..into my long stored moving crates I recently came across this marvellous vinyl that I bought in San Francisco in 1968. It contains all the juicy pieces by Janis Joplin from this great era of free love, psycadelica, music, cretivity, politics, freeky stuffs, drugs, freedom fights and student and Black Panther rebellion! And the "not so great era" of the Vietnam war! The campus recruitments of sodiers for this war. The friends who came back from war in black plastic body bags..The repression,the police shootings, the mass arrests of protesters, the using of the campuses as testing grounds for certain chemicals to be deployed in Vietnam, the spraying of "maze" - a tear gas the Oakland police (the infamous Blue Meanies) used to break up student demonstrations..The awsome cover of this first Janice record is made by Robert Culp - a great cartoonist and artist whom I actually met at a party in Berkeley in those days. He was considered "very dirty" back then in the days of the dawning sexual revolution.
I saw Janice live once in a concert at the Winterland in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. She was "giving it all" together with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Sipping her Sudden Comfort in the short intervalls instead of catching her breath. They put on the most marvellous light show as back drop of the Winterland stage that night, I remember. Outside the Winterland, sales were going on and people were pushing for anything you could possibly want in those days.
Janis Joplin and the Big Brothers.After Bessie Smith, there was nothing. Until Janis came along. And after Janis there is a big vacuum. Have you ever heard "Summetime" sung the way Janice does it?
Man, there is a voice for you! And a feeling!
Groovy!
(Unfortunately, my Janice vinyl is full of scratches. And, I AM NOT GOING TO SELL IT!)
