In her quest to become a true boss like one of her musical idols, Etta James, Janis Joplin and her band cut the fat and hire a visionary manager. He promises to take them to the top of the rock ‘n roll heap, but they must make him a promise. Meanwhile, life at the top looks to be every bit as insane as it was at the bottom, full of police harassment in San Francisco and naked pool parties in Los Angeles.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The twenty seven Club is a production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. Janice Joplin died at the age
of and she lived the life of constant change, for
both good and bad. I can give you twenty seven
reasons why that statement is true. Five would be the
number of musicians that comprised Big Brother in the Holding Company,
(00:23):
the band that put Janice in San Francisco at the
forefront of the rock and roll scene. Another four would
be the number of musicians that manager Albert Grossman would
soon find redundant when he became interested in taking on
Big Brother in the Holding Company as a client. Thirteen
more would be the age Janice was when she snuck
out of her house to see blues legend Etta James
(00:45):
perform in an adult venue, an experience that would shape
the way she would approach music performing an addiction years later.
Another two would be the number of hippie bands busted
by the cops in just four days in San Francisco
in October nine six seven, the same week that street
activists declared the hippie movement dead in the water. And
(01:06):
three would be the number of years she had left
to live after she was introduced to the darkest, deadliest
addiction she would come to know heroin a k a.
The Awful and Mighty Schmiz. On this our sixth episode
of season three, Albert Gross death to hippies, schmis In,
(01:26):
Janice Joplin walking a winding path to liberation. I'm Jake
Brennan and this is the club. Edda James had no
(02:15):
time to react. Within the blink of an eye, Etta
In her husband, Artist Mills, were surrounded on all sides
by men with their fingers on triggers. San Antonio's finest
narcotics cops. Step out of the car. Up with your
hands where we can see them. Who did the cops
think that they were? Frank Lucas bringing in the swat
(02:35):
style heat for a blue singer and her main man.
Edda fought the glare of the setting sun and looked
through the sedan's front windshield to make the leader of
the drug squad, wild Bill, the notorious narcotics officer. They
called him wild Bill because his man hunts frequently ended
in dramatic shootouts. Eda and Artists had nowhere to run.
(02:57):
They were in a San Antonio alleyway they'd been cruising
looking for the man and there was a hook up
along these back alleys, a guy with a short sleeve
button up pasty shirt and while lapel a crucifix around
his neck ox blood shoes. He knew it was him
because he was always flipping a plane card in his hands.
And then the cops came out of nowhere. Patrol cars
(03:18):
at either end of the alley. Eda an Artist were
tried sirens, lights, angry voices through standard tissue megaphones. Step
out of the car. Now Edda looked down at her
hands from where she sat in the passenger seat. She
was holding two balloons of heroin her hands shook. How
the funk were they getting rid of this ship? And
(03:39):
why the hell were they cruising for more dope? And
they had enough to get them by right here in
her hands. Her hands shook more rapidly. Now Artists kept
his right foot on the brake and massaged the steering
wheel compulsively with sweaty hands, something to keep his mind
off of what was happening, what was about to happen,
and what he was about to do. The cops started
an inch closer, now crouched in their action positions, and
(04:02):
there were at least five guns pointed at the car.
When Artists made the decision, his knuckles went white. He
inhaled deeply, held it for about five seconds, and then exhale.
He turned to Eda and said under his breath, give
me the ship. At A stared at him in disbelief.
Her hands were vibrating now, and the cops drew in
tighter the ship, Give me the ship now. At Eda
(04:23):
held onto the balloons even tighter. Now she knew what
Artist was thinking, and she wasn't going to just hand
it over to him without thinking it through. But she
had no time. She turned her head to the front
of the car again, saw a wild Bill's finger go
all itchy on his pistols trigger, and then Artists reached
over to grab the balloons of dope from his wife's
hands and stuck them deep into his jeans pockets. He
(04:46):
put the Sitan in park, opened the driver's side door,
stepped out with his hands up, and felt the front
end of the car eat his abdomen when wild Bill
shoved him mercilessly onto the hood. Artists would take the fall,
He said, the heroine was his and his alone, and
they sent him to prison for ten years. It was
nineteen seventy two, Etta James was thirty two years old.
