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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Holly George Morn. He's got a

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Speaker 1: new book about Janice Joplin entitled Janice Joplin for Life

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Speaker 1: in Music. Holly, good to have you here. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: having me on your show, Bob. Okay, why a book

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Speaker 1: about Janice Joplin? Why? Now you know, Bob, I have been,

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Speaker 1: of course a fan like every one of Janice's voice,

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Speaker 1: going back to my teen years back in the Setona,

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Speaker 1: I have to ask, since you brought that up, were

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Speaker 1: you alive and conscious when Janice had her success? Yes,

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Speaker 1: um the end of her career. I got to see her,

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Speaker 1: you know, on TV from my little hometown of North

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Speaker 1: Carolina on the Dick Cabot Show. And of course, one

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Speaker 1: of my first albums when I joined the Columbia House

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Speaker 1: Record Club twelve albums for a penny, was Pearl, so

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Speaker 1: I still have my original copy. How did you feel

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Speaker 1: after getting the twelve albums free and then having to

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Speaker 1: pay list price for the ensuing records. I did a

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Speaker 1: lot of babysitting in those days, and since I lived

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Speaker 1: in a tiny town with not a lot of access

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Speaker 1: to records, hey, I was cool with it. Okay, we're

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Speaker 1: in North Carolina. It's a little town called Ashborough, not

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Speaker 1: to be confused with Ashville, which everyone's heard of, the

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Speaker 1: cool hipster town. But Ashboro was right smack dab in

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Speaker 1: the center of the state, near Nascar Richard Petty Territory

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Speaker 1: for any of this. Okay, So for those of us

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Speaker 1: who were ignorant city people, what's the closest town we

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Speaker 1: would know of? Greensboro were the first sit ins took

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Speaker 1: place at? So how far from Greensboro were you? Like

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Speaker 1: twenty miles and okay, let's get back to it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you bought Barol, you still have it? Yes, I

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Speaker 1: have my copy too. And that was you know, I

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Speaker 1: was a huge record fan already because when I was

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Speaker 1: in third grade, Bob, I discovered on my little clock

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Speaker 1: radio that I could tune into w ABC in New

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Speaker 1: York and w l S and Chicago. And this was

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Speaker 1: the golden age of channels. That's why was ultimately and

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Speaker 1: in my town, I think that there are one radio

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Speaker 1: station which mostly played country and gospel, which, of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, being a rock and roll kid, I hated

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Speaker 1: it went off the air, you know, So I discovered

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Speaker 1: this radio from far away that played this incredible mix

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Speaker 1: of music because am just was amazing. In the mid sixties,

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Speaker 1: I became so obsessed. I would not go to sleep

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Speaker 1: at night without listening to my radio. And that's the

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Speaker 1: transistor under the pillow. Well, you know, I don't remember

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Speaker 1: having it. It was the baby blue pastel you know,

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Speaker 1: clock radio. My parents kind of just said whatever, you know,

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Speaker 1: they didn't really care. And I started buying forty fives

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Speaker 1: like crazy with my babysitting money. And so this was

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Speaker 1: again I was third grade and I started my first

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Speaker 1: little group. Then, so I became obsessed. Well I want

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Speaker 1: to go deeper into this, Let's first get into the book.

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Speaker 1: So well, I can't as drop in. Why not? Well,

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Speaker 1: because I discovered when I was asked to write liner

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Speaker 1: notes for the Pearl Sessions, which was a two CD

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Speaker 1: set in which they went and pulled out all these

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Speaker 1: tapes from the vaults at Columbia and at least they

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Speaker 1: were still there as opposed to universal tape. Yes, thank god. Right,

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Speaker 1: And so you could hear Janice and Paul Rothschild, the

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Speaker 1: producer of Pearl Talking Shop. Janice was leading the conversation

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Speaker 1: coming up with guitar parts, arrangement ideas, you know, like

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Speaker 1: literally calling the shots. And I knew from work I'd

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Speaker 1: done on the Doors and interviewed Bruce Botnick, the Great

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Speaker 1: Engineer and other people, that Paul Rothschild was famously iron

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Speaker 1: fisted producer, and in fact, Joni Mitchell did not like

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Speaker 1: working with him because he was so bossy. And actually

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Speaker 1: Paul Rothschild a little bit. I wish I could have

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Speaker 1: met him. He seems like a cool guy. And you know,

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Speaker 1: when I have to remember that, of course he cut

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Speaker 1: all those early Electra records, but he was the son

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Speaker 1: of an opera singer. Did you know that? If I

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Speaker 1: knew what I forgot it? I didn't know that, but

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Speaker 1: um luckily I got some interviews with him from some

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Speaker 1: journalist friends who did interview him before he passed away.

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Speaker 1: So I suddenly realized that, you know, this persona this

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Speaker 1: image that jan has created, which was so indelible and

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Speaker 1: so vivid, wasn't all there was to the story of

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Speaker 1: Janis Joplin. You know, she kind of had this image

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Speaker 1: of being this blues mama. I'm just all about the field, baby,

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Speaker 1: you know, and you know that whole technique versus field idea,

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Speaker 1: and I started thinking, you know what, I think there's

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Speaker 1: more to this woman's music. Music musicianship then meets the eye.

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Speaker 1: So I then started thinking, and wait a minute. She

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Speaker 1: was growing up Port Arthur, Texas, very conservative, segregated town,

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Speaker 1: oil town in the fifties. How did she even get

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Speaker 1: access to records by Lead Belly and seventy Eights by

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Speaker 1: Bessie Smith. It must have taken a lot of effort

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Speaker 1: on her part because I had read some of the

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Speaker 1: other books about her, so I really was obsessed with

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Speaker 1: tracing her musical journey and finding out how she got

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Speaker 1: um Port Arthur, Texas to queen of the counterculture and

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Speaker 1: then this big star with pearls. Okay, I want to

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Speaker 1: hear that, But let's go back to the tapes. What

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Speaker 1: did you hear on the tapes? Well, again, with Paul's

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Speaker 1: reputation of being a very um yeah, exactly, he was

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Speaker 1: listening to Janice, he was like, wow, that's a great idea,

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Speaker 1: you know, and he apparently inspired her to pursue being

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Speaker 1: a producer. In fact, she told John Cook, her late

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Speaker 1: road manager, who think goodness, I got to meet and

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Speaker 1: interview that um Janice would make a great producer, and

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Speaker 1: Janice was so excited about this idea. She was a

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Speaker 1: studio rat. I mean she wrote home letters as far

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Speaker 1: back as the nineteen six six, the first time she

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Speaker 1: went into the studio in Chicago for the first record

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Speaker 1: Big Brother in the Holding Company did for mainstream records.

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Speaker 1: She wrote home detelling the studio recording process, talking about

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Speaker 1: double tracking her vocals and explaining what that was, the

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Speaker 1: same kind of thing when they got signed to Lumbian

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Speaker 1: did Cheap Thrills. She was very, very involved in the

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Speaker 1: recording process. Again, letters home describing what mixing was for example,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, and Fred Catero, the great engineer, and have

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Speaker 1: talked about she was the first one there and the

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Speaker 1: last to leave. She was really really involved in that

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Speaker 1: whole process. So there was that aspect of her that

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Speaker 1: I think no one really realized that she was this studious,

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Speaker 1: hard working musician that was perfecting her craft and wanting

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Speaker 1: to learn every aspect of music. Not just that amazing

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Speaker 1: voice of her. What was her personality like? Again, she

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Speaker 1: was very multifaceted. You know, we have the Janus image

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Speaker 1: of her, you know, out on stage and just so intense,

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Speaker 1: so impassion this music coming from deep within of her,

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Speaker 1: expressing all this pain and all this um torment, you know,

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Speaker 1: through her vocals and really reaching and touching her audiences.

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Speaker 1: I wish I could have seen her live, because to

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Speaker 1: this day I talked to people who saw her nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six and they go into this reverie, describing it

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Speaker 1: as if it was last week. I mean, her impact

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Speaker 1: was that powerful. But the other side of Janice, which

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Speaker 1: she kept on the down low from her fans, was

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Speaker 1: this very intellectual, studious woman who always had a book

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Speaker 1: with her. She was a total book worm, love to read.

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Speaker 1: And she also, you know, had her own fears and

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Speaker 1: her own um shyness that again she kept tamped down

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Speaker 1: through her whole stage bravado and all that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Let's go to the end. Do you think her death

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Speaker 1: was inevitable for a pure accident, pure accident bomb, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's kind of what happened when we tragically lost Tom,

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Speaker 1: Petty and Prince. The whole it's similar to that whole

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Speaker 1: fentinyl thing. Because she had had an addiction to heroin

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine, um, but she had gotten clean

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy she'd been off it for maybe four

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Speaker 1: or five months, she still was a heavy drinker and

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Speaker 1: the drinking is much worse on the voice than smack,

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Speaker 1: and she was trying to cut back on the drinking

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Speaker 1: while making Pearl because she knew that Paul wath Child

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Speaker 1: would not tolerate her voice not being there and it

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Speaker 1: can really script your voice too much. Booz. So she

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Speaker 1: happened to run into her dealer from before in l

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Speaker 1: A at the Landmark Hotel where she always stayed and relapsed. Um.

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Speaker 1: Now what happened that killed her was she, by weird chance,

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Speaker 1: got this really strong heroine that had just been introduced

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Speaker 1: to this country called China White, and it was really

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Speaker 1: pure compared to her usual and she was by herself

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Speaker 1: overdosed and it was a tragic accidym Okay, So how

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Speaker 1: did you actually decide to do the book? Well? Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: over the years through different um things like there's been

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Speaker 1: a couple of Janice uh conferences believe it or not?

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Speaker 1: At the road Yeah, at the Rock and Wall Hall

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Speaker 1: of Fame in Cleveland, wannabes or scholars yeah, well not scholars,

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Speaker 1: but the people that were there. So in the nineties

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Speaker 1: there was one and another one in the outs, and

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Speaker 1: I got to participate as a panelist talking about Janiss legacy, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: But really I was a student. I got to meet

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Speaker 1: her brother and sister who, um, we really hit it off.

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Speaker 1: I also got to meet Sam Andrew was still alive

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Speaker 1: for guitarists from Big Brother chet Helm's The Guy who

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Speaker 1: Family Don't started the avalon who really is the guy

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Speaker 1: that got Janis? At San Francisco not once, but twice

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Speaker 1: in sixty three and again in sixty six. Jerry Ragavoy,

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Speaker 1: who was her favorite songwriter that wrote a lot of

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Speaker 1: her great hits, was there. So I was learning more

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Speaker 1: and more about her and just became, you know, fascinated.

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Speaker 1: But so, when did you hear the unreleased tapes that

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Speaker 1: was in around I think it was around twenty twelve

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Speaker 1: something like that. Already been going to these conferences, Yes,

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Speaker 1: I had just been, you know, a student, because I'm

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm a general. Are you are you a

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Speaker 1: student of other things? You're going to other conferences? Yes,

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Speaker 1: I love I'm a conference junkie. Well, it used to

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Speaker 1: be called the e MP conference. Now it's called MoPOP

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Speaker 1: in Seattle, which has been going since two thousand two.

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Speaker 1: That's a great one. I try to go to that

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Speaker 1: every year. So what what have you learned there? Oh? Gosh,

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Speaker 1: what have I not learned? Because it goes all through

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Speaker 1: like every genre going back to I've learned about artists

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Speaker 1: that I like Eva Tingay. I think her name is

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Speaker 1: who is this? Do you know her name? I know

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Speaker 1: the name? The music? Yeah, just people go down the

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Speaker 1: rabbit hole at these conferences. And each year there's a theme,

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Speaker 1: so it'll be everything from you know, drag. Last year

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Speaker 1: it was death so perfect for Janas. How many people go? Um? Gosh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it lasts about four days and there's lots

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Speaker 1: and lots of you should go. Bobby would love it.

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Speaker 1: UM and it's people and it's not just academics. It's

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Speaker 1: UM fans, fancy and writers, musicians, the great John Langford,

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Speaker 1: the me cons and the Wakeer Brothers has been part

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Speaker 1: of it. Um they have. They've had Janelle Mone, they

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Speaker 1: had Solomon Burke. They'll have a keynote a lot of times,

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Speaker 1: a musician, Um the tune smith woman I'm blanking on

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Speaker 1: her or anyway, how many of these do you go

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Speaker 1: to in a year? Um? See, I go to that

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Speaker 1: when I go to the Americana Conference in Nashville. I

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Speaker 1: used to go to south By Southwest every year and

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Speaker 1: always do panels for that, and that was really fun.

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Speaker 1: And again I saw amazing like Harold Bradley and Holly Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just kind of it's too big now. Um, so

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Speaker 1: American is kind of stepping up to the plate now.

