On the Road with Janis Joplin

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On the Road with Janis Joplin Page 40

by John Byrne Cooke


  Altschuler said thanks but no thanks: Author interview with D. A. Pennebaker, June 3, 1997.

  “Oh, groovy. A nice sound system at last”: Monterey Pop, Monterey International Pop Festival, Inc., 1968, D. A. Pennebaker, director.

  Denny, still nursing his wounds, has not yet arrived in Monterey: The Mamas & the Papas: Straight Shooter (video), Rhino Home Video, 1988.

  “It’s a Mexican standoff, typical of the yawning gulf between L.A. and San Francisco”: Rock Scully and David Dalton, Living with the Dead, Boston: Little, Brown, 1996, 102–103.

  CHAPTER 3

  The evening performances are sold out: Ralph J. Gleason, San Francisco Chronicle, June 11, 1967, This World magazine, 34.

  One girl has hitchhiked from Champaign, Illinois: Monterey Pop, D. A. Pennebaker, director.

  Over the course of the weekend: Ralph J. Gleason, San Francisco Chronicle, June 19, 1967, “On the Town” column.

  “So much of Monterey had nothing to do with logistics or planning”: Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield, Bill Graham Presents, New York: Dell, 1992, 189, 193–194.

  “Sittin’ down by my window / Just lookin’ out at the rain”: Willie Mae Thornton, “Ball and Chain.”

  “Wow. Wow! That’s really heavy!”: Mama Cass, in Monterey Pop, D. A. Pennebaker, director.

  By the account of one insider, Julius refuses to discuss business: Author interview with San Francisco photographer Bob Seidemann, August 12, 1997.

  John L. Wasserman, film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, said in his review of Dont Look Back: John L. Wasserman, San Francisco Chronicle, May 17, 1967.

  “Don’t worry,” Albert said: Author interview with D. A. Pennebaker, June 3, 1997.

  On Sunday morning, Chief Marinello sends home half the officers: Ralph J. Gleason, San Francisco Chronicle, June 21, 1967, “On the Town” column.

  A plan to have bagsful of the festival’s signature pink orchids: Author interview with Peter Pilafian, September 16, 1997.

  Finally Shankar holds up his arms and the audience quiets: Ralph J. Gleason, San Francisco Chronicle, June 21, 1967, “On the Town” column.

  “The best time of all was Monterey”: Janis Joplin, quoted in Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, New York: Villard, 1992, 241.

  They trash the same amp at every show: Ralph J. Gleason, San Francisco Chronicle, June 21, 1967, “On the Town” column.

  “I saw Owsley give him two of his little purple tabs”: Author interview with Peter Pilafian, September 16, 1997.

  “I saw him take, literally, a handful of Owsley tabs”: Author interview with Bob Seidemann, August 12, 1997.

  “I thought that [Monterey] just cut the whole scene wide open”: Author interview with Peter Pilafian, September 16, 1997.

  “My idea of a good festival, the best festival of all time, was Monterey”: Grace Slick, quoted in Graham and Greenfield, Bill Graham Presents, 189.

  CHAPTER 4

  “The first annual Monterey International Pop Festival this weekend was a beautiful, warm, groovy affair”: Ralph J. Gleason, San Francisco Chronicle, June 19, 1967, “On the Town” column.

  “I thought [Joe Val] was a really good steady guy, and a good musician”: Author interview with Peter Berg, December 7, 1997.

  CHAPTER 5

  Chet’s out-of-hand dismissal of Shad’s interest: Author interview with Sam Andrew, December 3, 1997.

  “I have a problem,” she wrote: Janis Joplin, quoted in Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 161–162, letter dated August 22, 1966. In this letter, and in others Laura quotes in her book, there is evidence that Janis would write a letter over several days and date it when she mailed it. In this case, Janis evidently began the letter at least a week before Big Brother left California for Chicago, where their gig at Mother Blues began on Tuesday, August 23.

  Paul gathered several musicians in a living room in Berkeley: Author interviews with Paul Rothchild, March 19, 1974, and Sam Andrew, July 27, 1997.

  In San Francisco, Paul Rothchild and I tried to recruit Janis Joplin for Elektra: Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws, Follow the Music: The Life and High Times of Elektra Records in the Great Years of American Pop Music, Santa Monica, Calif.: First Media, 1998, 157.

