Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplinwas an American singer considered the premier female blues vocalist of the Sixties; her raw, powerful and uninhibited singing style, combined with her turbulent and emotional lifestyle, made her one of the biggest female stars in her lifetime. She died of a drug overdose in 1970 after releasing only four albums...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth19 January 1943
CityPort Arthur, TX
CountryUnited States of America
If you can get them once, man, get them standing up when they should be sitting down, sweaty when they should be decorous, smile when they should be applauding politely-and I think you sort of switch on their brain, man, so that makes them say: 'Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything.' Whoooooo! It's life. That's what rock and roll is for, turn that switch on, and man, it can all be.
At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I'm gonna show 'em how to do it.
Maybe my audiences can enjoy my music more if they think I'm destroying myself.
I think I think too much. That's why I drink!
I read a story about some old opera singer once, and when a guy asked her to marry him, she took him backstage after she had sung a real triumph, with all the people calling for her, asked, 'Do you think you could give me that?' That story hit me right, man. I know no guy ever made me feel as good as an audience. I'm really far into this now, really committed. Like, I don't think I'd go off the road for long now, for life with a guy no matter how good. Yeah, it's the truth. Scary thing to say though, isn't it?
I'm not really thinking much... Just sort of, trying to feel.
Don't ever compromise yourself. You're all you've got.
Which showed that my interest in rock was not based in a vast knowledge of their work. It was about them.
Fourteen heart attacks and he had to die in my week. In MY week.
Freedom's just another word for nothin left to loose. Nothin, don't mean nothin honey if it ain't free. And feelin good was easy, Lord, when he played the blues. You know feelin good was good enough for me, good enough for me and my Bobby McGee.
I gotta go on doin' it the way I see it...I got no choice but to take it like I see it. I'm here to have a party while I'm on this earth...I'm gettin' it now, today. I don't even know where I'm gonna be twenty years from now, so I'm just gonna keep on rockin', cause if I start saving up bits and pieces of me...man, there ain't gonna be nothing left for Janis.
On stage, I make love to 25,000 different people, then I go home alone.
She was electrifying. It was like she was channeling Bessie Smith or something.
One of my talking points will be the accident of geography.