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Speaker 1: And so you can actually see like Tanya Tucker, you know,

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Speaker 1: talk Okay, So you're going to these panels, you hear

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Speaker 1: the tapes, you write the liner notes, when do you

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Speaker 1: decide you want to write a book? Well, I was

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Speaker 1: able to talk to the siblings who control Anas. We

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Speaker 1: were talking just because you're interested or in the back

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Speaker 1: of your mind to do something with this, I know,

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Speaker 1: totally not thinking of doing something. But my literary agent,

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Speaker 1: who was a wonderful person who actually has been She

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Speaker 1: worked at Rolling Stone going back to the what's her name?

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Speaker 1: Her name is Sarah Lason and she reps lots of

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Speaker 1: rock writers, been functorus and you know Robert christcal and

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Speaker 1: how did you get hooked up with her? Well, because

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Speaker 1: one of my first jobs when I first moved to

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Speaker 1: New York City, and besides waiting tables after graduating college

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Speaker 1: with my policy English double major. Was I got a

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Speaker 1: job as a fact checker at Rolling Stone Press. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, they wish they still had that. Of course,

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Speaker 1: is the books, not the magazine that they had a

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Speaker 1: fact director would help their image. Yeah, definitely. So my

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Speaker 1: first job, Bob, I think it was like five bucks

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Speaker 1: an hour. It was fact checking the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia

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Speaker 1: of Rock and Roll, which of course I owned, Yes,

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Speaker 1: And I got to meet all these guys pretty much.

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Speaker 1: They're all guys who I had read as a kid

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Speaker 1: reading Rolling Stone, like you know, Dave marsh and different people.

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Speaker 1: And then my job was like calling up question Mark

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Speaker 1: of question Mark and the Mysterious and saying, is it

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Speaker 1: true that you know you're really from Mars? And did

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Speaker 1: did you know whatever? Davidout him in the sycopo. I

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Speaker 1: have to ask, how did you get the job? Was

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Speaker 1: it that easy? Just you know, you have to know

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Speaker 1: somebody because I am a rock and roll geek, Bob,

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Speaker 1: and I obsessively always read rock and roll books. A

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Speaker 1: friend of mine who I met at American Baby Magazine,

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Speaker 1: where I also had a job, and you know, of

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Speaker 1: course I was a long way from having kids or

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Speaker 1: anything like that. But um she went to work for

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Speaker 1: Rolling Stone and was Sarah Layson's assistant. Sarah was the

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Speaker 1: director of the book division, and she knew I was

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Speaker 1: this rock and roll geek. They needed a fact checker.

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Speaker 1: I got to go in for the interview, and this

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Speaker 1: wonderful woman, Patti Romanowski, who has written. She went on

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Speaker 1: to write a lot of co authorships with um Otis

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Speaker 1: Williams of The Temptations, which now they've made that book

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Speaker 1: into the Broadway musical. She did dream Girls, and Mary

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Speaker 1: was anyway, she was the person hiring and we just

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Speaker 1: started talking about our favorite rock and roll books and

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Speaker 1: I was just geeking out with her. She's like, you

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Speaker 1: got the job, so perfect work for you. Let's stop

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Speaker 1: there for a second, especially in the Me Too era

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Speaker 1: and a second wave of feminism, shall we say, who

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Speaker 1: are the unsung women writers in music who need to

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Speaker 1: get more attention? Ellen Sander number, of course I love

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Speaker 1: her writing and for the Yeah, and well that's Ellen

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Speaker 1: Willis right, right, right, I hear from Ellen sand Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Ellen died a few years ago, and she she was

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Speaker 1: definitely the most intellectual, culturally anthropological, anthropological kind of rock

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Speaker 1: critic who I mean she was amazing, and of course

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Speaker 1: reading her on Janice, her reviews of Janis at the

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Speaker 1: Film or East and the New York Are are just

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Speaker 1: mind blowing. But my last book, you know, was on

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Speaker 1: Alex Chilton. She was a big box tops fans, Kay Sander.

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Speaker 1: She lives in May, Yeah, yeah, she lived in Her

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Speaker 1: book Trips was amazing, which is a collection. I think

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Speaker 1: she wrote for different magazines and she went on the

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Speaker 1: road with different bands. Um. And she actually reviewed a

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Speaker 1: lot of Janice concerts in New York back in the day.

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Speaker 1: And Woodstock of course. Um, her writing on Woodstock is great.

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Speaker 1: So both of those two jan you Helski, who was

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Speaker 1: that Cream magazine? Um, who was an incredible writer. And

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Speaker 1: I think she's actually working on a dock now about Cream,

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Speaker 1: but I think she was there in the late sixties. Yeah, definitely.

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Speaker 1: So those are three right there. And are these people

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Speaker 1: you have regular contact with? Is there a fraternity or

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Speaker 1: shall I say a sorority of women music writers? Well,

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Speaker 1: those women I kind of put on a pedestal, so

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Speaker 1: I'm like a gushy fangirl um around them. But um,

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Speaker 1: as far as other women go, it's, you know, there

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Speaker 1: is kind of I would say, for the most part,

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Speaker 1: it is a very cool, supportive group of women. There's

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Speaker 1: a great book called Women Who Rock, edited by Evelyn

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Speaker 1: mcde mc nodal, who is out here in California, and

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Speaker 1: Evelyn got a lot of different women writers to do

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Speaker 1: essays on different women artists, again across the genre spectrum.

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Speaker 1: I wrote a piece on Patsy Klein, for example. Then

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Speaker 1: she got all women illustrators to do portraits of the

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Speaker 1: subjects and that book came out last year. And Evelyn,

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Speaker 1: who teaches also out here, was really careful to include

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Speaker 1: a lot of new, up and coming young women writers

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Speaker 1: as well as us. You know, heggs have been out

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Speaker 1: there doing it forever. So so it's it's great to

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Speaker 1: get to meet all these different women writers who had

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Speaker 1: this passion for rock and roll. Okay, so you have

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Speaker 1: the agent and you were telling a story of how

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Speaker 1: this book came to be. Yes, so my agent Sarah

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Speaker 1: Lays and new Laura Joplin and actually was her agent

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Speaker 1: when she did a book that was basically a memoir

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Speaker 1: with um referencing lots of letters at Janice wrote home

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Speaker 1: and so she intruduce us to us, and she kind

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Speaker 1: of paved the way for me to get to know uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, Laura and Michael Joplin and then also Jeff

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Speaker 1: jam Paul you probably know of course who represents yes exactly.

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Speaker 1: And so we all hit it off and they but

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Speaker 1: your agent was basically pitching a book. Well she was

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Speaker 1: kind of interfacing. I mean this, Bob, this took like

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Speaker 1: many years. The first conversation I think was long before

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Speaker 1: I started working on the Alex Chilton book, which was

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Speaker 1: in so I would say in like the late audits,

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Speaker 1: like around two thousand eight or so, essentially ten years. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So it was just conversations. This. How long after your

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Speaker 1: agents started looking you up with these people, did you

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Speaker 1: actually have a go or get a deal? Probably? You know,

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Speaker 1: like gosh, I would say, um, you know, like about

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Speaker 1: six years or something. And this was us conversing back

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Speaker 1: and forth deciding how could we do this? Uh. I

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Speaker 1: gave them other books. I My first biography was of

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Speaker 1: Gene Autry, the Great Singing Cowboy, who also his widow

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Speaker 1: Jackie Autrey, had opened up her vaults and files and

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Speaker 1: all of his personal archives to me. Again, I will

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Speaker 1: only do a book like this if I have complete

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Speaker 1: editorial control over what I'm doing so the estate or

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Speaker 1: the airs have to realize that they I would love

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Speaker 1: for them to share all this incredible information with me.

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Speaker 1: It's in these archives, but I can't give them any

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Speaker 1: kind of control ever what I write, and you end

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Speaker 1: up getting into battles. Uh No, not really. I mean

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Speaker 1: I think they trust me and they know that I am, like,

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Speaker 1: I really, really dedicated to try to tell the story

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Speaker 1: as accurately as possible, and to try to make it

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Speaker 1: you know, all the different facets of someone. So have

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Speaker 1: you ever written a book and then have the person

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Speaker 1: argue with you or be disenchanted because you've got something

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Speaker 1: wrong or you had an opinion they're not comfortable with. Well,

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Speaker 1: not the actual people who um, I mean, some of

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Speaker 1: them disagree with the conclusions I draw. For example, Jackie Autrey,

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Speaker 1: she still believes that Geane Autrey met Will Rogers in

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Speaker 1: a telegraph office and he said, son, you should be

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Speaker 1: doing more than just running this, you know, telegraph for

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Speaker 1: the railroad. You should be a Hollywood star or whatever,

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Speaker 1: which I did tons of geeky research and found out

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Speaker 1: that that could not have taken place because when Will

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Speaker 1: Rogers died, etcetera. And so I have to depose this

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Speaker 1: incredible myth like the John Ford don't you know, don't

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Speaker 1: you know print the legend, you know, kind of thing

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Speaker 1: that didn't really happen. And she, you know, because I

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Speaker 1: think Jeane Autrey for himself, actually began to believe the

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Speaker 1: story that a press agent created that he was discovered

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Speaker 1: by Will Rogers, when in reality, the press agent created

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Speaker 1: that totally. Okay, So she disagreed with that, but we

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Speaker 1: agreed to disagree. Okay. So this book, unlike a lot

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Speaker 1: of music books, is with one of the biggest publishers

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Speaker 1: in the nation, that Simon and Schuster. How did that

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Speaker 1: come together? I just really lucked out. UM. The guy

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Speaker 1: who was the head of UM. I guess Simon and

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Speaker 1: Schuster is a guy who I worked with a long

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Speaker 1: time ago when I was doing books at Rolling Stone

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Speaker 1: because I ended up going back to Rolling Stone after

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Speaker 1: being a fact checker. I ended up going back there

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Speaker 1: in the early nineties and re igniting the book division again.

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Speaker 1: So I worked with him on some of this person's

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Speaker 1: his name, Okay, you know, we're we're, we're, you know,

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Speaker 1: having a senior moment. But then my editor, Priscilla Painton,

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Speaker 1: who is this wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster. She's

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Speaker 1: the one that I went and met with. She really

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Speaker 1: got it, and she was not a typical music book editor.

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Speaker 1: She does a lot of their political books, a lot

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Speaker 1: of their you know, big So you make the deal

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Speaker 1: Simon and Schuster, as they say, Simon Schuster, Random House,

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Speaker 1: these are like the biggest companies. Is the deal lucrative?

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Speaker 1: Uh well, let's just put it this way. Janice was

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Speaker 1: much more lucrative than Salally Jeane Autrey was. And this

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Speaker 1: way you're writing writing a book on Janice Joplin. Theoretically,

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Speaker 1: with the advance, could you live a year and do

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Speaker 1: nothing else? Uh? Not if you have a son that's

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Speaker 1: in college. Okay, Okay, we got my general idea. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so the book is like I teach also and I

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Speaker 1: still write. You know, let's stay with Janice for a second. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So there's been a number of books about Janice. I

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Speaker 1: remember in seventy four vividly remember reading this book in Jackson,

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Speaker 1: Wyoming and a diner, the Myra Friedman book. Yes, I

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00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:43,280
Speaker 1: read that book of any good you know, I totally

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Speaker 1: bought that book lock Stock and Barrel. It really formed

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Speaker 1: my opinion of Janice, which is part of the reason

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Speaker 1: why I wanted to do my book because now in retrospect,

394
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Speaker 1: looking back, I realized Mayra Friedman, who was her publicist,

395
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Speaker 1: worked for Albert Grossman, her manager, and truly loved Janice.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're old enough now, Bob, that we've lost people,

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Speaker 1: and we know the effect that has on you when

398
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 1: you lose someone, especially at tragic death like Janice is

399
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:12,400
Speaker 1: you're angry at that person. And now, looking back, I

400
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:16,199
Speaker 1: think that the portrait, my opinion, was very inaccurate. She

401
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:22,440
Speaker 1: made Janice seem like this tragic figure who was just

402
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:26,159
Speaker 1: just kind of um in this morass of you know,

403
00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 1: sadness and insecurity and just very neurotic and and all

404
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:34,200
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. She I think it was very

405
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:36,960
Speaker 1: one dimensional portrait of her, and it was she was

406
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 1: just too close to her subject, and I think she

407
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 1: was really bitterly upset about her loss, so her anger

408
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 1: came out and the way she cast okay, So you know,

409
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Speaker 1: that's the one I read. How many books are their

410
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Speaker 1: biography of Janice? L um gosh what some of them

411
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Speaker 1: are no longer in print. Forget that they're not would

412
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Speaker 1: say like about six or something like that. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: this is not a subject that has not been covered. Okay,

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00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:10,160
Speaker 1: so the question becomes, uh, why what do you think

415
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:12,879
Speaker 1: you can add or what is your goal in writing

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Speaker 1: the book? I wanted to show Janice as a musician.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to show her as you know, the real

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Speaker 1: Janis Joplin, who persisted, who overcame so many obstacles to

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Speaker 1: pursue her ambitions to be the greatest, you know. I

420
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: mean she told Paul Rothschild when he said where do

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Speaker 1: you want to be? At age fifty? And this was

422
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Speaker 1: when she was, you know, horribly twenty seven, she said,

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Speaker 1: I want to be as good as a blue singer

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Speaker 1: as Bessie Smith was, you know. She it was all

425
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: about perfecting her craft, learning more, you know, getting better,

426
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,359
Speaker 1: you know, continuing to work hard at this. And I

427
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: think that part of Janice's life, and that part of

428
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 1: her story has never really been told. Okay, let's go

429
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:00,160
Speaker 1: back to Port Arthur, because you began there. What were

430
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 1: the circumstances of her upbringing? Well, it's an interesting story.

