Janis Joplin - can't spell sugar-coated.....

November 15^th – My, how things have changed. In the mid/late fifties when rock ‘n’ roll arrived (and was, as the song says, here to stay) one of the many things that staggered the ruling classes, and that included men in government and right on down to the cinema manager, was the level of audience participation which accompanied either the films or the live shows put on: and I mean staggered them. What they’d been used to ‘til then was a compliant and reasonably well-behaved clientele. Ushers/ettes were employed by the various venues (Gaumont, Odeon) to keep order with their intrusive torches but the worst they’d have to put up with would be the odd person standing up too much or over-enthusiastic snogging. Not so when Rock Around the Clock was first shown at my local; it must have seemed as though the four horsemen had arrived...only this time they were taking no shit. I think it would be fair to say they destroyed the place; seats pulled up, various missiles launched to and from the balcony, fights, dancing…and, I feel sure, the odd miracle of conception to round things off. To say the folk in authority had absolutely no idea how to combat this melee would be a vast understatement.

Things sort of mellowed a little in the late 60’s and through 70’s as it became decidedly uncool to show hyper-emotion due to music. What music was supposed to do was chill you out, send you trance-like into another realm, one to which the grown-ups hadn’t got a key. So it was that, at most of the gigs we played round then, the audience would remain seated and just sort of twitched a bit every now and then…’course that might have had something to with the volume we usually played at pinning them into their chairs but…let that pass. Then punk happened and throwing yourself (and anybody else who came within range) at the band as well as vomit, gob and bottles of piss became the required reaction to a musical backlash that rebelled without a central cause.

Throughout all three of these musical movements the bands’ just played on, happy to see the crowd enjoying both themselves and the music (although I have to say I didn’t go much on the gob and vomit). There were, however, one or two incidents, particularly in the late 60’s, that bucked the trend. Been here before so won’t labour it, just remember this was a time when yoof had a level of input into world events, when the time and cash-rich youngsters began stretching their political and social muscles and calling their leaders, law-makers and local government to account. Vietnam, conservation, race, feminism, all were under the spotlight and were ripe for change…and the only constant was change.

Janis Joplin is one of my top ten female vocalists; by heck but she could belt out a tune. Much of her early work was with Big Brother and the Holding Company and this coupling led to her seminal album, Cheap Thrills which included the sublime track, Piece of My Heart. Now I guess you could argue (and I’d not be one to disagree very hard) that Pearl was her bestest work; certainly showcased her vocal abilities to within an inch of her life, particularly Buried Alive in the Blues, but, as this was released posthumously, it sort of missed the boat a little. Her rapport with the crowd and her concern for their welfare makes her stand out from rock bands of the day who, in general, were all about the money; the money the pussy and the smack: the audience were just a means to get them to this end.

Ms. Joplin’s struggles with drug addiction are well documented and although she had several goes at getting clean, still it was the heroin that did for her in the end…(in 1969 she was reputed to be shooting $200 worth of it…per day)…the heroin and the booze, as it does with so, so many. It would be wrong to say she was a hard living woman, she lived life on her own terms, unafraid of authority, self-inflicted danger or the shadier side of the street, she dedicated sufficient funds in her will to hold a wake and pay for the booze.

Comes as little surprise then that, on this day in 1969, during a concert in Tampa, Florida when a policeman used a loud-hailer to try and control the audience who had left their seats and were milling around in friendly groups while the band played, Ms. Joplin shouted through her mic;

 Don’t fuck with those people! Hey, mister, what’re you so uptight about? Did you buy a $5 ticket?

The cop shouted back at her;

Tell your crowd to sit down.

Joplin replied;

I’m not tellin’ ‘em shit, you son of a bitch! You keep that up and I’ll kick your face in!

She was eventually led from the stage and arrested for using, vulgar and indecent language.

Now, you may not like the blues but, by jiminy-cricket, you gotta stand back in awe at her commitment. This was a lady who took no musical prisoners, who was prepared to lay it all on the line and become open to the moment, who saw through the sequinned veil of fame and recognised it for the rag it was and would have no truck with it…such a pity she couldn’t treat her addictions like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5If816MhoU