(05:09):
She would wind up in the Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital for
seventeen months back in California, and then to court ordered
rehab for Etta James, one of the greatest and also
one of the most troubled blues singers of all time.
The bust in San Antonio was just the latest twist
in a turbulent life of ups and downs. She was
(05:30):
born James Etta Hawkins in Los Angeles in to a
mother who was only fourteen years old. She was told
that her father was Minnesota Fats, the legendary pool hustler,
but she could never confirm it. As a kid, Edta
was a great singer and a juvenile delinquent, though not
always in that order. At fifteen, she was discovered by
(05:51):
band leader Johnny Otis, who flip flopped her first name
to give her her stage name, James Etta Etta James,
and by the time she was twenty one she was
recording for Chess Records. She had also developed a heroin
habit to threaten to derail her entire career. She fought
back from heroin briefly and from her professional slump. In
ninety seven, when Chess center to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to
(06:14):
record with Rick Hall at the Seminal Fame Studios, Leonard
Chess hoped the change in scenery would help keep Eda's
mind off junk and focus on making the label some money.
One of the songs from those sessions, Tell Mama, was
exactly what the doctor ordered along with at Last. Tell
Mama would become one of Eda's signature tunes, peaking at
(06:36):
number ten on the R and B Chart and at
number twenty three on the Billboard Hot One, the highest
she'd ever make it on the pop charts. Though it
provided her temporary reprieve from her addictions, the hit wasn't
able to deliver her entirely from her demons. Janice Joplin
had more than a few things in common with Edda James.
They were both hard headed, both fought addictions throughout their lifetime.
(06:58):
Both sang the Blue was like Nobody's business. One of
Janice's earliest memories of a woman commanding a stage, in fact,
was a show at a played at the Big Tin
Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the mid fifties. Edda, as usual,
was in charge every set of ears and eyes there
were under her spell. Janice was out on another of
(07:19):
her late night under the radar sneaks, soaking up the
sights and sounds of destinations that were decidedly not for kids.
The big tin was all cigarette smoke and spilled booze,
the smell of an undercut by the odor refer that
wafted from inside the bathrooms and backstage dressing rooms. Janice
podded through the crowd like a dogwood flower that had
(07:39):
fallen into a river and was passed from current to current,
shore to shore, Eddie to Eddie, its pedals pulled in
every direction. She went right to the source that night.
First she passed by a couple making out against the
edge of the bar. She bumped into a fight that
had broken out at one of the tables, and nearly
took an empty bottle of bourbon into the face. The
room rollicked, the shouts and murmurs, curse words and cat calls,
(08:02):
hustles and proposals. She asserted herself all the way backstage
and straight to the dressing room door that would get
her a few minutes of FaceTime with Miss James herself.
She would tell Mama all about it, and she wanted
Mama to tell her to. Years later, in nineteen sixty nine,
Janice Choplin once again found herself in the same room
(08:23):
as one of her idols, Etta James, again and this
time as a fly on the wall and Ata's latest
recording session. It was one of Edda's first sessions after
the famed studio states that had yelled and tell Mama
that After one particularly gritty take, Edda looked into the
control room and saw a white woman sitting next to
the console. She wore a puffy fur coat and some
sort of hat that looked like a dead animal draped
(08:45):
across the top of her head. I thought this is
a private session, she said to the piano player standing
next to her, Who the funk is this? Jame? She
didn't remember Janice Choplin, the teen who came to her
dressing room and Tulsa to pay homage all those years before,
And she didn't know Janice Joplin, the hippie rock goddess,
because she didn't pay attention to that sort of thing.