431
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,440
Speaker 1: She was very beloved by her parents. She was basically

432
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:09,160
Speaker 1: an only child until age six when her sister Laura

433
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:12,920
Speaker 1: came along. So her parents doated on her, but they

434
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 1: were quite different people. You know, they came from you know,

435
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: difficult backgrounds themselves. And the mom was, you know, wanted

436
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: Janis to have the white picket fins, the perfect life,

437
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 1: you know, the typical fifties kind of middle class life.

438
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,439
Speaker 1: And Janis was born in forty three. The father was

439
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 1: Janie called him a secret intellectual. His name with Seth Joplin.

440
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 1: And he had a mid level management job at Texico

441
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 1: then called the Texas Company. You know, the whole town

442
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 1: was all oil distilleries and refineries, et cetera, and um.

443
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:48,159
Speaker 1: He came home from work, listened to Bach, loved classical music,

444
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 1: was a huge reader of philosophy, history. Every Saturday, he

445
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:56,639
Speaker 1: took Janice to the library and that she said, you know,

446
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 1: in my family, as soon as you could write your name,

447
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:00,640
Speaker 1: you got a library card. And old in her love

448
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: of book books. But also he was an atheist. Her

449
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:07,920
Speaker 1: mom was a evangelical, you know, Christian, you know, very

450
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: religious woman. Janice started singing soprano and the church choir

451
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, was baptized by immersion, you know,

452
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:17,440
Speaker 1: that whole thing. But the father never went to church.

453
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:22,120
Speaker 1: He was an atheist, and so the father particularly kind

454
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 1: of instilled in Janice, um, you know, a quest for knowledge,

455
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:30,679
Speaker 1: to think outside the box. The mother also really was

456
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:33,439
Speaker 1: a great singer, had been a singer as a teenager

457
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: in Amarillo, Texas, and started teaching Janice how to sing

458
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 1: when she was like three years old, how to play piano.

459
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:43,360
Speaker 1: So there was some music in the house. And they

460
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 1: discovered a Janice that she had this artistic talent. She

461
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: was a quite good painter, and so they started buying

462
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 1: her you know, paints and easels and everything when she

463
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: was you know, quite young and all that. So they

464
00:25:55,440 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: really supported her artistic endeavors. Now, Janice read On the

465
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: Road by Caro wac when it came out, and that

466
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 1: changed her life. Fifty oh, all the Carol people are

467
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: gonna kill me. I think it was fifty seven, Okay,

468
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: So but at that point she's already fourteen. Y yeah,

469
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: she was fourteen. She was fourteen years old. So yuh.

470
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: Going back to her growing up, She's an elementary school.

471
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: She a member of the group, she a leader, She

472
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: an outcasts what issue see, I think, Bob the reason

473
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: she you know, famously had this horrible situation by the

474
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 1: end of her high school year where she was completely bullied, ostracized, etcetera.

475
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 1: And I think she took it so to heart because

476
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: she was, you know, barely popular. She had friends, she

477
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: was in the Slide Rule Club. She you know, made

478
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 1: pep Rally posters. I mean, she was a typical girl.

479
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:50,400
Speaker 1: You can see all this in her scrap book. She's

480
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,679
Speaker 1: got her little crinoline you know, swatches of crinoline's and

481
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 1: fabrics that her mom's made her, all these dresses and everything.

482
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: And she was very raw, raw teen spirit kind of girl.

483
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: But reading Caroac, meeting these guys who were a year

484
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: older than she was who set her on her path

485
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: to listening to Lead belly Um. She discovered Odetta through them,

486
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:15,880
Speaker 1: Jeane Ritchie the grade to Appalachian folkusinger and started discovering

487
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: other ways of thinking and moving away from that traditional

488
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:24,440
Speaker 1: Texas football culture, which you know, football rules in Texas.

489
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: And she started moving away from that and sneaking across

490
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 1: the river and going to Louisiana at night with the

491
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 1: Carlatto Boys to hear um swamp Rock Louisiana from Port

492
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: It's well, it's very close because Port Arthur's right on

493
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: the Gulf there, so it's right across the river and so,

494
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 1: you know, maybe forty five minutes and hey, you know

495
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: this was a m radio was still great then too,

496
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 1: so this was like they caught it doing the the triangle.

497
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: They would drive from Port Arthur to Beaumont, Texas, you

498
00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 1: know where some great blues came out of Ivory Joe Hunter,

499
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 1: et cetera. To Orange listening to the radio and picking

500
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: up some black stations, hearing some R and B. Janice

501
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: was so obsessed with it she would go and try

502
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: to meet the DJs. There was a guy named Stevo,

503
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 1: the night Rider. She would go and say, oh, can

504
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: I get your coffee? She and her girlfriend would go

505
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: up and visit the DJs at night. She was just

506
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: she's in high school. She starts living a somewhat bohemian lifestyle,

507
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 1: shall we say, well, as much as could be living

508
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 1: at home as a teenager. But my question is it's like,

509
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: you know, I went and Ray Dat's on a Storyteller album,

510
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: has a song, you know his art chicks, you know, babe.

511
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: My point is I went to high school and remember

512
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 1: the art people, they were a separate click. So at

513
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: this point in high school. Is she a separate click

514
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 1: or is it still all homogeneous? It was pretty homogeneous,

515
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: except for there was these four or five guys that

516
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: were a great ahead of her who she started hanging

517
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: out with, and she was almost like their little mascot

518
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: or whatever. And also she started school at a very

519
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: young a skipped a grade, so she was about a

520
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: year and a half younger than most of the kids

521
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: in her actual grade level. Okay, there's a famous story

522
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: where I believe she's voted best looking guys or something. Okay,

523
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: by the time she you know, she had so many adventures.

524
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,719
Speaker 1: Beginning at age eighteen, she hit chiked out to San

525
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: Franciscoco from l A, where she was living in Venice

526
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: for a little while because she dropped out of college. Anyway,

527
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: she was back. She goes to Texas, to Austin, Texas,

528
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: to ut and that's when she first starts. Yeah, and

529
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: that's when she first performs for audiences in a little

530
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: group called the Waller Creek Boys, which was again this

531
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 1: little bohemian group of guys, a few women, but mostly

532
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: guys who lived in a place called the Ghetto, this

533
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: rundown apartment building in Austin, and of course they were

534
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 1: very different because this was nineteen sixty two and most

535
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: of the girls were buffon hair dues, a little cinched

536
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 1: waist shirt, dresses, bobby socks. Janice was wearing like an

537
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 1: oversized men hurt with blue jeans or else the black turtlenecks.

538
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 1: She was often barefooted, and she had that amazing voice already,

539
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: and she was applying it to these records that she

540
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: had discovered by blues artists. The Waller Creek Boys were

541
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: mainly doing kind of folky um when he got three

542
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: ish kind of stuff bluegrass. So they started blending all

543
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: these sounds and they started performing on campus and then

544
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: at this great place thread Gills, which fortunately still exists,

545
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: and building this audience. In the meantime, Janice was, as

546
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: the kids say today, polyamorous. Um. She already was having

547
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: flings with both men and women, and she didn't try

548
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: to hide it, and um, she really stuck out. There

549
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: was actually an article written about her in the Texas

550
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: the University of Texas newspaper called she Dares to be Different.

551
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: So she was becoming kind of known around the campus.

552
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: And every year this fraternity would have a fundraiser The

553
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: ugliest man on campus contest, so you would have to

554
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: pay you know, ten bucks to nominate someone nominated Janice

555
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: and it was just heartbreaking for her. Um she did

556
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: not win a linebacker for the football team one but

557
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: still just you know, very just hard. Was insecure about

558
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: her look. She was yeah, and um she you know,

559
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: I think she was a beautiful woman. And so it's

560
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: weird to me to see how people singled out her

561
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: body parts and her appearance. Even when she was getting

562
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,719
Speaker 1: huge as a star. Um, people would talk about her

563
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: being playing or I think in Vogue magazine they said

564
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: her her complexion was like pizza or so. I mean,

565
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: it's like sickening the way that the media would cover

566
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: women and take this to heart. She bothered by all

567
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: those negative information when she wasn't drinking or doing drugs.

568
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: I think she was bothered by it. Okay, so you

569
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: see he dropped on a school the first time. Yeah,

570
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: where was she going the first time? She first went

571
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: to um Lamar Tech, which was kind of the school

572
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: where most of the kids from Now it was a

573
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: regular university, but it was where you went to be

574
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: to get a job in the petroleum business. And where

575
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: and then she did you know, wherever she went, she

576
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: found a small little group of you know, outside the

577
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: box people, So she found that in Beaumont. Then she

578
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: ended up dropping out back in Port Arthur and she

579
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: took business classes. If she was quite the good stenographer

580
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: um and typeest, her mom demanded that she go to

581
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: business college in Port Arthur, so she got a little

582
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: certificate for that. Then her mom sent her out to

583
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: live in l a with her aunts who lived out

584
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. She wanted to be a beat nick

585
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: as I said, this was sixty one, she was eighteen.

586
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: So she ends up in Venice, living there for a

587
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: little while, goes to San Francisco, hitchhiking by herself, checking

588
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: out the North Beach scene, whatever, runs out of money,

589
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: takes a bus back to Port Arthur, and then she

590
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 1: ends up discovering the scene in Austin. So that's when

591
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: she went to college in Austin. She went there for

592
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: the summer session in the fall session, how does she

593
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: end up back on the West coast. Well, that horrible

594
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: incident occurred with her poster of her dominated for Auglass

595
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: Mental Campus, and she had met Chet Helms, who was

596
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 1: a former UT student who had been traveling around doing

597
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 1: the Caro Wac thing and had been living out in

598
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: San Francisco. He heard her sing, and he's like, you're

599
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 1: gonna knock their socks off in San Francisco because North

600
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: Beach had a cafe scene, coffeehouse scene where people were

601
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: doing folk music, some a little bit of blues. So

602
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: in sixty three, a week after her twentieth birthday, she

603
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: and Chet hitchhiked from Austin to San Francisco. Okay, just

604
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: to be clear, was Chet living in San Francisco previously?

605
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: Or did he go out with Janice? He had been

606
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 1: kind of living there for a little while. He had

607
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: been traveling around, you know, doing the whole on the road.