  In the letter to her parents, Janis expressed another doubt: Janis Joplin, quoted in Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 162.

  Janis told the boys about Paul Rothchild’s offer through Taken aback by Peter’s onslaught, Janis gave in: Author interviews with David Getz, July 24, 1997, and Sam Andrew, December 3, 1997.

  At her next meeting with Paul Rothchild: Author interview with Paul Rothchild, March 19, 1974.

  She wrote her parents: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 162.

  Janis comes offstage, skipping and happy: Author interview with Ralph J. Gleason, October 2, 1973.

  “Big Brother was really a delight and Miss Joplin is a gas”: Ralph J. Gleason, San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, September 18, 1967, “On the Town” column.

  Graham knows that realizing Big Brother’s full potential: Graham and Greenfield, Bill Graham Presents, 205. In this book, Graham gave his reasons for passing Janis to Grossman: “I knew who Janis was. I knew she was not a sometime thing. She needed full-time management or she would go astray. . . . And I couldn’t give my life over to her. Because I felt that what I was doing was bigger and more important than dealing with one single artist.”

  “At that period, there were only two people that Albert really wanted to work with”: Author interview with Sally Grossman and Barry Feinstein, September 4, 1997.

  Linda was one of a few creative women: Author interview with Linda Gravenites, May 9, 1986.

  “If you want to stay in San Francisco and play around”: Author interview with Linda Gravenites, May 9, 1986. Linda offered an additional reason why Janis, for her part, was willing to fire Julius: “Julius was such a prick sometimes. And Janis, of course, gets her back up very easily. So they were just bitching at each other constantly. And I think what happened was, Julius freaked out after the Monterey Pop Festival. It got too big for him to cope.”

  More recently, Columbia has expressed interest: Author interview with Peter Albin, July 19, 1997.

  “I wouldn’t say that either Jerry or Herb are really nasty people”: Author interview with Bob Gordon, May 10, 1986.

  Bob represented Big Brother when they were asked to appear: Author interview with Bob Gordon, May 10, 1986.

  They ask Albert to guarantee that he will make them: Author interview with David Getz, July 24, 1997.

  CHAPTER 6

  Invited to sit in with Junior Wells at the Blue Flame Lounge: Author interview with Nick Gravenites, December 7, 1973.

  CHAPTER 7

  She and Dave Getz had been to a party in the city: Author interview with David Getz, July 24, 1997.

  “She was very compassionate”: Author interview with Sam Andrew, July 27, 1997.

  “One day Nancy [later James’s wife] and I took LSD together”: Author interview with Bob Seidemann, August 12, 1997.

  One of the actors, Howard Hesseman, emigrated from Oregon to San Francisco for the jazz: Author interview with Howard Hesseman, August 8, 1997.

  “I would let her sing at the Coffee Gallery”: Author interview with Howard Hesseman, August 8, 1997.

  “I just remember that when I actually heard her”: Author interview with Howard Hesseman, August 8, 1997.

  CHAPTER 8

  He met Janis in the Haight, on the street: Author interview with Mark Braunstein, September 10, 1997.

  “Before I was working with the band”: Author interview with Mark Braunstein, September 10, 1997.

  “She could play the roles that men were playing really well”: Author interview with Nick Gravenites, December 14, 1973.

  Except for Janis, who says it makes her think too much: Author interview with Linda Gravenite
s, May 9, 1986.

  With her boyfriend at the time: Author interview with Milan Melvin, October 5, 1997.

  Sam is a former speed freak as well: Author interview with Sam Andrew, July 19, 1997.

  At the Golden Bear: Author interviews with Sam Andrew, April 23, 1997, and David Getz, July 24, 1997.

  It rattles the band’s confidence when: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 211.

  CHAPTER 9

  “You were very distant”: Author interview with Mark Braunstein, September 9, 1997.

  “There were women who turned her on”: Author interview with Linda Gravenites, May 9, 1986.

  It was Debbie who received Janis through Debbie tried to follow up on the idea: Author interview with Debbie Green, April 3, 1998.

  On January 19, 1968, which is Janis’s twenty-fifth birthday: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 214, letter dated January 31, 1968.

  After the gig, Janis doesn’t fly back: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 215.

  The reason for Janis’s restraint at Kaleidoscope: Author interview with Linda Gravenites, May 9, 1986.