(09:07):
The following year, Janice who dig deep, real deep all
the way back to that night in Tulsa to perform
one of the most indelible versions of Telling Mama delivered
by Edda James or anyone during a date on the
Festival Express tour of Canada with The Grateful Dead. She
delivered the song at the peak of her powers, in
the height of her fame. She was transcending Edda and
(09:27):
Bessie Smith and Big Mama Thornton and all the female
singers she had been inspired by. And that moment was
all made possible by a manager who saw her talent
and her potential. It made her a deal, but there
were a few caveats. She had to uphold her into
the bargain if she wanted to reach the top. So
she promised that she would. There's no such thing as
(10:15):
an honest man. That was Albert Grossman talking. He was
in her head. He'd been in her head since Monterey Pop,
probably even before that. He'd been in her head since
the time she first took notice of the Big Man,
the older man who stood in Bob Dylan's shadow. He
wasn't just in Dylan's shadow. He filled the square footage
of that shadow. And then some they called him the Bear.
(10:38):
And this was why he ate shadows. When she panicked
at Monterey in sixty seven because she found out that
she wasn't going to be included in d A. Penna
Baker's documentary thanks to her deluded money hungry manager. Janice
Joplin found Grossman backstage and asked for his help. Grossman
was Gotham slick, Metropolis slick. The guy was a fucking
(10:59):
superhero and a decidedly on hip suit. He was part
of the machine, not too far off from one of
the shady Los Angelenos running the show, and the San
Franciscans had been instructed to always be skeptical of that type.
And that type was a buck making type, nothing else.
Grossman made the bucks because he was ruthless, and Janice
needed to bend the year of a ruthless man. Teach me,
(11:21):
she seemed to say to him with her desperate eyes.
Teach me to be ruthless. There's no such thing as
an honest man, he told Janice. She assumed he was
including himself in that statement. He told her how to
handle Big Brothers manager Julius Carpet, and so she did.
He told her to hit the guy where it hurt,
in the back pocket, and that's where he kept his wallet,
(11:42):
And so she did, and she wound up one of
the most talked about performers in Penna Baker's film. She
carried Grossman's fatherly advice around with her, kept it in
her back pocket, and she used it again when it
was absolutely necessary. Julius's next bush lead move was to
pull Big brother out of a Bill Graham produced bill
at the Hollywood Bowl, a show called Bill Graham Presents
(12:03):
the San Francisco Sound with the Dead and the Airplane headlining,
and Julius pulled them days before the show. Bill Graham
had made nice with Janice, put the whole local ragship
talk thing behind them, because he realized Janice would make
him more money by playing his venue than not playing
his venue. And this Hollywood Bowl thing was a getman,
a big get. But Julius, his infinite wisdom, outdone only
(12:24):
by his short sighted woe is Me game. Fuck that
up real good, and Julius blamed Graham said. Graham cut
Big Brothers set time in half at the last minute,
so Julius countered by pulling the band at the last minute,
and Julius thought he had the upper hand. Graham laughed
him off. He didn't have time for the bush league
Julius saved face by throwing the band under the bus.
(12:45):
The press, in turn placed the blame squarely on Janis
and Big Brother, and then the public eight or alive.
It was typical Janie, they said, this is exactly what
she did. A coffee and confusion and all those joints.
Years ago, Janice was to be high and asbian bars somewhere.
Janice was livid. First of all, who give a ship
where she went or who she hung out with? Women?
(13:07):
Men men women? Why was that anyone's business? It was
nine sixty seven, the funk up. Second of all, Julius,
That motherfucker had to go. Third, she had just the
guy who could take over as a Big Brother's proper manager,
the bear. She could make it happen, she was sure.
And fourth, fun those people who said she was blowing
off a show to go get lifted. Not that she
(13:27):
wasn't getting high, but she was learning how to balance
one thing so that it didn't totally interfere with the
other thing. She could do both. All these thoughts bounced
around in her head as she closed her eyes to
pull the needle from her arm, relaxed the belt, and
slunk back in her chair. I think positive, she told herself.