608
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: Did Was there a romantic relationship there? No, they were

609
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: just platonic good friends. She really believed in her to

610
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Yeah, well, she did not stick around. She

611
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 1: did not want to be managed. She wanted to be

612
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 1: an independent agent. They basically stayed for a few nights

613
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:16,719
Speaker 1: at David Freiberg's place, clashed on his floor, Quicksilver and

614
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 1: Ultimate right and uh he uh he, and Chat took

615
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: her down to Coffee and Confusion, a coffee house North

616
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 1: Beach where she did an open mic night, and of

617
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: course that voice just knocked people knocked their socks off,

618
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 1: just like Chat said. So she pretty much started getting

619
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: little gigs, playing at the coffee house, Circle Circuit. She

620
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: went out to um like San Jose. She met your

621
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 1: Mcalchinan at like an open mic night, and they both

622
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 1: loved the blues. I mean, most of these people were

623
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 1: doing kind of more the folks stuff. They loved singing, singing. No,

624
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, five bucks a night for money,

625
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:59,359
Speaker 1: she's scraping by. She's sleeping in people's floors. I mean,

626
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: she has no infrastructure, no support. Um, it's really not

627
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 1: really okay. So is she just in the moment or

628
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 1: does she have a dream of making it? Atte She

629
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:13,839
Speaker 1: has a dream of making it, that's the thing. Even

630
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 1: though she was living like a down and out beat nick,

631
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: you know, on the streets, she still had this dream

632
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: of making it. And people immediately recognized her talent. And

633
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 1: she was nothing like the Janna Stop and we picture today,

634
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: you know, the whole San Francisco freak rock. And then

635
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: her later stuff she was doing. She had already started

636
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: writing songs. She was doing her own stuff. She was

637
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: sometimes accompanying herself with auto harp. She really wanted to

638
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: learn to play guitar so she could learn how to

639
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: back herself. So she started learning guitar. Gotta you know,

640
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: pawn shop guitar and stuff, and um, she was making

641
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:50,239
Speaker 1: some noise. People were interested in her, but she was

642
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: a very you know, she had was living a very

643
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 1: unsettled existence. Okay, is Big Brother her first band? Or

644
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: does she go through a few iterations with other people? Well,

645
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: she had had the Waller Creek Boy, but she had

646
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: never had electric Okay, So basically this whole blues singer

647
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: thing lasted almost three or. She actually ended up coming

648
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: to New York City the summer of sixty four and

649
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 1: trying to make it there and ended up making most

650
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: of her money as a pool shark. She was a

651
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: great pool player, so she was like beating all these

652
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: guys at pool and that's pretty much how she got back. Suddenly,

653
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: she went back to San Francisco, tried to make it

654
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: the end, but horribly, she'd picked up a really nasty

655
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: drug habit. She got addicted to methamphetamine, which was very

656
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,560
Speaker 1: prevalent in San Francisco and New York at that period,

657
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 1: and she ended up getting down eighty eight pounds, I mean,

658
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 1: really facing death. Her friends put her on a Greyhound

659
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,240
Speaker 1: back to Port Arthur Ve. She was back in Texas

660
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 1: for a year. Cleaned up, Irrat went back to school,

661
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,919
Speaker 1: back to Lamar as a commuter this time. But now

662
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: she was trying to do the you know, campus co

663
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: ed thing. But the music was gnawing at her. She

664
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: really she could not stop doing. Is that she was

665
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: writing songs. She wrote Turtle Blues then, which was on

666
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 1: cheap Thrills. She started doing little gigs again, um in

667
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:10,279
Speaker 1: Houston where Towns van Zandt was performing. Guy Clark was

668
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: hanging out. Then, So how did she get back to

669
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: San Francisco. She ended up getting gigs in Austin because

670
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: of you know, doing her shows again. And chet Helms

671
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 1: was now fully entrenched in this so the you know,

672
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: cool scene, the counterculture happening in San Francisco with the

673
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 1: family dog the Avalon Ballroom. He was managing big brother

674
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 1: in the holding company. They decided they wanted a chick

675
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: singer doing those little yes and so he's like, I know,

676
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 1: the perfect girl now. Peter Alban, the bass player, the

677
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 1: founder of the band who was doing most of the

678
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: vocals had actually seen Janice back in her blues singing

679
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 1: folky days, um, you know, on the on that scene,

680
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: so he remembered she had a great voice. So they

681
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: sent an emissary, a mutual friend from San Francisco, who

682
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: drove to Austin and absconded with Janice and she you know,

683
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,799
Speaker 1: and tell her parents. You know, they were horrified and

684
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: just petrified that she was gonna end up in a

685
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 1: bad situation again like she had before with the speaker.

686
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 1: So how long did she play with Big Brother before

687
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: they make the mainstream deal? She was very briefly. She

688
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: got there in June of sixty six. They immediately bonded. Um.

689
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: She was just one of the guys in the in

690
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: the beginning, you know, she only sang maybe three or

691
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 1: four songs the set as the lead singer. Everybody contributed material,

692
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 1: everybody took turn singing lead, except for day of the

693
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: drummer and Um. Interestingly enough, Paul Rothschild came into the picture.

694
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 1: He was working for Jack Holsman and Electra and they

695
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:41,760
Speaker 1: had the idea of putting together a supergroup and putting

696
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 1: together they heard Janice, you know, and again no one

697
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:46,360
Speaker 1: knew her and she was just part of Big Brother.

698
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 1: They had heard her vocals and it was gonna be

699
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: Taj Mahal, the great guitarist, Stephen Grossman, Janice Um. They

700
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: wanted to put them together record an album for Electra, etcetera.

701
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: So Janice almost quit Big Brother and like the end

702
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: of the summer, you know, like July August of sixty

703
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: six to do join this venture because it promised more

704
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 1: success than Big Brother, because they were still pretty crazy.

705
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: Cacophon is you know, freak rock. Okay, So they got

706
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 1: the deal with Mainstream. The great song down on Me

707
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 1: is there, but that's in an era certainly when being

708
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 1: on an independent label you're a second class citizen. Well

709
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,719
Speaker 1: and plus the label just didn't get this. They wanted

710
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: to try to cash in on the San Francisco sound,

711
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,800
Speaker 1: and Bob Chad, who ran the label, had great ears.

712
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: He had worked with Carmen McCrae. He was mainly a

713
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: jazz producer, had been in the business for a long time,

714
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: but he wanted to get on what the kids are doing.

715
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: So they were actually marooned in Chicago, big Brother in

716
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 1: the holding company. They had a month long residency at

717
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 1: this club. Mother Blues, which was a disaster. People like

718
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 1: what you know, they're like, what are these freaky people doing?

719
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:52,439
Speaker 1: You know, they're horrible And they were having to play

720
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,840
Speaker 1: three sets tonight, no money, barely getting by. So Bob

721
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,800
Speaker 1: Chad offers them this deal, which was a really bad deal.

722
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: Now chat Helms was no longer their manager. They fired

723
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 1: him because they thought he was too busy with the

724
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:08,279
Speaker 1: avalon and given not giving them any attention. So they

725
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: had no manager to without a manager, and it was

726
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: without a lawyer. Uh the lawyer was provided by Bob

727
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: shadd by Mainstream. So it was a horrible deal. And

728
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 1: also worst of all was that, you know the engineer.

729
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: They did the first recordings right there in Chicago. They

730
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: didn't even get an advance. They thought they would get

731
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: an advanced so they'd have the money to get back

732
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:31,719
Speaker 1: to San Francisco. They couldn't get home. They were stuck there.

733
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 1: How long after that did they played the Monterey Poff

734
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: Festoral That was in June of sixty seven, This is

735
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:40,799
Speaker 1: like August September of sixty six. As the band stayed

736
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:44,359
Speaker 1: together for nine months. Well, they finally got back they

737
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: did when it remember drive away cars, Okay, so they

738
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: got a drive away car got back. The good thing

739
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: about that bad situation was they were having to try

740
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 1: to win over these people that were appalled by their music,

741
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: and that really pushed Janis to develop this incredible stage

742
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:02,360
Speaker 1: presence even more than she was already doing with the

743
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: loving audiences that they had at the at the Avalon,

744
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: So she was really pushing herself. They were really expanding

745
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: the repertoire. They had to do three sets a night,

746
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: so it really helped her, you know, hone her skills.

747
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 1: She was also a really good percussionist. Dave Gets, the drummer,

748
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,319
Speaker 1: told me she really took She was playing that um

749
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,879
Speaker 1: all kinds of percussion instruments at Girton all that, so

750
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: she was really improving her chops. So by the time

751
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,280
Speaker 1: they got back to San Francisco, thanks were really moving

752
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: along with the whole counterculture. Um. You know, one of

753
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: the first music fanzines was you know, writing about them.

754
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 1: Jerry Garcia was telling people what a great singer Janity.

755
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 1: I was not aware of the mainstream albuntil after She

756
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: Thrills was released. Well that's because it was rushed out

757
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: after they were at Monterey Pop UM, so we didn't

758
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 1: even come out. Yeah, they put out singles because you know,

759
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 1: Bob the paradigm was still the whole am radio singles

760
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 1: driven market. So they released two singles um on mainstream,

761
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: which you know, a rarecle actables if you can find them.

762
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: And so again Janice wasn't even featured on the first single,

763
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 1: Harley Down on Me Find was the second single of them,

764
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: recalling correctly, um, but the album didn't come out until

765
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:15,760
Speaker 1: after moderate. Yeah, so they're at Monterey Pop. The legend

766
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 1: is that Clive Davis was there and became enamored and

767
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: signed them. Is that the truth? Well, what happened was

768
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: no one had really heard of Janice. A few people

769
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: had heard of Big Brother, but they were mainly known

770
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. Okay, So they had a Saturday

771
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: early afternoon slot on the Heart because, um, you know,

772
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: Adler lew Adler and John Phillips really wanted to have

773
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: kind of credibility that this was a cool festival. So

774
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:47,319
Speaker 1: they wanted the cool San Francisco bands who were very

775
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: suspicious of these slick l A guys and the slick

776
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: music because it was, you know, the counterculture thing. And

777
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: so that's how they came kind of in a package

778
00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: was like Grateful Dead and you know some other bands

779
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: from the Bay Area, Jefferson Airplane. So they have an

780
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: early Saturday movie afternoon. Yeah, yeah, because they were the

781
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:09,839
Speaker 1: least known you know, the Dead, Yeah, something like that.

782
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 1: And so the deal was that um ABC TV had

783
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: given the producers of Monterey Pop a deal to do

784
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: a made for TV movie and they had brilliantly hired

785
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 1: d A. Pina Baker, the late great documentarian who you

786
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 1: know worked with Dylan et cetera. So he was filming this.

787
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:34,280
Speaker 1: Now the San Francisco people, being suspicious of their ulterior motives,

788
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: refused to sign the release so their sets could not

789
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: be filmed. Well, Janice and Big Brother went out and

790
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 1: just killed I mean people were I mean to use

791
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:47,360
Speaker 1: the brit term gobs match by the same to the

792
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: movie doesn't come out until the year after which, yeah, yeah, exactly.

793
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 1: So d A. Pina Baker was like, I don't We've

794
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: got to film this woman they have, We've got to film,

795
00:43:57,080 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 1: you know, the famous shot of Mama Cass's face. And

796
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: that was the only thing that was the only thing

797
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: they were able to film. They couldn't film the band.

798
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: So so Big Brother said no to the filming, correct,

799
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: as did the Dead and others. Okay. So they had

800
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 1: a manager at this point who had been a Mary

801
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:20,359
Speaker 1: prankster with Ken Kiss, Julius Carpin, okay, and so he

802
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 1: was very like, forget it. You know they're gonna rip

803
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,400
Speaker 1: us off, don't you can't do it. So this huge

804
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 1: fight happens because the producers say to Janus and Big Brother,

805
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: we will give you another time slot. You'll be the

806
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: under only band to play twice if you let us

807
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 1: film you for the movie. And so of course Janice, yes, yes, yes,

808
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: we gotta do what we gotta do it. Albert Grossman

809
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 1: is there because some of his clients, Mike Bloomfield and

810
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 1: Paul Butterfield run the bill. He was there. I mean,

811
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 1: everybody was floored. Clive Davis in the audience, everybody was

812
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: blown away by what they saw that Saturday afternoon first,

813
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,320
Speaker 1: the first one, and so they were finally convinced to

814
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:01,839
Speaker 1: play again on Sunday evening, like around dusk. Who did

815
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,919
Speaker 1: you know who they followed? I do know, but it's

816
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 1: kind of been a cock webs, right, but but they yeah,

817
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: they go on and again they killed and you know

818
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:14,840
Speaker 1: I think this time they only did like a three

819
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 1: song set, or they ended with the amazing version of

820
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: Ball and Chain that Janie and Janie and the band

821
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: had gone and seen Big Mama Thornton, who, by the way,

822
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: Janie had discovered as a teenager, you know when when

823
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,000
Speaker 1: Big Mama recorded for Houston Labels and did the original

824
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 1: hound Dog, which Janice loved. So they saw her do

825
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: Ball and Chain, went backstage, met her, learned the song

826
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: and you know, hence we have So they killed there

827
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 1: in their filmed How do their business arrangements, Well, what

828
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: happened was so many music writers were there. Every music

829
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 1: writer in the country was there. Everybody went nuts over Janice.

830
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 1: She was in the headlines and it suddenly elevated, you know,

831
00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: her stature and suddenly, I mean, it really affected the

832
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 1: democratic dynamic of the band. But in the meantime, different

833
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 1: labels started coming to call. They were locked into this

834
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: horrible deal with Mainstream five year contract, you know, really bad,

835
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:17,359
Speaker 1: like no, you know, teeny little percentage of royalties. They

836
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: hadn't seen any money from the singles. Mainstream will not

837
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: release them from the contracts. So they're getting despairing about that.

838
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 1: Um so Eventually what happens is they end up having

839
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: a falling out with their you know, hippie manager because

840
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: he again was very suspicious of business practices. Anyway, they

841
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: end up signing with Albert Gross want them. He wanted Janice.

842
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: You know, he loved Janice. He was blown away by

843
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 1: her voice and they really had a meeting of the

844
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: minds too. I mean he became like a father figure

845
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 1: to her, you know. So they signed with Albert how

846
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: long after the pop festival? Um see, the pop festival

847
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: was in June, so I think around November something like that.

848
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: They ended up firing Julius and aetting him, and then

849
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:05,439
Speaker 1: he started to the negotiation and negotiations with Clive Davis,

850
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: newly president of Columbia, who was able to come up

851
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:12,959
Speaker 1: with a huge amount of money to buy them out

852
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 1: of their contract. Was there any other label involved? It

853
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 1: wasn't always Columbia, but there were some others that were interested.