  “Janis Joplin Is Climbing Fast in the Heady Rock Firmament”: Robert Shelton, New York Times, February 19, 1968.

  We grab a couple of cabs and head uptown to the Black Rock: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 219, letter dated February 20, 1968, confirms the date of the signing.

  Meet Big Brother and the Holding Company: Albert B. Grossman Management press release pages.

  CHAPTER 10

  “At first, [New York] seemed to have made us all crazy”: Janis Joplin, quoted in Nat Hentoff, The New York Times, April 21, 1968, Sec. II.

  The other act on the bill is a new band: Author interview with Al Kooper, June 11, 1998.

  The Grande’s manager, Russ Gibb: Goodman, The Mansion on the Hill, 160.

  When Albert listens to the recordings: Author interview with Sam Andrew, July 27, 1997.

  “For years, it was our particular lot not to rise to a given occasion”: Author interview with Sam Andrew, July 27, 1997.

  The only conclusion that comes out of the meeting: Author interview with Sam Andrew, July 27, 1997.

  “I think fundamentally he didn’t like Janis”: Author interview with Sam Andrew, July 27, 1997.

  On the day we’re filming, Janis arrives after the others: Studio scene and dialogue: Comin’ Home (video), by Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker, 1991.

  “It was very hard to work with John Simon”: Author interview with David Getz, July 24, 1997.

  “I always felt that the studio recording was stifling”: Author interview with Peter Albin, July 19, 1997.

  A few people in New York who care about rock music: Graham and Greenfield, Bill Graham Presents, 229.

  Together, Graham and Monck have pulled off a miracle: Graham and Greenfield, 230–234.

  Big Brother headlines the opening night, with Albert King: Albert King was not related to the better-known B. B. King, but the two legendary blues guitarists came from the same part of Mississippi, where they were born two and a half years apart, Albert in 1923 and B.B. (Riley B. King) in 1925. B.B. wrote of Albert in his autobiography, “He wasn’t my brother in blood, but he sure was my brother in Blues” (cascadeblues.org).

  The manager of the Anderson prints counterfeit tickets: Graham and Greenfield, Bill Graham Presents, 235.

  Among Graham’s ushers, clad in an orange jumpsuit, is Robert Mapplethorpe: Patti Smith, Just Kids, New York: Ecco, 2010.

  Myra’s greatest coup is arranging: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 221, letter dated April 4, 1968.

  For a guarantee of $6,000 against 50 percent of the gross over $12,000: Author’s copy of Electric Factory contract.

  The next day, they’re back in Columbia’s Studio E: These titles, recorded in Studio E on April 1, 1968, are on Janis’s posthumous CD Farewell Song. Columbia CK 37569.

  Backstage on opening night: Jazz & Pop magazine, May 1968, 34.

  CHAPTER 11

  “We don’t want to be connected with anti-anydamnthing”: Scully and Dalton, Living with the Dead, 147.

  On Saturday, U.S. troops guard the Capitol Building: Theodore White, The Making of the President 1968, New York: Atheneum, 1969, 209.

  On Sunday, April 21, the New York Times publishes an article: Nat Hentoff, The New York Times, April 21, 1968, section II, 17, 19.

  “Janis was as together in the studio as anyone”: Elliot Mazer, quoted in Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 223–224.

  Howard Hesseman and Carl Gottlieb have made the acquaintance: Author interview with Howard Hesseman, August 8, 1997.

  By Howard’s account, Jim took hold of Janis by the hair: Author interview with Howard Hesseman, August 8, 1997.

  Garry Goodrow’s old lady, Annie: Author interview with Garry Goodrow, October 17, 1973, at which Annie was present.

  David Crosby, of the Byrds, has hung out with the drunk Morrison: David Crosby and Carl Gottlieb, Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby, New York: Doubleday, 1988, 124–125.

  As Howard and Carl beat their retreat: Author interview with Howard Hesseman, August 8, 1997.

  At one point, Janis and Linda were lifted off their feet: Author interview with Linda Gravenites, May 9, 1986.

  South Dakota holds its primary: White, The Making of the President 1968, 182.

  In the piece that’s new to me, the actors take a question: Author interview with Alan Myerson, September 27, 1997.

  His weekly Letter from America for the BBC this week: Alistair Cooke, Letter from America, June 7, 1968.