The rush of the junk hitting her now like a
giant Persian rug enveloping her from the ceiling on down.
(13:50):
She kept her eyes closed so that she could see
this rug and not just feel it. It felt so real.
And then something changed and she felt shame. She felt
like she was doing something wrong. She felt like she
was hiding something, like she was living alive. And she
was back to thinking about Albert Grossman. He was in
her head again. There's no such thing as an honest man.
(14:12):
You want to talk about honest men, like how long
had Girlely been holding out on her? James Gurley, big
Brother's lead guitarist, had taken the dive into the deep
end at some point and started to funk around with heroin.
First he did it alone, and then he did it
with some friends, friends who weren't in the band, and
then girle and Janice, who were backstage in Huntington Beach
after a show with Big Mama Thornton of all people
(14:35):
that Blues Godess herself and Girly teased out of bagging
between his thumb and his forefinger. It dangled, and he
asked Janice if she wanted to go higher than speed,
higher than meth. She thought about Julius throwing her under
the bus, about what the public said about her, about
Peter to Blank and Port Arthur, and her parents, what
everyone had said about her from time to time as
she struggled to escape what she once was and become
(14:57):
when she was meant to be. Fuck yeah, she wanted
to go higher, So she took the bat. Now she
was thinking about Grossman again, and about his rule, his
one rule that he had if he was going to
become their manager, he would take them places they've never
been before, make them more famous than their wildest dreams.
He even thought that Janie had a standalone career that
(15:17):
didn't involve the guys in the band, to be quite honest,
but he and Janice were keeping that hush hush for now.
He had one rule, No schmis, He had to elaborate
what he told them. Schmis, you know, dope jump heroine.
Grossman insisted he had his reasons. He saw the toll
it took on brilliant musicians. His first wife died of
(15:39):
an overdose. He took it personally, and the band said yes,
and they agreed. They said they wouldn't touch the stuff.
Janis and Girly shot conspiratorial glances at one another behind
Grossman's back. Grossman doubled all their salaries two hundred a week.
He told them he was close with Clive Davis at Columbia.
He told him he was gonna work on Clive to
buy the band out of their shitty can tracked with
(16:00):
Bob shadd and mainstream records. He just needed time. But
if anyone could do it, it was Albert Grossman. It
was the bear. Grossman was twenty years older than the
bands he managed. He wore sweater vests and tweeted coats,
salt and pepper hair. Dylan said he was like Sydney
green Street in the Maltese Falcon. He looked like the
hip uncle of the rock scene, the one who had
(16:21):
good taste, deep pockets, and two distinct sides, the one
he wanted to be on and the one you wouldn't
want to be caught dead on. He didn't funk around,
not with his clients, not even with his ex clients.
He would spend the better part of the late seventies
and early eighties tied up in a legal battle with Dylan.
When Dylan decided that he wasn't gonna work on Grossman's
farm no more. Grossman was from Chicago. He opened one
(16:43):
of the first folk clubs in the country. He launched
the Newport Folk Festival. He made Woodstock, New York, the
place to see and be seen as a musician in
the late sixties, specifically Bearsville, a hamlet where he established
a recording studio and a record label. Grossman reinvented what
it meant to manage a performing artist, and he did
so while spearheading the careers of Odetta, Peter, Paul and Mary,
(17:06):
and the artist formerly known as Robert Zimmerman. In late
nineteen sixty seven, he followed in the steps of his
number one client and went electric. He turned his attention
from the folk east to the rockers, Paul Butterfield, the
Electric Flag the band. He didn't have anyone from San
Francisco on his roster. Janie and Big Brother changed that.
But Grossman didn't really want Big Brother in the holding company.