854
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:22,400
Speaker 1: But and even initially the first offer from Columbia wasn't huge.

855
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 1: But this was again, you know, nineteen sixty seven, and

856
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,440
Speaker 1: they think it was like two fifty thousand dollars to

857
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: buy out the contract, which in ninety seven dollars was

858
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:36,919
Speaker 1: a ton of money, and so they ended up at

859
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:40,000
Speaker 1: this point the mainstream record had come out, and you know,

860
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:42,919
Speaker 1: Big Brother refused to even promote the record. They told

861
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: everybody it was terrible, you know, as a cash in

862
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 1: kind of deal. And actually, I like, I enjoyed listening

863
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: to that. Legend is when the deal is signed, Janice

864
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 1: says that she and Clive should have sex to cement

865
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:59,280
Speaker 1: the deal. Is that apocryphal or true? That's Clive story.

866
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: I would not doubt it though. Um I think Albert

867
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: Grossman actually mentioned something about it as well. So Janice

868
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:12,400
Speaker 1: love to uh, you know, she loved to share experiences

869
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 1: with people, so she was not averse to ceiling deals

870
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:19,720
Speaker 1: with with flesh. Okay, let's go talk about cheap thrills.

871
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 1: UM Ultimately was a live album cut in the studio,

872
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: the version that we hear on the record, No, not really, Okay,

873
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 1: that's how much was the album worked on before we

874
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 1: got the version that came out a ton and again

875
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:43,360
Speaker 1: they this They were working with John Simon, who knew Grossman.

876
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:47,280
Speaker 1: Grossman Ultimately, Yeah, he had already done the band album

877
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:50,880
Speaker 1: which got them signed. UM. He had produced their demos.

878
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: He produced Leonard Cohen. You know, he was an amazing producer,

879
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 1: but he and big brother, the Holding company, were on

880
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: the opposite end of this. Back from as far as

881
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 1: the statics go. He it was terrible to them in

882
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 1: the studio. He undermined their confidence. He you know, I

883
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 1: know you love his book and everything, but he really

884
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: browbeated them. Is that a word browbeated anyway? Okay, okay,

885
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 1: So they you know, they were losing confidence in their

886
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:24,439
Speaker 1: own ability. They were a great live band, and they

887
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 1: really communicated with their audiences, you know, at the a

888
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 1: blond ballroom in film or et cetera. But in the

889
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: studio and it's sterile environment, it was not working and

890
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,879
Speaker 1: they were messing up. And now Janis, on the other hand,

891
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:39,320
Speaker 1: she killed in the studio. She was a pro. Things

892
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't get to her. She would just keep going and

893
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 1: going and going, and in fact, I find it kind

894
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: of funny. John criticized John Simon criticized her for being

895
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:51,399
Speaker 1: inauthentic because she could redo a vocal part perfectly note

896
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: to note exactly the way she had just done it

897
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:57,759
Speaker 1: before what we hear released LP. Was it one long

898
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:00,879
Speaker 1: session or did they start with many, many, many many,

899
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:03,880
Speaker 1: many many sessions in New York. No, no, no, Um,

900
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 1: they ended up moving out doing them out here in

901
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, um prime at the Columbias. These were back

902
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:13,359
Speaker 1: in the days where and you had to use the engineers,

903
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,319
Speaker 1: the union engineers and all that kind of stuff. So

904
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: they only I think, ended up cutting two songs in

905
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 1: the New York And some of those sessions you can

906
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: see because Pinna Baker wanted to make a documentary about Janis,

907
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 1: so he filmed um some of the sessions, so you

908
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 1: can see some of that footage and see what the

909
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: dynamic was like in the studio. Was very fraught, but

910
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 1: Janice loved being in the studio and just ate it up.

911
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: Took to it so that most of it was recorded

912
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 1: out in l A. And most of those tracks are

913
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: completely um splice. You know, this is the day of

914
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 1: cutting tape spliced together, many many different takes of vocal

915
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 1: part here, instrumental part there, blah blah blah. Whose decision

916
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 1: was to make it a full live album? Um well,

917
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 1: I think originally the the I don't think, I know.

918
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:02,239
Speaker 1: Originally they wanted to make a live album, so they

919
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 1: first tried to record at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit,

920
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:08,920
Speaker 1: which was kind of the Detroit version of the Avalon

921
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 1: and they were on sadly a double bill with the

922
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:16,800
Speaker 1: hometown heroes m C five, who were freaking killer live okay,

923
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:18,640
Speaker 1: and who were up to prove that they were better

924
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: than anybody, right, So just nominated for the rock and

925
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: roll Yeah for about the fifth time, I think, so

926
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 1: maybe this is the charm, fifth times the charm. But anyway, um,

927
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 1: so they were kind of not on their game big

928
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 1: brother in the holding company, and again Janice always pulled

929
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 1: it off, so she sounded great, but there were a

930
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,759
Speaker 1: lot of flubs with the band and they were under

931
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:42,399
Speaker 1: all this pressure. So they came back to New York.

932
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:44,799
Speaker 1: They sat down in Grossman's office. He played they had

933
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 1: a remote recording there, and they were like, listen, all

934
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,040
Speaker 1: these mistakes. This is terrible, and you, Sam Andrew, you

935
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 1: should play bass and somebody should play you know, just criticised.

936
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: I mean, really they're poor confidences. Oh yeah, And the

937
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 1: same thing with Columbia. So that next at what point

938
00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 1: was it decided the studio recordings would have elements added

939
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 1: so that it would appear live. I think because that

940
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: was really the aesthetic of big brother than the Honing Company.

941
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: Was that live band? You know? Okay, so the album

942
00:52:16,239 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 1: is an immediate splash. Did they anticipate that, Yeah, it's

943
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 1: shipped gold well, I think because there had been a

944
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 1: lot of hype about Janice and um about the band,

945
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: and they had come out to for the They didn't

946
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: play in on the East Coast until they came out

947
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:32,880
Speaker 1: in February sixty eight for their very first ever shows.

948
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: They played at colleges like Wesleyan University and ris Dy

949
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 1: in places like that, mostly a lot of colleges and

950
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:42,200
Speaker 1: started getting a following, and the press just went nuts.

951
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: You know. So what's the process of firing the band?

952
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 1: It was very painful, and again, Janice Choplin was nothing

953
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:58,880
Speaker 1: but fearless. She was driven, driven to be the musician,

954
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 1: to move, keep moving forward and evolving as a musician.

955
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:05,840
Speaker 1: She could not stay stuck in a rut and she

956
00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:08,640
Speaker 1: felt like the band wasn't moving Okay, But the way

957
00:53:08,719 --> 00:53:12,400
Speaker 1: the legend goes is those surrounding her never mind the press.

958
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker 1: I remember the press of the time said the band

959
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 1: was not as good as she was, and they were untogether.

960
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: Was it she wanted to fire the band or was it.

961
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: Everybody around her said, convinced her they gotta go. I

962
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: think it was a combination. Bob, I'm sure Grossman Um.

963
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:31,800
Speaker 1: You know he was always um criticizing the band. And

964
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: you know, Clive Davis told me that he tried to

965
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,759
Speaker 1: stay out of that. And in fact, early on he

966
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 1: Clive wanted it to be Janis Choplin with Big Brother

967
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:43,320
Speaker 1: the Holding Company on cheap thrill. She said, absolutely not.

968
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: This is a band, same thing, Bill Graham. They were

969
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 1: the first band. They played the first night of the

970
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:50,880
Speaker 1: film or East in New York. He wanted the Marquis

971
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,920
Speaker 1: Janis Choplin. Absolutely not. I mean, she wanted it to

972
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:59,840
Speaker 1: stay this communal. Okay, so they fire, she fires the band,

973
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 1: but she didn't fire them. She just said she was

974
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 1: leaving the band. She was gonna go. And and I

975
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: mean she loved those guys. I mean, Bob, after all

976
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,080
Speaker 1: the horrible things that happened to her, you know that

977
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: hurt her own confidence and helped her, you know, made

978
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:18,279
Speaker 1: her be insecure. They gave her so much confidence. They

979
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:21,359
Speaker 1: were her first real family, this tribe. I mean, they

980
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:24,640
Speaker 1: lived together and lag Anita's say, you know, they squabbled

981
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 1: like siblings. But there was love among them, and she

982
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:30,279
Speaker 1: loved them, but she knew that they were doing their

983
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:32,719
Speaker 1: thing and she wanted to do other things. She wanted

984
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 1: a horn. She was inurve with Otis Redding. She wave.

985
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:41,840
Speaker 1: Did she talk to them again? Oh? Yeah, they toured

986
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:44,760
Speaker 1: she this was at the beginning. This was she told

987
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,360
Speaker 1: them right before they did a show with the Staple

988
00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: Singers at Fillmore East that she was going to do

989
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: this huge tour. I mean, they had a very book

990
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 1: tour to promote the album. She was going to do

991
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:58,120
Speaker 1: the tour and then um, in December she would be leaving.

992
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: This all came down. They played the Newport Folk Festival,

993
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 1: which people loved. Grossman again. Uh, the rhythm seption was

994
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:08,680
Speaker 1: really off, you know, and I told them that right

995
00:55:08,719 --> 00:55:11,360
Speaker 1: in front of you know, Rick Danko and Levin Helmer's.

996
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:13,880
Speaker 1: You know, they were just mortified. So it was right

997
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 1: after that when she quit. But she said I'm gonna

998
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:19,400
Speaker 1: do the rest. She left in December of six. So

999
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: now we ultimately get the album. I got them Old

1000
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 1: Cosmic Blues again, Mama Okay, which had the great single

1001
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: Try had incredible players, but externally looked like it really

1002
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:36,719
Speaker 1: wasn't a success, you know. But you know what, Bob,

1003
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up, you know, reading all the

1004
00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:42,239
Speaker 1: rock critics, so I never even gave that record the

1005
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 1: time of day. I went back to it, you know,

1006
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 1: I don't know, twenty years ago whatever, and it's a

1007
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 1: freaking great record. But my different question is inside the

1008
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:56,920
Speaker 1: camp Janice Clive Albert, did they think it was success

1009
00:55:57,040 --> 00:55:59,400
Speaker 1: or did they want something better? What happened was there

1010
00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 1: was a huge backlash against Janice because she dared to

1011
00:56:03,719 --> 00:56:06,640
Speaker 1: leave the boy band behind and do her own thing.

1012
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:09,839
Speaker 1: She was accused of selling out. Going show biz Paul

1013
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 1: Nelson famously wrote this scathing article this portrait rolling Stone,

1014
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,200
Speaker 1: painting her as this neurotic mess, and its title was

1015
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:21,800
Speaker 1: Janice Choplin the next Judy Garland. No, I'm sorry, Rocks,

1016
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 1: Judy got the Judy Garland of rock. That was the

1017
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 1: exact thing that Judy Garland. Judy, of course died a

1018
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:31,280
Speaker 1: few months, so she was really castigated by former champions.

1019
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:33,919
Speaker 1: Even the great Ralph Gleason, who had loved her, said

1020
00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 1: she should drop this band and go go crawling back

1021
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: to Big Brother if they'll have her, you know, stuff

1022
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:41,799
Speaker 1: like that. So then how is it decided that she's

1023
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 1: going to work with Paul Rothstow. Well, what happened was

1024
00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 1: she had been working NonStop. She immediately segued from being

1025
00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:51,320
Speaker 1: one of the guys and big brother to being the

1026
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 1: band leader of what was later called Cosmic Blues on

1027
00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 1: the road NonStop, and really within sixty nine, that Cosmic

1028
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,719
Speaker 1: Blues experience really took her to the top as far

1029
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 1: as that's when she did ed Sullivan. That's when she

1030
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:06,520
Speaker 1: toured Europe for the first and only time. She sold

1031
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:09,480
Speaker 1: out Royal Albert Hall, got the audience out of their seat.

