.140 --> 00:24:57.220 narcotics and the works to avoid a scandal or 00:24:57.220 --> 00:25:00.460 maybe protect the dealer. But then... And supposedly 00:25:00.460 --> 00:25:02.599 they realized, wait, the autopsy is going to 00:25:02.599 --> 00:25:04.839 find the drugs in her system anyway. And they 00:25:04.839 --> 00:25:07.200 tried to put things back. It's messy and it's 00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:09.059 just sad. It shows that even in her death, there 00:25:09.059 --> 00:25:11.420 was this panic around her image and the law. 00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:14.680 She was 27 years old. The 27 Club. It's just 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:17.619 eerie. She died just 16 days after Jimi Hendrix 00:25:17.619 --> 00:25:20.660 and a month after Alan Wilson from the band Can't 00:25:20.660 --> 00:25:23.420 Heat. It cemented this dark mythology in pop 00:25:23.420 --> 00:25:26.660 culture. The 27 is this cursed age for musicians. 00:25:26.900 --> 00:25:30.009 It turned their deaths into a pattern. But unlike 00:25:30.009 --> 00:25:32.490 some artists who fade away, her music exploded 00:25:32.490 --> 00:25:34.589 after she died. I mean, Pearl wasn't even out 00:25:34.589 --> 00:25:36.970 yet. That's the ultimate irony, isn't it? Pearl 00:25:36.970 --> 00:25:38.869 was released three months after her death in 00:25:38.869 --> 00:25:41.910 early 1971, and it became her masterpiece. It 00:25:41.910 --> 00:25:44.250 was her biggest selling album by far. Me and 00:25:44.250 --> 00:25:46.009 Bobby McGee, which was written by her friend 00:25:46.009 --> 00:25:48.670 Chris Christopherson, went to number one. She 00:25:48.670 --> 00:25:50.349 finally got the number one hit she always wanted, 00:25:50.430 --> 00:25:52.529 and she wasn't there to hear it. When we look 00:25:52.529 --> 00:25:54.809 at her legacy today, it's just massive. I mean, 00:25:54.829 --> 00:25:56.849 you can draw a street line from Giannis to so 00:25:56.849 --> 00:25:58.829 many artists who came after. Absolutely. Think 00:25:58.829 --> 00:26:01.210 about what a girl singer was before Giannis. 00:26:01.410 --> 00:26:04.269 You had the Supremes. You had these polished, 00:26:04.470 --> 00:26:07.130 choreographed, polite entertainers. They were 00:26:07.130 --> 00:26:10.160 beautiful and contained. Then Giannis walks out. 00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:12.980 No makeup, hair everywhere, sweating, screaming, 00:26:13.380 --> 00:26:16.539 stomping her foot. She was aggressive. She was 00:26:16.539 --> 00:26:19.220 sexual without being pretty in that conventional 00:26:19.220 --> 00:26:21.180 sense. She gave other women permission to be 00:26:21.180 --> 00:26:23.720 messy on stage. She broke the seal on female 00:26:23.720 --> 00:26:26.660 rage and female power in rock and roll. Without 00:26:26.660 --> 00:26:29.380 Giannis, do you get Stevie Nicks spinning in 00:26:29.380 --> 00:26:31.519 her shawls? Do you get Courtney Love? Do you 00:26:31.519 --> 00:26:34.279 get Pink? Pink has explicitly said she related 00:26:34.279 --> 00:26:36.980 to Giannis because of that ugly duckling syndrome. 00:26:37.500 --> 00:26:39.740 The feeling of not being the pretty pop star, 00:26:39.819 --> 00:26:41.880 but having the voice and the guts. She completely 00:26:41.880 --> 00:26:43.859 changed the architecture of what a woman could 00:26:43.859 --> 00:26:46.200 do on a stage. She did. She made it OK to be 00:26:46.200 --> 00:26:48.220 in pain on stage. She made it OK to be ugly on 00:26:48.220 --> 00:26:51.299 stage. If ugly meant being real and raw and true 00:26:51.299 --> 00:26:55.200 to the emotion. So as we wrap this up, how do 00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:58.529 we synthesize this whole story? We have. the 00:26:58.529 --> 00:27:00.950 terrible tragedy, the lonely death in a hotel 00:27:00.950 --> 00:27:04.109 room. But we also have Pearl, this perfect shining 00:27:04.109 --> 00:27:06.589 album. I think the tragedy is simply that she 00:27:06.589 --> 00:27:08.710 was just getting started. She was peaking, truly. 