Love, Janis - Softcover

Joplin, Laura

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140172556 ISBN 13: 9780140172553

Publisher: Penguin Books Canada, Limited, 1994

Synopsis

A revealing and intimate biography about Janis Joplin, the Queen of Classic Rock, written by her younger sister.

Janis Joplin blazed across the sixties music scene, electrifying audiences with her staggering voice and the way she seemed to pour her very soul into her music. By the time her life and artistry were cut tragically short by a heroin overdose, Joplin had become the stuff of rock–and–roll legend.

Through the eyes of her family and closest friends , we see Janis as a young girl, already rebelling against injustice, racism, and hypocrisy in society. We follow Janis as she discovers her amazing talents in the Beat hangouts of Venice and North Beach–singing in coffeehouses, shooting speed to enhance her creativity, challenging the norms of straight society. Janis truly came into her own in the fantastic, psychedelic, acid–soaked world of Haight–Asbury. At the height of her fame, Janis's life is a whirlwind of public adoration and hard living. Laura Joplin shows us not only the public Janice who could drink Jim Morrison under the table and bean him with a bottle of booze when he got fresh; she shows us the private Janis, struggling to perfect her art, searching for the balance between love and stardom, battling to overcome her alcohol addiction and heroin use in a world where substance abuse was nearly universal.

At the heart of Love, Janis is an astonishing series of letters by Janis herself that have never been previously published. In them she conveys as no one else could the wild ride from awkward small–town teenager to rock–and–roll queen. Love, Janis is the new life of Janis Joplin we have been waiting for–a celebration of the sixties' joyous experimentation and creativity, and a loving, compassionate examination of one of that era's greatest talents.

About this title

From AudioFile:

Janis Joplin's sister has fashioned a biography from the letters Janis wrote to her family during her turbulent career. The book articulates the confusion of this artist's life in the drug culture of the late sixties. Winger makes little vocal distinction between Laura's narrative and Janis's letters. Winger's voice is simultaneously gravelly, sexy and raw, yet sweet and charming. It suitably conveys the pathos of Janis Joplin, a young star who wrote home about the lifestyle that killed her. One wishes for more than a few innocuous bars of Joplin's music at the program's conclusion. D.W.K. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Kirkus Reviews:

Joplin pens a bio of her legendary older sister that's more detailed and evenhanded, yet much less dramatic and emotionally raw, than Myra Friedman's bestselling Buried Alive (1973)--and includes the rock star's unpublished letters home, more revealing for Janis's aren't-you-proud-of-me? eagerness of tone than for their contents. Describing Janis's early life and influences, especially the high cultural and educational ideals of her parents, Joplin sometimes employs a tone of stuffy propriety that seems decidedly strange--after all, this is Janis Joplin she's describing. Getting into Janis's years at the Univ. of Texas, however, Joplin rises to the task. She debunks the tale that Janis was voted ``Ugly Man on Campus'' (she was nominated by friends, not detractors, and she didn't win). But Janis was plenty tormented and complex, and we get the impression that her life would have been all booze and unfocused angry rebellion and squalor if it hadn't been for Ken Threadgill, the Austin barkeep who recognized her extraordinary musical gifts and launched her career. Once in San Francisco, Janis teamed up with a ragged, soulful band called ``Big Brother and the Holding Company,'' and all her untamable demons channelled into her art. Her performances were electric. One West Coast critic called Janis a ``shaman woman,'' and Janis didn't disagree: ``I do believe in some very amorphous things that happen when you're onstage...like something moves in the air.'' At once narcissistic and sensitive, hard-driven and childlike, the Janis that emerges here was trapped by her ``get it while you can'' image--and she apparently thought heroin oblivion was her only way out. A thorough, restrained account of an extraordinary rise and fall. (Thirty-two pages of b&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books Canada, Limited
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0140172556
• ISBN 13: 9780140172553
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384