1032
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:11,520
Speaker 1: She did Woodstock. I mean, she did all these big,

1033
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 1: big festivals, working non stop, so she was worn out. Okay,

1034
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: so she finally, um, you know, at the end of

1035
00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:22,600
Speaker 1: sixty nine, they did their last show, a big show

1036
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:26,000
Speaker 1: at Madison Square Garden and she you know, let the

1037
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:29,120
Speaker 1: band go except for two players, the guitarists and the

1038
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:31,840
Speaker 1: bass player. And then she took a break and went

1039
00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:36,560
Speaker 1: to Brazil and got off heroin um and started writing

1040
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:40,280
Speaker 1: new songs, started kind of just getting re energized. She

1041
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: bought a house in Larkspur and Marin County and started,

1042
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:47,520
Speaker 1: you know, meeting with some new players to put together

1043
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:50,200
Speaker 1: a new band. This was much more of an organic

1044
00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 1: kind of band. Some of the guys that played with

1045
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: the Hawks, Albert knew some of them, a lot of

1046
00:57:55,320 --> 00:57:58,800
Speaker 1: more Canadians, um. So they started kind of rehearsing together

1047
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:02,720
Speaker 1: in her garage and they formed a really great kind

1048
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:06,080
Speaker 1: of harmonious relationship where she was the band leader, but

1049
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: she was also still like had his camaraderie and that

1050
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:11,640
Speaker 1: hadn't really happened with the Cosmic Blues. Okay, So how

1051
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 1: did she end up working with Paul? She had kind

1052
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 1: of burned her bridges with some people who thought she

1053
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:21,000
Speaker 1: was a junkie, and Paul was one of those people. Uh,

1054
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:24,000
Speaker 1: she was able to contact him. She had been hanging

1055
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 1: out with him, you know in the l A days

1056
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: because he was working with the Doors, et cetera. Bobby Newworth,

1057
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: Paul John Cook, her road manager, was a dear friend

1058
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 1: of of Paul's. So he decided to give her a chance.

1059
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 1: He was, you know, the son of an opera singer.

1060
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 1: He knew great singers and him yes for her last record.

1061
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: So they cut the record and he wasn't sure, but

1062
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:48,120
Speaker 1: when he saw her performing again, he's like, this girl

1063
00:58:48,160 --> 00:58:51,920
Speaker 1: has got good. She touched the record, and the story

1064
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:54,920
Speaker 1: is that these are all guide vocals rough vocals. Is

1065
00:58:55,040 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 1: that true on Pearl for the most part, yes, but

1066
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:02,680
Speaker 1: she was jams chop Jann's job on rough. You know,

1067
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 1: rough takes are like people fired. She ended up cutting

1068
00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:17,120
Speaker 1: Mercedes Benz. There's different stories. I like the one that

1069
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 1: Bobby Womack tells, so I'm gonna go with that one,

1070
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 1: and that she had already done that song, um when

1071
00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:26,080
Speaker 1: they had She had pulled that out and done it

1072
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 1: live in poor Chester at the Capitol Theater. She had

1073
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 1: written it in a bar before going on stage that

1074
00:59:32,720 --> 00:59:35,640
Speaker 1: night with ripped torn Generaldy and Page and Bob Newmark looking,

1075
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:39,000
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's definitely true, and Bob was writing down

1076
00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 1: you know, they were just kind of riffing in this bar. Right,

1077
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:43,600
Speaker 1: it's great. So she goes out and does it. The

1078
00:59:43,640 --> 00:59:46,040
Speaker 1: band jumps in and tries to play along. So anyway,

1079
00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 1: it was just kind of a fun thing to do,

1080
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:51,959
Speaker 1: inspired by Michael McClure thing, etcetera. So she was working

1081
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:55,720
Speaker 1: in the studio, Bobby new Worth came in, I mean, sorry, Bob.

1082
00:59:55,960 --> 00:59:58,920
Speaker 1: Bobby Womack came in to pitch his songs for the record,

1083
00:59:59,160 --> 01:00:02,680
Speaker 1: and so he ended up playing guitar on his track,

1084
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:05,880
Speaker 1: and then they started drinking partying. He's going to give

1085
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,520
Speaker 1: her a ride in his Mercedes. So they're in his Mercedes.

1086
01:00:08,560 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 1: She starts, according to Bobby well Matt, she starts seeing

1087
01:00:11,160 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 1: Mercedes Benz and she's like, oh man, you know, turn around,

1088
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:15,480
Speaker 1: take me back, take me back. I want to go

1089
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 1: back to the studio. I want to go back to

1090
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 1: the studio. He goes back and only Paul Rothschild's there

1091
01:00:19,080 --> 01:00:22,400
Speaker 1: the sunset sound and um He's like, man, and what

1092
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:24,040
Speaker 1: She's like, I want to put this down, Let's do this.

1093
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:26,280
Speaker 1: So she just kind of does it as a lark.

1094
01:00:27,080 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: Apparently when she died, you know, before the album was

1095
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:32,960
Speaker 1: completed and they were putting together all the sessions and

1096
01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: different tracks and everything, he remembered that song that she

1097
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:38,840
Speaker 1: had just done for fun and she had at some

1098
01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:41,960
Speaker 1: point called um out and spoken to Michael McClure to

1099
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:44,760
Speaker 1: get his permission to do it. And so anyway, he

1100
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: pulled that and put it on the end of the

1101
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:48,440
Speaker 1: album and you can just hear her do her a

1102
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 1: little cackle at the end of It's I mean, when

1103
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 1: I think about those guys gathered in the studio to

1104
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: hear that, You know, to hear that album must have

1105
01:00:56,760 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 1: been How does end up cutting me and Bobby? Oh well,

1106
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:06,120
Speaker 1: Bobby new Worth, I'm telling you the Zelig of cool. Famously,

1107
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:09,400
Speaker 1: we know him from being Dylan's buddy and etcetera. He

1108
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 1: was kind of her aide de camp on the road

1109
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:14,920
Speaker 1: with her. He worked for Grossman, etcetera. He actually heard

1110
01:01:15,040 --> 01:01:18,720
Speaker 1: that song being played in Grossman's office in New York,

1111
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:22,160
Speaker 1: and of course no one had heard of Chris Christofferson

1112
01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:24,920
Speaker 1: and it was being played by Gordon Lightfoot, who had

1113
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:27,720
Speaker 1: heard the song heard a demo, and so he's like, man,

1114
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:30,280
Speaker 1: that's a great song. Teach me that song. So Bobby

1115
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:34,200
Speaker 1: North learns the song in Albert's office from Gordon Lightfoot,

1116
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:37,200
Speaker 1: goes over sees Janis at the Chelsea Hotel. Man, you

1117
01:01:37,240 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 1: gotta hear the song, plays her the song. She goes

1118
01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:42,480
Speaker 1: nuts over it. He teaches her the song, and so

1119
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:45,000
Speaker 1: she's this is in sixty nine, so she's still got

1120
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:47,720
Speaker 1: the Cosmic Blues band. She pulls it out and plays

1121
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:51,160
Speaker 1: it for the first time live in Nashville show in December.

1122
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:54,000
Speaker 1: I think it was a sixty nine, you know, and said, oh,

1123
01:01:54,080 --> 01:01:56,160
Speaker 1: this is from a guy, hometown guy. You guys are

1124
01:01:56,160 --> 01:01:59,080
Speaker 1: gonna hear about him, Chris Christofferson. I haven't met him yet,

1125
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 1: but this is a great song kind of thing. So

1126
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:05,680
Speaker 1: then fast forward to nineteen seventy, Bobby Newworth finally meets

1127
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:07,800
Speaker 1: Chris Christofferson when he has some gigs in the village.

1128
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:11,200
Speaker 1: They gone this crazy, as he called it, great tequili book,

1129
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:15,120
Speaker 1: great tequila boogie, this wild tear, fly out to California

1130
01:02:15,160 --> 01:02:17,360
Speaker 1: to the ghost. Let's go see Janice, you know. So

1131
01:02:17,520 --> 01:02:20,480
Speaker 1: that's when she meets Chris Christofferson. They are just like

1132
01:02:20,720 --> 01:02:24,880
Speaker 1: m two Texans brought together by song and attraction and

1133
01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:27,640
Speaker 1: all that stuff. He teaches her Sunday Morning coming down,

1134
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:30,600
Speaker 1: which she there's a bootleg of her doing that in Austin.

1135
01:02:31,520 --> 01:02:34,240
Speaker 1: She loved his music, loved his writing, and I just

1136
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:36,480
Speaker 1: wish she had lived to do I can't you imagine

1137
01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:38,280
Speaker 1: her doing help me make it through the night the

1138
01:02:38,360 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 1: Sammi Smith hit. You know, Okay, so we've covered I mean,

1139
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:43,920
Speaker 1: there's so much people can read the book for more details.

1140
01:02:43,960 --> 01:02:46,680
Speaker 1: But getting to the author behind the book. You've written

1141
01:02:46,760 --> 01:02:50,840
Speaker 1: like sixteen books. What's your favorite book of the of

1142
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:57,400
Speaker 1: course the one I just did. Um. Well, you know,

1143
01:02:57,560 --> 01:03:01,200
Speaker 1: I love both my gene Autry and my children biographies

1144
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:05,680
Speaker 1: because to me, right, I grew up loving to read biographies.

1145
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 1: They're still my favorite kind of book to read and

1146
01:03:08,880 --> 01:03:11,680
Speaker 1: to be able to pull off those books. It's really

1147
01:03:11,880 --> 01:03:15,160
Speaker 1: really hard to write biographies, but then putting so much

1148
01:03:15,200 --> 01:03:16,959
Speaker 1: of my heart and soul into it, I really feel

1149
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:21,240
Speaker 1: like my subject becomes part of my life. So I still,

1150
01:03:21,720 --> 01:03:23,680
Speaker 1: you know, with the ken Burns doc series, all the

1151
01:03:23,720 --> 01:03:26,000
Speaker 1: gene Autrey stuff, I was like, yes, yes, you know,

1152
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:29,120
Speaker 1: I love it when they're getting their recognition. So both

1153
01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:32,400
Speaker 1: I would say, both my gene Autry and my Alex Children.

1154
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:36,120
Speaker 1: Why did Alex Children sound so different vocally in the

1155
01:03:36,240 --> 01:03:39,440
Speaker 1: Box Tops in Big Star? Well, because he was, you know,

1156
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:42,480
Speaker 1: sixteen years old, you know when he was in the

1157
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:45,800
Speaker 1: Box Tops and he was coached by Dan Penn to

1158
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:48,480
Speaker 1: do the letter in that way. He'd stayed out all

1159
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:51,360
Speaker 1: night having a little frolicking fun with his girlfriend in

1160
01:03:51,440 --> 01:03:56,080
Speaker 1: a graveyard, drinking, smoking cigarettes. So he's had that rasp naturally,

1161
01:03:56,760 --> 01:03:59,040
Speaker 1: and if you even see him on some live things

1162
01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:01,360
Speaker 1: from that period, he you know, he liked to drink

1163
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:03,880
Speaker 1: and smoke in those days, so he had that kind

1164
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 1: of teenage rasp. But you know, people didn't know what

1165
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:08,520
Speaker 1: he looked like. They thought he was like a forty

1166
01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:10,960
Speaker 1: year old black man, you know, and that's why they

1167
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:13,800
Speaker 1: got to be on a tour with He had National

1168
01:04:13,960 --> 01:04:17,320
Speaker 1: healthcare with alex children still be alive today, No, I

1169
01:04:18,040 --> 01:04:20,960
Speaker 1: you know, sadly, that didn't really have anything to do

1170
01:04:21,120 --> 01:04:24,840
Speaker 1: with it. Um. He was very actually pretty health conscious,

1171
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:27,320
Speaker 1: but like most of us, he was afraid of getting

1172
01:04:27,360 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 1: a bad diagnosis. His family had a history of heart problems.

1173
01:04:32,200 --> 01:04:34,440
Speaker 1: His father had a heart attack at a young age,

1174
01:04:34,560 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 1: his sister did, his brother. He had a fear, but

1175
01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:41,800
Speaker 1: he also could have afforded it. I think he could

1176
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:45,280
Speaker 1: have because he was in New Orleans and you know, yes,

1177
01:04:45,480 --> 01:04:47,120
Speaker 1: I mean at the end of his life he was

1178
01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:50,320
Speaker 1: a money Oh yeah, yeah, because of that seventies show Baby.

1179
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:52,800
Speaker 1: You know, he made a lot of money from that show,

1180
01:04:53,240 --> 01:04:55,400
Speaker 1: using one of his big star songs as the theme

1181
01:04:55,480 --> 01:04:58,600
Speaker 1: song for that show and thanks to you know, for

1182
01:04:58,760 --> 01:05:01,760
Speaker 1: three placements and then counting Crows. I mean, he was

1183
01:05:01,840 --> 01:05:04,320
Speaker 1: getting a lot of props from these young artists, so

1184
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:08,080
Speaker 1: he was doing quite well. He actually bought this really gorgeous,

1185
01:05:08,120 --> 01:05:11,600
Speaker 1: expensive piano. He had a little house in New Orleans

1186
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:15,640
Speaker 1: and Tremay, and he he liked to live on the

1187
01:05:15,720 --> 01:05:18,280
Speaker 1: down low, but he liked, you know, a nice piano.

1188
01:05:18,520 --> 01:05:22,160
Speaker 1: But he could have afforded healthcare, but he did not

1189
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: want to find out that he had a heart problem

1190
01:05:24,960 --> 01:05:27,520
Speaker 1: and that killed him. Okay, so what's your next book?