  He counseled Bobby against challenging Gene McCarthy: White, The Making of the President 1968, 163–164.

  CHAPTER 12

  “John Simon and I talked in the last few years”: Author interview with David Getz, July 24, 1997.

  Where Warner Brothers mogul Jack Warner used to eat in anonymity: Jean Stein, “West of Eden,” The New Yorker, February 23/March 2, 1998 (double issue), 166–167.

  “dope, sex, and cheap thrills”: It is my belief that the now better-known phrase “Drugs, sex, and rock and roll” did not come into use in the sixties. To accept that I am wrong, I will need to see the phrase in print, with a sixties dateline.

  “I couldn’t possibly do that”: Author interview with Bob Gordon, May 10, 1986.

  Threadgill and Wein have a friend: Author interview with Robert L. Jones, of George Wein’s Festival Productions, June 3, 1997.

  Two years ago, the festival board almost rejected: Author interview with Robert L. Jones, June 3, 1997.

  This year’s Newport program booklet: 1968 Newport Folk Festival program booklet, 17.

  This year, B. B. King is getting $1,000: Author’s notes made at the time on Newport festival program; author interview with Robert L. Jones, June 3, 1997.

  At Newport, Janis and Geoff fall in together: Author interviews with Geoff Muldaur, May 5, 1997, and January 3, 1998.

  He responded positively to a suggestion by Grossman: Author conversation with Sally Grossman, July 2, 2014.

  He invited Joan to appear at the Gate of Horn: Joan Baez, And a Voice to Sing With, New York: Summit/Simon & Schuster, 1987, 58–61.

  Albert held out the lure of a recording contract: Baez, And a Voice to Sing With, 58, 61–62.

  Soon after Big Brother comes offstage: Author interview with Peter Albin, May 8, 1986.

  Albert says, “Something’s just not happening”: Author interview with Peter Albin, May 8, 1986.

  CHAPTER 13

  “I love those guys more than anybody else in the whole world”: Janis Joplin, quoted in David Dalton, Piece of My Heart: A Portrait of Janis Joplin, New York: Da Capo, 134–135.

  “I think from Monterey on”: Author interview with David Getz, July 24, 1997.

  When the others leave, Sam stays behind: Author interview with Sam Andrew, October 18, 1973. />
  As we travel from city to city he helps her think: Author interview with Sam Andrew, October 7, 1973.

  It goes gold in three days: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 237, letter dated September 28, 1968. Based on time and event references in the letter, much of it was written at least four to five days earlier.

  “See, Albert deals in sensible things”: Author interview with Nick Gravenites, December 7, 1973.

  “[Albert] doesn’t direct me”: Janis Joplin, quoted in Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 276.

  Lip-readers interpret Daley’s response: Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, Toronto: Bantam Books, 1987, 334.

  Three weeks earlier, in Miami Beach: Norman Mailer, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, New York: Primus, 80.

  “I always have a sense of history”: E-mail from Sam Andrew, April 2, 2011.

  On an expedition to Beverly Hills: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 227, undated letter.

  In a letter home, Janis alerts her family: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 238, letter dated September 28, 1968.

  Where everyone in the band but Peter Albin: Author interview with David Getz, July 24, 1997.

  After the concert, the Joplins experience firsthand: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 240–241.

  CHAPTER 14

  “It has to do with a certain self-abnegation”: Author interview with Nick Gravenites, December 7, 1973.

  “I actually found Janis’s Porsche for her”: Author interviews with Bob Gordon, May 10, 1986, and September 10, 1997.

  We fly to Memphis two days ahead of the Stax-Volt gig: Details of the Memphis rehearsal, party, and concert from Bill King, “Janis: Memphis Meltdown,” 1995, unpublished; posted to allaboutjazz.com, October 2009; and Stanley Booth, “The Memphis Debut of the Janis Joplin Revue,” Rolling Stone, February 1, 1969, 1, 4.

  We considered names for the new band: Laura Joplin, Love, Janis, 246.

  When Janis sees a poster for the Stax-Volt show: King, “Janis: Memphis Meltdown.”

  Mark Braunstein and George Ostrow have worked with the equipment: Author interview with Mark Braunstein, September 7, 1997.

  Inferior men are rising to positions of power: Richard Wilhelm, The I Ching, or Book of Changes, English translation by Cary F. Baynes, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967, 93–96.

 

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