(17:29):
He wasn't much interested in Girl, or in Sam Andrew
or Peter Alban or Dave gets. Grossmand wanted Janice, and
Grossman thought that Janice's true success was out on her
own and that Big Brother was holding her back. He
thought his biggest challenge would be extracted Janice from her band,
but it turned out to keeping her head above water
and out of the schmis would be the biggest challenge
(17:50):
of all. We'll be right back after this word word word.
Janice was the first one to spot the cops from
the stage. They weren't even trying to be incognito. Their
(18:13):
heads were held high and their posture was rock solid.
They were looking for trouble. They wanted trouble to notice them.
Walk up to them and ask them what the funk
they were doing there? Give them a reason to show
them what the funk they were doing there. Janie could
see it in their eyes. One of the cops looked
straight at her and made eye contact. He kept his
eyes on her and leaned into The shorter cop next
(18:35):
to him, shouted into his ear and pointed at Janie.
She didn't know what exactly was about to happen next,
but she didn't like it. October nine, San Francisco, the
Matrix nightclub, Janis and Big Brother were in the middle
of combination of the two the frenetic rocker that they
used to kick a show off in high gear, or
(18:56):
to jump start a crowd that was dragging. Janis and
Sam Andrew stood next to each other and both hollered
into one microphone. Janison Sam's voice were a siren call.
The audience responded hips shimmying and long hair flailing around wildly.
Those that were truly lost in the music didn't even
notice the blue Shirts. Cops didn't just come, especially an
(19:19):
indoor rock show, especially show at the Matrix out on
Fillmore Stream. That place was crawling with countercultural revolutionaries, beat
nix and hippies and burnouts and dropouts reigned supreme. The
police were not welcome. The Matrix was owned and operated
by musicians. Marty Ballin of Jefferson Airplane had a stake.
It was small, and the ceilings were low, and there
(19:39):
was a giant mural the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
on the wall. Hunter rest Thompson sculpt around the joint
after consulting his briefcase of illicit substances. Like the other
live music venues in San Francisco, it felt like a
place where the freaks could gather with like minded freaks
and freaked. The funk Out was a refuge a safe house,
a place where they could all be free. All it
(20:01):
took was a couple of officers of the law started
blue shirts and thumbs resting on their basic black belts
just a little too close to their loaded standard issue
weapon to ruin the entire vibe, and the cop kept
his eyes locked on Janice. He motioned to the shorter cop,
who went over to the wall and turned on all
the house slights and the oblivious dancers and the crowd paused.
(20:22):
They knew something was up now, and the cop raised
his hand, flattened out like a knife, in motioned nearest throat,
and then Janice knew they were shutting them down. The
sun had barely said on the Summer of Love when
the Hippie dream began to draw its final breaths. First
George Harrison sounded the alarm when he came to town.
The scene was turning grass and LSD and quickly given
(20:44):
way to heroin, math and barbiturates. The scene was curdling
right in front of the quiet Beetle. The Diggers, that
ragtag group of social street warriors so central to the
San Francithos, posted a parade that they called Death of hippie.
It happened on the afternoon into Big Brothers Matrix show.
They carried a symbolic casket through the hate. The casket
(21:04):
was filled with beads and sense flowers, even long hair
that some of the group had cut donated. And they
ended the march at the Psychedelic Shop, where they gave
everything away for free and closed it up for good.
And then the authorities started to crack down on the
hate scene. The police haunted Hate Street and they put
over thirty people in cuffs for truancy just days before
(21:27):
Big Brother's Faithful Matrix show. On October two, n San
Francisco's finest rated the Grateful Dead's thirteen room Ashbury Street path.