1191
01:05:28,920 --> 01:05:33,640
Speaker 1: How to sleep? That's obviously a joke. Do you have

1192
01:05:33,720 --> 01:05:35,920
Speaker 1: any idea what your next book? We do? But you know,

1193
01:05:35,920 --> 01:05:41,000
Speaker 1: I don't want to jink. Let's say you know someone, Okay,

1194
01:05:41,160 --> 01:05:45,120
Speaker 1: a couple of questions here, lightning round. Albert Grossman crook

1195
01:05:45,640 --> 01:05:51,560
Speaker 1: or honest. He was a sharp businessman and an incredible esteete.

1196
01:05:52,720 --> 01:05:55,600
Speaker 1: So did he do right by Janice? Yes, he did

1197
01:05:55,720 --> 01:06:00,360
Speaker 1: right by Janice. Okay, you've met a lot of your heros.

1198
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:05,440
Speaker 1: I presume who lived up to the rep Oh gosh, well,

1199
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:07,320
Speaker 1: I did get to meet Geane Autrey when he was

1200
01:06:07,360 --> 01:06:09,240
Speaker 1: eighty nine years old, and that's kind of what led

1201
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:12,320
Speaker 1: me to doing that book. So that was an amazing experience.

1202
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:15,480
Speaker 1: Of course, I didn't know Alex long before. I was

1203
01:06:15,520 --> 01:06:18,280
Speaker 1: in a little combo that he actually produced, called clam Bake.

1204
01:06:18,400 --> 01:06:20,640
Speaker 1: So that's how I got to know him. UM, as

1205
01:06:20,680 --> 01:06:23,560
Speaker 1: far as most of my heroes, you know, you you

1206
01:06:23,760 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 1: learned not to um expect too much. Johnny Cash incredible,

1207
01:06:29,280 --> 01:06:33,280
Speaker 1: UM and June Carter Cash getting to interview him and

1208
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:35,840
Speaker 1: hitting it off by talking about the Carter family and

1209
01:06:35,920 --> 01:06:38,360
Speaker 1: cowboys stuff. He was a big Gene Autry fan. He

1210
01:06:38,480 --> 01:06:40,640
Speaker 1: ended up inviting me over to their house and I

1211
01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:44,800
Speaker 1: you know, so that was totally lived up to my heroes. UM.

1212
01:06:44,880 --> 01:06:46,960
Speaker 1: Patti Smith, you know, she was one of the reasons

1213
01:06:47,040 --> 01:06:48,920
Speaker 1: I moved to New York as I She played at

1214
01:06:48,960 --> 01:06:50,760
Speaker 1: U n C. Chapel Hill when I was in college,

1215
01:06:50,800 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 1: and I've never seen a woman like she was, like my,

1216
01:06:53,560 --> 01:06:56,600
Speaker 1: you know, Janie. I guess as far as seeing a transformative,

1217
01:06:57,400 --> 01:07:00,240
Speaker 1: you know, woman on stage and like, wow, what is that?

1218
01:07:00,520 --> 01:07:03,440
Speaker 1: You know? So I would say she you know, I

1219
01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:05,280
Speaker 1: got to hang out with her and interview her. So

1220
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:08,280
Speaker 1: and then of course I love just kids, so so

1221
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:11,480
Speaker 1: I'd say, okay. So, then you've written books about the

1222
01:07:11,560 --> 01:07:15,640
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, what female performers are

1223
01:07:15,720 --> 01:07:18,640
Speaker 1: not in who should be in? Oh? Well, I'd love

1224
01:07:18,680 --> 01:07:20,760
Speaker 1: to see the Shango Laws in there. Of course, one

1225
01:07:20,800 --> 01:07:23,320
Speaker 1: of their songs and the Choka Khan definitely. I mean,

1226
01:07:23,960 --> 01:07:26,120
Speaker 1: year after year she's on the ballot. She's on the

1227
01:07:26,120 --> 01:07:28,800
Speaker 1: ballot this year with Rufus so, you know, and that

1228
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:30,360
Speaker 1: was kind of like Patti Smith. First it was the

1229
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:32,560
Speaker 1: Patti Smith group, then it was just Patti Smith and

1230
01:07:32,680 --> 01:07:35,919
Speaker 1: she got in. So one year it's Choka kN Once

1231
01:07:36,040 --> 01:07:39,000
Speaker 1: with Rufus. So I'm hoping she really really deserves to

1232
01:07:39,080 --> 01:07:42,320
Speaker 1: be in. She's amazing. There's some more pioneers that should

1233
01:07:42,320 --> 01:07:45,160
Speaker 1: be in. Big Mama Thornton should be in. It was

1234
01:07:45,240 --> 01:07:48,760
Speaker 1: so cool to get Nina Simone and Wanted Wanted Jackson,

1235
01:07:49,400 --> 01:07:53,320
Speaker 1: some other maybe more outlier in the public consciousness women.

1236
01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:54,840
Speaker 1: It would be great to get in some of the

1237
01:07:54,880 --> 01:07:56,760
Speaker 1: other point. I think Patsy Klein should be in there.

1238
01:07:56,800 --> 01:08:00,080
Speaker 1: What about pat Benatar has nominated. I think that's great, know,

1239
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:03,160
Speaker 1: I mean, she's an amazing role model and that she

1240
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:07,360
Speaker 1: had all those hits toured with her husband, the guitarists,

1241
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:09,960
Speaker 1: and they're still together after all these years. She should

1242
01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:12,720
Speaker 1: be in for that reason alone, I think. Okay, so

1243
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:16,560
Speaker 1: what do you think about today's music? I love you know,

1244
01:08:16,760 --> 01:08:21,920
Speaker 1: I am a music Spotify Top fifty which is mostly

1245
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:25,720
Speaker 1: hip hop and pop. Well, you know, there's some hip

1246
01:08:25,760 --> 01:08:28,360
Speaker 1: hop I like. Of course, you know, I gotten into

1247
01:08:28,400 --> 01:08:31,439
Speaker 1: post Malone. I've gotten too little Nazacs and and I

1248
01:08:31,520 --> 01:08:33,479
Speaker 1: have to be honest. I mainly got into them because

1249
01:08:33,479 --> 01:08:35,760
Speaker 1: they're cool. Nuty suits and the Western thing, you know,

1250
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:37,720
Speaker 1: because I'm really into nuty suits. I wrote a book

1251
01:08:37,720 --> 01:08:39,600
Speaker 1: called How the West Was Worn. I love Nudy and

1252
01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:43,200
Speaker 1: the whole Ryanstone Cowboy look. Um. But you know, I'm

1253
01:08:43,240 --> 01:08:45,240
Speaker 1: still kind of a roots rock kind of gal. I

1254
01:08:45,320 --> 01:08:48,679
Speaker 1: love the Avid Brothers. I love all those Americana bands.

1255
01:08:48,920 --> 01:08:51,360
Speaker 1: I love you know. Um, oh my god, what's the

1256
01:08:51,439 --> 01:08:55,240
Speaker 1: new guy? Oh? Oh yeah, I love Sturgill Simpson and

1257
01:08:55,280 --> 01:08:58,680
Speaker 1: I love the other guy, Jason Isabel and his um

1258
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:02,120
Speaker 1: partner is amazing. I love her record, which is really

1259
01:09:02,200 --> 01:09:06,160
Speaker 1: outside the box. Um. I love Orville Peck. Have you

1260
01:09:06,240 --> 01:09:08,519
Speaker 1: seen him yet? Oh my god, you gotta check him out.

1261
01:09:08,520 --> 01:09:11,960
Speaker 1: He's got a kind of Roy Orbison, amazing voice. He

1262
01:09:12,080 --> 01:09:14,519
Speaker 1: wears the weird fringed mask. I saw him at the

1263
01:09:14,520 --> 01:09:19,120
Speaker 1: Americana Conference a few weeks ago. He was awesome. Anybody

1264
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:22,320
Speaker 1: you haven't seen who you want to see? Oh gosh, yeah,

1265
01:09:22,400 --> 01:09:25,960
Speaker 1: there's still alive. Oh that's still alive. Um, let's see

1266
01:09:27,160 --> 01:09:28,680
Speaker 1: most of the ones that I wanted to see have

1267
01:09:29,320 --> 01:09:35,040
Speaker 1: sadly passed on. Um, that's a good question of concerts

1268
01:09:35,080 --> 01:09:39,600
Speaker 1: you've been to top three? Oh my gosh, Bob, I

1269
01:09:39,760 --> 01:09:42,360
Speaker 1: hate picking top things. It doesn't just give me the

1270
01:09:42,400 --> 01:09:44,559
Speaker 1: ones to come tomorrow. Okay, Well again, I would say

1271
01:09:44,640 --> 01:09:50,200
Speaker 1: seeing Patti Smith and Chapel Hill in nineteens seventy seven,

1272
01:09:50,240 --> 01:09:53,320
Speaker 1: I think it was changed my life. Seeing the Clash

1273
01:09:54,000 --> 01:09:56,639
Speaker 1: in New York City at the Palladium when I first

1274
01:09:56,720 --> 01:09:58,960
Speaker 1: moved there in nineteen. I think that was seventy nine

1275
01:09:59,080 --> 01:10:02,040
Speaker 1: or eighty change my life. Seeing the Jackson five that

1276
01:10:02,160 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 1: was my first ever concert at the Greensboro Coliseum and

1277
01:10:05,240 --> 01:10:08,080
Speaker 1: Michael and I were close in age. That was an

1278
01:10:08,120 --> 01:10:10,960
Speaker 1: amazing show to see the Jackson five. And somehow I

1279
01:10:11,040 --> 01:10:12,920
Speaker 1: ended up like sixth row or something I was in

1280
01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:15,080
Speaker 1: like junior high school. I don't know how that happened.

1281
01:10:15,240 --> 01:10:20,360
Speaker 1: So is there a woman rock writer sorority? You are

1282
01:10:20,400 --> 01:10:24,400
Speaker 1: you a loaner or a loan gun person, or you're

1283
01:10:24,439 --> 01:10:26,680
Speaker 1: part of a group. I'm a people person. That's why

1284
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:29,680
Speaker 1: I hate writing. I like I love the research. I

1285
01:10:29,800 --> 01:10:32,280
Speaker 1: love being out interviewing. I love hob nobbing with other

1286
01:10:32,400 --> 01:10:36,559
Speaker 1: writers with artists. I love meeting people and talking to people.

1287
01:10:36,640 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 1: You've got the perfect job, you know. But you're a

1288
01:10:39,200 --> 01:10:42,880
Speaker 1: great writer. Okay, thank you. So a couple of people

1289
01:10:43,040 --> 01:10:45,640
Speaker 1: unsung that people should be aware of, a couple of

1290
01:10:45,720 --> 01:10:47,680
Speaker 1: artists that are on song. Oh gosh, all right, let

1291
01:10:47,720 --> 01:10:50,439
Speaker 1: me thank oh boy. That's let's see who who who?

1292
01:10:50,520 --> 01:10:52,719
Speaker 1: Who's not a test. It doesn't have to be the coolest,

1293
01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:57,280
Speaker 1: you know. Holly Williams um Hank William's granddaughter, Hank Junior's daughter,

1294
01:10:57,840 --> 01:11:00,080
Speaker 1: who was featured also in the Kinburns thing as one

1295
01:11:00,120 --> 01:11:02,560
Speaker 1: of the talking heads. She's an amazing artist. Um I

1296
01:11:02,640 --> 01:11:04,800
Speaker 1: look forward to hearing her next record. She's not really

1297
01:11:04,880 --> 01:11:09,080
Speaker 1: that very well known. Um Oh. There's a great band

1298
01:11:09,240 --> 01:11:12,240
Speaker 1: from the Woodstock area where I live called the Mammals,

1299
01:11:12,720 --> 01:11:16,120
Speaker 1: which is um Ruthie Unger and Mike Marinda's band. They

1300
01:11:16,160 --> 01:11:19,479
Speaker 1: are amazing. She's an incredible singer and they go out.

1301
01:11:19,640 --> 01:11:22,360
Speaker 1: They do a lot of the kind of Americana circuit

1302
01:11:22,439 --> 01:11:25,880
Speaker 1: festivals and things. Okay, so you live in Woodstock, Yeah,

1303
01:11:25,920 --> 01:11:28,240
Speaker 1: well I live in Phoenicia, which is nearly right outside

1304
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:30,040
Speaker 1: of and so how how long you've been living there?

1305
01:11:30,439 --> 01:11:33,120
Speaker 1: I moved up there in the end of two thousand one,

1306
01:11:33,280 --> 01:11:35,120
Speaker 1: I had a little cabin in the woods up there.

1307
01:11:35,160 --> 01:11:37,240
Speaker 1: I lived on St. Mark's Place in the East Village

1308
01:11:37,280 --> 01:11:39,840
Speaker 1: for twenty three years. So I started needing some treats.