00:27:09.009 --> 00:27:11.970 She finally had the full -tilt boogie band, the 00:27:11.970 --> 00:27:13.549 band that could actually keep up with her and 00:27:13.549 --> 00:27:16.289 support her. She was exploring her voice, moving 00:27:16.289 --> 00:27:19.289 into more country and soul influences. She was 00:27:19.289 --> 00:27:21.950 incredibly disciplined about her craft, even 00:27:21.950 --> 00:27:24.009 if she wasn't disciplined about her body. She 00:27:24.009 --> 00:27:25.930 cared deeply about the work. She wasn't just 00:27:25.930 --> 00:27:27.769 some chaotic mess. She was a serious... Curious 00:27:27.769 --> 00:27:30.190 musician. Exactly. And she cared about love. 00:27:30.549 --> 00:27:33.190 That is the through line for me. From the little 00:27:33.190 --> 00:27:35.009 girl in Port Arthur who just wanted the other 00:27:35.009 --> 00:27:37.170 kids to like her to the woman singing Take Another 00:27:37.170 --> 00:27:39.349 Little Piece of My Heart, she was constantly 00:27:39.349 --> 00:27:41.670 seeking the connection and the love she felt 00:27:41.670 --> 00:27:44.049 had been denied to her in her youth. It leaves 00:27:44.049 --> 00:27:46.670 you with a really, really big what if. It does. 00:27:47.569 --> 00:27:49.789 It's the question that hangs over the entire 00:27:49.789 --> 00:27:53.970 27 Club. If Giannis had survived that night, 00:27:54.130 --> 00:27:56.569 if that batch of heroin had been just a little 00:27:56.569 --> 00:28:00.069 bit weaker, Where would she have gone? The 70s 00:28:00.069 --> 00:28:02.509 were changing. Would she have conquered the 80s? 00:28:02.509 --> 00:28:05.029 Would she have because a blues matriarch like 00:28:05.029 --> 00:28:07.529 Etta James or Bonnie Raitt? Or would she have 00:28:07.529 --> 00:28:09.609 found that domestic life she seemed to want with 00:28:09.609 --> 00:28:12.190 someone like David Niehaus? Maybe. Would she 00:28:12.190 --> 00:28:14.609 have found peace? Or was that turbulence, that 00:28:14.609 --> 00:28:17.130 pain, was that the essential fuel for that incredible 00:28:17.130 --> 00:28:20.470 voice? We'll never know. But imagining a 50 -year 00:28:20.470 --> 00:28:23.309 -old Janis Joplin, wise and weathered, still 00:28:23.309 --> 00:28:26.039 singing the blues. It's a beautiful image to 00:28:26.039 --> 00:28:28.579 hold on to. A force of nature silenced way too 00:28:28.579 --> 00:28:31.180 soon. Thank you so much for helping us unpack 00:28:31.180 --> 00:28:33.359 the life of Janice Joplin today. Thank you. It's 00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:35.519 a heavy story, but a really important one. And 00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:37.339 to our listener, I want to give you a little 00:28:37.339 --> 00:28:39.960 homework. Take a moment today to listen to Buried 00:28:39.960 --> 00:28:42.460 Alive in the Blues on the Pearl album. Listen 00:28:42.460 --> 00:28:45.359 to that amazing instrumental track and just listen 00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:47.140 to the space where her voice should have been. 00:28:47.180 --> 00:28:49.440 It really drives it all home. We'll catch you 00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:50.220 on the next deep dive.