#49 -- Janis Joplin

Growing up in the San Francisco bay area in the 1960s, you'd think I'd be a big Janis Joplin fan, since she was a big player in the 'flowers in your hair' scene.  Wrong.  I only really knew who she was once she'd died.  

The reasons for this are twofold.  First, my father was assigned overseas (summer '67 to summer '69) and so I was out of the country and therefore cut off from most popular music during Big Brother and The Holding Company's "Cheap Thrills" era.  But more importantly, I was into classical music (in early-70's San Francisco I attended the opera and a Pablo Casals concert ** with my parents), preferred melodic, quieter rock & roll (from Simon & Garfunkel on one end of the spectrum to the Rolling Stones on the other) with one exception (Jimi Hendrix, but we'll get to him later).  

To this day I'm surprised at how popular Janis Joplin's material was; I just wasn't around to hear much of it and only later did I learn to love R&B. 

The reason Janis Joplin is on this list is that I just love the exuberance of songs like "Cry Baby" and "Piece of My Heart".  And "Me and Bobby McGee" speaks to 'the sad' in my life better than just about anything, pushing through it with that cathartic, exulting cheer that can be heard towards the end.

On the other hand, for those who like their music loudly emotive, with much throwing oneself about the stage, she opened the floodgates--which is a part of Rock that's never appealed to me.  And we won't get into the sickening drug dependence that killed her, except to wonder what might have been.

..................................

Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

...............

5/0/5/5 = 15 out of a perfect 40

** Watching "The Roosevelts" on TV recently, I was amazed to hear that Casals had been invited by President Theodore Roosevelt to play at the White House, nearly 70 years before I heard him.