1309
01:11:39,840 --> 01:11:43,120
Speaker 1: We were talking, uh, you know before the podcast began

1310
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:46,320
Speaker 1: that you have a son at Wesleyan. Yes, senior in

1311
01:11:46,320 --> 01:11:49,679
Speaker 1: the film program. Senior in the film program. So where

1312
01:11:49,800 --> 01:11:53,200
Speaker 1: is his father? His father is probably his He's actually

1313
01:11:53,280 --> 01:11:55,960
Speaker 1: as we speak, in the recording studio in Rosendale, New

1314
01:11:56,040 --> 01:11:58,960
Speaker 1: York right now, working on a new recording. So is

1315
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:01,839
Speaker 1: he someone we know? His name is Robert Burke Warren

1316
01:12:02,120 --> 01:12:03,760
Speaker 1: and he I met him when he was in the

1317
01:12:03,840 --> 01:12:05,840
Speaker 1: Flesh Towns and I was in an all girl punk

1318
01:12:05,920 --> 01:12:07,920
Speaker 1: rock poka band at the time called the Dust for

1319
01:12:07,960 --> 01:12:10,120
Speaker 1: a Lines back in the eighties. So we were on

1320
01:12:10,200 --> 01:12:12,200
Speaker 1: some double bills and that's how we met. And we've

1321
01:12:12,200 --> 01:12:15,040
Speaker 1: been together ever since. And so you're still together. Yeah,

1322
01:12:15,160 --> 01:12:18,080
Speaker 1: we're so together. That's why Pat's and Neil or my idol.

1323
01:12:18,160 --> 01:12:22,280
Speaker 1: Has he been married thirty years? Okay? So your first marriage? Yes,

1324
01:12:22,439 --> 01:12:26,120
Speaker 1: my one and only one. And he lived in England

1325
01:12:26,120 --> 01:12:28,640
Speaker 1: for a year. He played Buddy Holly on The West End,

1326
01:12:28,760 --> 01:12:30,880
Speaker 1: that musical that ran over there for a long time.

1327
01:12:32,400 --> 01:12:34,519
Speaker 1: Um my husband. I met when we did a gig

1328
01:12:34,600 --> 01:12:38,920
Speaker 1: together out in East Hampton Labor Day weekend of nineteen

1329
01:12:39,560 --> 01:12:43,280
Speaker 1: eighty seven and with the Fleshtowns and dust for a lines.

1330
01:12:43,320 --> 01:12:46,160
Speaker 1: So that's how we met, was an instant romance. Well,

1331
01:12:46,240 --> 01:12:48,479
Speaker 1: you know, he's from Atlanta, I'm from North Carolina, so

1332
01:12:48,600 --> 01:12:50,519
Speaker 1: we had that in common in our first date was

1333
01:12:50,600 --> 01:12:53,880
Speaker 1: actually in New York City going to Sylvia's the Salt

1334
01:12:53,920 --> 01:12:56,840
Speaker 1: food restaurant and to the Cloisters. And is your son

1335
01:12:56,920 --> 01:12:59,559
Speaker 1: at Wesley and your only child? Well, I have another

1336
01:12:59,600 --> 01:13:02,760
Speaker 1: child art, which takes up a lot of our time

1337
01:13:02,800 --> 01:13:06,960
Speaker 1: and money, so I don't have any children. Jack is

1338
01:13:07,000 --> 01:13:08,800
Speaker 1: our only his name is Jack Laaren. He's going to

1339
01:13:08,840 --> 01:13:10,880
Speaker 1: be a great filmmaker someday. And he is our only

1340
01:13:11,000 --> 01:13:14,599
Speaker 1: human son. Yes, he's our only human child. I'm a stunt.

1341
01:13:14,640 --> 01:13:17,720
Speaker 1: You're still together. That's great, Yeah, it's you know, it's

1342
01:13:18,160 --> 01:13:21,360
Speaker 1: I'm very, very fortunate. He's he's a great writer himself.

1343
01:13:21,439 --> 01:13:24,880
Speaker 1: He wrote a rock and roll novel called Perfectly Broken

1344
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:26,760
Speaker 1: that came out a few years ago. And he's a

1345
01:13:26,800 --> 01:13:30,080
Speaker 1: songwriter and he's a great editor, so he reads all

1346
01:13:30,160 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 1: my work. And gives me great advice. And he's also

1347
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:37,640
Speaker 1: a musician, so whenever he helps me get all the

1348
01:13:37,760 --> 01:13:40,679
Speaker 1: music stuff right, and he's been in the recording studio

1349
01:13:40,680 --> 01:13:42,760
Speaker 1: and many, many, many times. Back to this book, What

1350
01:13:42,920 --> 01:13:44,639
Speaker 1: is the promotion? What are you doing to make people

1351
01:13:44,680 --> 01:13:48,000
Speaker 1: aware of it other than this podcast? Your show? This

1352
01:13:48,160 --> 01:13:52,080
Speaker 1: is it? Man? Well, actually, you know, these days, with

1353
01:13:52,200 --> 01:13:53,840
Speaker 1: what's going on in the world, as we know, you

1354
01:13:53,920 --> 01:13:56,160
Speaker 1: never know when you're going to get canceled. But I

1355
01:13:56,320 --> 01:13:59,280
Speaker 1: think I'm going to be on CBS Sunday Morning. Really, yeah,

1356
01:13:59,479 --> 01:14:02,479
Speaker 1: that'll be great. How did that come together? Um? They

1357
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:06,080
Speaker 1: just said, Holly, come on our show. Well, that's not

1358
01:14:06,240 --> 01:14:10,519
Speaker 1: the way it works. Someone had previous Jonathan carp my

1359
01:14:10,760 --> 01:14:14,160
Speaker 1: wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster, and Priscilla Paynton, my

1360
01:14:14,200 --> 01:14:17,599
Speaker 1: wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster. I guess they said, hey,

1361
01:14:17,800 --> 01:14:20,200
Speaker 1: you know, check out this book. And but I will

1362
01:14:20,240 --> 01:14:22,200
Speaker 1: tell you a really cool thing because I was actually

1363
01:14:22,240 --> 01:14:24,840
Speaker 1: on CBS Sunday Morning twelve years ago from my gene

1364
01:14:24,880 --> 01:14:29,360
Speaker 1: Autry book, and the guy who produced that segment was

1365
01:14:29,439 --> 01:14:31,840
Speaker 1: my producer on this new segment. And it turns out

1366
01:14:31,840 --> 01:14:33,920
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that that was his first ever big

1367
01:14:34,040 --> 01:14:36,679
Speaker 1: segment that he produced. So we just reunited in Brooklyn

1368
01:14:36,800 --> 01:14:39,600
Speaker 1: last Friday for this already shot it. Yeah, I did

1369
01:14:39,680 --> 01:14:42,160
Speaker 1: it last Friday. Okay, did you get a huge bump

1370
01:14:42,720 --> 01:14:46,519
Speaker 1: on CBS Sunday Morning with the GENA? Oh? Yes, I actually,

1371
01:14:46,600 --> 01:14:49,040
Speaker 1: and you know I was on Oxford University Press for

1372
01:14:49,240 --> 01:14:51,960
Speaker 1: not exactly a powerhouse and the promotion. I mean a great,

1373
01:14:52,040 --> 01:14:55,720
Speaker 1: great publisher, but you know, not the super you know,

1374
01:14:55,880 --> 01:14:58,200
Speaker 1: big books, you know, get get this story out there.

1375
01:14:58,400 --> 01:14:59,880
Speaker 1: But yeah, I actually I think I made it in

1376
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:02,240
Speaker 1: to the Amazon top ten for a cop for a

1377
01:15:02,280 --> 01:15:05,479
Speaker 1: couple of days. You know, it was either that A

1378
01:15:05,760 --> 01:15:07,519
Speaker 1: couple of questions before we come to the end of

1379
01:15:07,560 --> 01:15:10,040
Speaker 1: the feeling we can we talk for two we could,

1380
01:15:10,200 --> 01:15:14,360
Speaker 1: but you know, the the editor to what degree did

1381
01:15:14,439 --> 01:15:18,479
Speaker 1: they either steer you or change your writing? My editor

1382
01:15:18,840 --> 01:15:22,479
Speaker 1: was amazing. I've had some great editors before, but this

1383
01:15:22,720 --> 01:15:25,160
Speaker 1: woman gets down in the weeds. I mean she does

1384
01:15:25,240 --> 01:15:29,799
Speaker 1: the old school pencil writing comments on the manuscript pages,

1385
01:15:29,880 --> 01:15:32,160
Speaker 1: which actually I'm kind of old school like that too.

1386
01:15:32,800 --> 01:15:36,920
Speaker 1: So we did like deep, deep dives into the Yeah,

1387
01:15:37,000 --> 01:15:40,919
Speaker 1: and she I think really helped me elevate my prose totally.

1388
01:15:41,160 --> 01:15:44,640
Speaker 1: She i trusted her implicitly, and she was actually the

1389
01:15:44,720 --> 01:15:49,160
Speaker 1: perfect kind of reader, because usually my editors are music people,

1390
01:15:49,240 --> 01:15:52,080
Speaker 1: and that's the main thing. Of course, she knew Janice Choplin,

1391
01:15:52,160 --> 01:15:54,240
Speaker 1: but she didn't She wasn't a music geek like me,

1392
01:15:54,880 --> 01:15:57,640
Speaker 1: so she was able to have this perspective. I think

1393
01:15:57,720 --> 01:15:59,719
Speaker 1: that was really important for the book. So I didn't

1394
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:02,320
Speaker 1: go to the weeds too much or you know, usually

1395
01:16:02,360 --> 01:16:05,040
Speaker 1: I tend to write way too much. So she helped

1396
01:16:05,080 --> 01:16:07,360
Speaker 1: me figure out where to trim and part that only

1397
01:16:07,560 --> 01:16:11,400
Speaker 1: geeks like me would care about. You know. So, uh,

1398
01:16:11,640 --> 01:16:13,719
Speaker 1: the book is coming out. You're gonna be on CBS

1399
01:16:13,760 --> 01:16:17,799
Speaker 1: Sunday morning. It's a major publisher. There are certain events

1400
01:16:18,040 --> 01:16:20,840
Speaker 1: in the world not always planned to kick start another thing.

1401
01:16:21,000 --> 01:16:23,640
Speaker 1: Journey would not be touring the world the way it

1402
01:16:23,960 --> 01:16:27,960
Speaker 1: is today if it hadn't been for the last Sopranos episode.

1403
01:16:28,560 --> 01:16:31,639
Speaker 1: You having done this book, do you believe it will

1404
01:16:31,800 --> 01:16:36,840
Speaker 1: kickstart certain things in the Janice Joplin's legacy. I hope so,

1405
01:16:37,080 --> 01:16:43,439
Speaker 1: because she deserves to be recognized as the important artist

1406
01:16:43,560 --> 01:16:46,920
Speaker 1: that she was and as a college professor. When I

1407
01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:49,960
Speaker 1: do happen to turn my kids on play, you know,

1408
01:16:50,080 --> 01:16:52,160
Speaker 1: ball and Chain at Monterey Pop for them on YouTube

1409
01:16:52,240 --> 01:16:54,400
Speaker 1: or something. I mean, they are blown away by the

1410
01:16:54,520 --> 01:17:00,760
Speaker 1: power and the authenticity. Yeah, her talent is palpable, and

1411
01:17:00,880 --> 01:17:04,479
Speaker 1: I think people today need that real nous that Janice

1412
01:17:04,640 --> 01:17:07,800
Speaker 1: was about real nous and the way she was able

1413
01:17:07,880 --> 01:17:10,479
Speaker 1: to touch these deep emotions that people are afraid to

1414
01:17:10,640 --> 01:17:13,400
Speaker 1: let out. You know, she would let out her fear,

1415
01:17:13,520 --> 01:17:17,320
Speaker 1: she would let out her disappointments for everyone to see.

1416
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:20,200
Speaker 1: And I think with this world we're living in of

1417
01:17:20,439 --> 01:17:24,400
Speaker 1: lies and facades. I mean, Janice was a truth teller

1418
01:17:24,800 --> 01:17:28,719
Speaker 1: and I think we need people like her as role models. Listen,

1419
01:17:28,960 --> 01:17:32,040
Speaker 1: that's perfect. We need to end it there, because artists

1420
01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:35,120
Speaker 1: used to be beacons, and Janice Chopolin still is. You're

1421
01:17:35,120 --> 01:17:37,920
Speaker 1: bringing her back to like Holly, thanks so much for

1422
01:17:38,040 --> 01:17:39,960
Speaker 1: doing the podcast. I can't believe you have me on.

1423
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:43,000
Speaker 1: I'm so happy. Thank you. Okay, great, Until next time,

1424
01:17:43,040 --> 01:17:44,080
Speaker 1: It's Bob left side.