The PA announcer, in the early years, would introduce them as "Four gentlemen and one great, great broad." Pretty much, that's what you were dealing with here, and it only took two albums for the great, great broad to understand she'd be a LOT better with a solo career. Since you already know who I'm going to discuss tonight, I'll just post an image of the greatest album cover EVER, a cartoon by the great underground artist R. Crumb. Emblematic of the late 1960s.
It's not much of a diary because it's really about one particular concert, but here's another one of my typically idiosyncratic and subjective treatments of a group that performed at Monterey Pop below the great orange tambourine.
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Yes, we had heard rumblings about this group on the East Coast as soon as the Monterey Pop festival ended. Yes, as the winter went on, they revealed that Big Brother and the Holding Company was going to make their East Coast debut at the Newport Folk Festival in the summer of 1968. Yes, a group of friends and I bought tickets as soon as they were available. Yes, we all piled into a car and made the 75 minute drive from the western suburbs of Boston to Newport, RI, on July 27, 1968. We weren't sure what we'd see, but we knew we wanted to see and hear this celebrated group.
They would begin every concert with this song. It was as if they didn't want to unleash full Janis until you were prepped for her:
Only not at Newport. We had been an ill-behaved impatient petulant audience. When we thought Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys had been on stage too long, we booed them off stage, only Joan Baez was singing with them when we did that. So FINALLY they came on stage, and they lit into this. You're hearing what I heard.
Mayhem. You have to understand that the way radio was in Boston at that time we really hadn't heard her sing that, and we really hadn't seen anyone who we KNEW was going to leave it all on stage. All we had heard was this, which they sang during the set too, but it was ALL about "Piece of My Heart."
Not exactly the power of "Piece." Quirky, and obviously something there, but pretty much like the first time you younger folk heard Cyndi Lauper or Madonna. But at Newport, it sounded like this.
So yes. Those three songs, plus a cover of "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess and a long blues song ("Ball and Chain"), but really, the set was the set. This wasn't Bob Dylan and the Highway 61 Revisited half of his acoustic/electric concerts of 1965/1966. This was different. They ended with this.
Very, very very different. Wrung out, in fact. We got lost finding the main road, and I don't think it had to do with drugs, either. Beaten into oblivion. The following winter I convinced a couple of friends to drive up to Syracuse from Cornell to hear Big Brother and the Holding Company, and everyone was blown away again.
As happened in the world of American rock, Janis decided she would be better off as a solo act with a different band. So, Janis Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band. She went to Woodstock with them.
Some day I'll explain why I didn't go to Woodstock, but the short version is it was raining. It's okay, because Janis actually came to Cornell the following year. Mostly it was her new stuff, like this.
Stuff to showcase her voice and her passion, but somehow, it wasn't quite the same. Not her performance. She still left everything on the stage, and that was thrilling. It's just we had heard it before, and that was probably the problem. Janis did some quirky stuff as well.
And then we woke up on October 5 1970 to find out she had died. Overdose. After Jimi. Before Jim. It really wasn't easy to be a rock fan in the late 1960s. And yet, Mick Jagger is still recording and TOURING. Sometimes I wonder if there's justice.
Incidentally, I have another music diary tonight, a Thursday Classical Music memorial to Van Cliburn, may he rest in peace.
And now for the stuff that makes this Top Comments:
TOP COMMENTS
February 28, 2013
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU when you find that proficient comment.
From brillig:
Two minutes after Ben's diary published last nite, Dallasdoc captured the essence of love in this comment, from Kaili Joy Gray's eloquent diary How a widow celebrates her 13th anniversary
From ridemybike:
teresahill makes a beautiful comment on Congressman John Lewis in Meteor Blades' diary eviscerating Mr. Justice Scalia.
From Dave in Northridge, your harried diarist:
FordMandalay provides the perfect "shorter" for Bob Woodward's work in Troubador's diary, Woodward goes Full Breitbart.
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TOP MOJO
February 27, 2013
(excluding Tip Jars and first comments)
Thanks, mik!
1) The love never dies by Dallasdoc — 204
2) It's All Over for Hannity by JekyllnHyde — 185
3) I like Keith Ellison by Rosalie907 — 131
4) NRA & Republicans...... by 57andFemale — 113
5) hang in there. I've been there, still doing that by annieli — 108
6) He complains that we haven't.. by Cpqemp — 107
7) ... and the horse he rode in on. by MJB — 95
8) sequester the subsidies by kamarvt — 91
9) I wear Terun's band and mine together. by commonmass — 87
10) Thank you , Dallasdoc. It DOES get better. by Kaili Joy Gray — 85
11) It's gone beyond that by gjohnsit — 83
12) Beautiful comment by pat of butter in a sea of grits — 83
13) I'm glad none of those so-called One Million by commonmass — 83
14) Failing a Background Check Doesn't Mean the by Aspe4 — 81
15) it got them by Deward Hastings — 78
16) The republicans by skohayes — 74
17) Then they came for Hannity... by Floyd Blue — 73
18) to put it into perspective by gjohnsit — 70
19) It would probably taste better if you used crab. by SpamNunn — 68
20) Nah, Hannity lacks the guts to try this again by Black Max — 67
21) Dallasdoc, you really are a gem. All. the. time. by hester — 67
22) The right to vote should be federally guaranteed, by Bob Love — 66
23) That's my senator! by AnotherMassachusettsLiberal — 65
24) Correct. Entirely possible to be surprised by Remembering Jello — 65
25) Holy, freakin' putdown!! by markthshark — 65
26) Great Ad by bink — 63
27) Ellison gave Hannity the exact amount of respect by Jeff Y — 62
28) Correct by gchaucer2 — 61
29) This by NancyWH — 60
30) I'm a long-haired 1970's guitar-throwback by xxdr zombiexx — 59
31) Meanwhile, in Iceland... by trevzb — 59
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TOP PHOTOS
February 27, 2013
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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