Inside they found some of the band, along with their
business managers and some groupies, and the Dead never saw
it coming, and they were putting cuffs and marched down
the front steps like there was some prized trophy. And
(21:48):
the police paused for good measures so that the press,
who the cops had tipped off, could get some juicy
photos to run with their front page expossse and the
reason a little grass and a big chip on the
shoulder of Johnny Law and then the cops decided to
diversify their bus beyond the immediate circle of the grateful dead,
and what about other news associates, what about Big brother
(22:09):
in the holding company Big Brothers m O was to
play as loud as they possibly could, and they thrashed
and pounded, and the twin guitars of Sam Andrew and
James Gurley twisting and nodding around the smashing rhythm. San
Franciscan's found it invigorating, transcendent. Really. Albert Grossman found her remedial,
and newer Janice could do better. The sheer intensity of
(22:30):
the sound would push Janice further. She'd have to ratchet
her voice up to ear splitting levels just to compete
with the instruments, and then she'd had to shrud her
voice raw to be heard above them. It was the
endearing part of their sound, but it was also unsustainable
if the police had any say. The band had already
gone on too long. Ever, once again playing too loud,
and they had their reason for walking through the doors
(22:51):
that night. The band was already nervous with them, Everyone
was nervous. The police rate in the deads Place was
all and one was talking about it made people parento frightened.
If it happened to the dead, it could happen to
any of them. No band was safe, big brother, the
airplane won't be great Blue Cheer. Any one of them
could be taken down for any reason. The cops deemed fit,
and the paranoia extended beyond the safety and well being
(23:13):
of the bands themselves. But what about the movement, the
idyllic San Francisco scene. It was a vital, progressive, expressive
locomotive of a thing. But if the bands were all silence,
then the thing was silenced. You could hear how nervous
the band was that night by how they play, chopping fast, unsure.
The cops could sense it too, and they were ready
to feed off. The cop with the eagle eye was
(23:35):
still making the gesture with his hand to his neck.
The matrix was small and closed, too tiny to risk anything.
Stupid Janice stopped singing. The rest of the band caught
onto the situation at hand and stopped playing. The cops
are on the stage now they stunk of the authority
of an agency that had arrested members of a dope
smoking rock band only days earlier, and now this was
(23:55):
a new day, a new band, and they figured they'd
have a new reason. Did you goddamn loud? The cop
told the band, as the din of the confused crowd
behind him grew. You can try to be quieter, but
if you keep playing this loud, we're gonna have to
take you downtown for disturbing the peace. Maybe best just
to quit while you're ahead and call it a night.
Maybe San Francisco didn't want them anymore, didn't want any
(24:17):
of them. You. They all came to San Francisco in
search of a way out, in search of something new
and liberating, and they didn't find it. So they made it.
And now that they made it and they had it,
others didn't want it. There there was a world outside
of San Francisco, and they'd have to go there, find
the sympathizers, find the like minded freaks, find liberation in
different area codes, in different time zones. First stop, Los Angeles,
(24:41):
where rock music's elite would welcome them with open arms
and a smile, even if they weren't wearing much more
than their birthday suits. The pool of Peter Tork's home
(25:12):
and Laurel Canyon and was full of naked bodies on
the edge of the pool. Flesh jiggled and jostled as
partygoers made their way in and out of the water.
In the pool, the water glistened in the late day sun.
A guy with a thick beard and long wet hair
held a hash pipe as far above the water as
he could while he held a tope deep in his lungs.
(25:33):
He made eye contact with a naked guy nearby it
with his blazed eyes made a gesture that said, you
want to hit man. Another man and a woman nestled
into one of the pool's corners and sucked face. A
half empty wine jug bobbed in the water, passed on
a way from person to person. Every now and then
someone would grab it and take a swing, and the
(25:53):
cap wasn't even on it anymore. It floated elsewhere on
its own. The jug was definitely tainted with some rogue
pool water. Hippie Miss Janice wasn't approved, and neither were
the guys and Big Brother. But this was a scene
unlike any that they had experienced in San Francisco. That
was for sure, high above Los Angeles and the hills
and the canyons, and there were just as many clothes
(26:16):
attendees as there were nude ones, and they were everywhere.
And there was Mama Cass talking with Johnny Echols of
Love and Mickey Dolan's were galing Joni Mitchell with the
story about his bat ship neighbor, this guy who called
himselves at Alice Cooper. And then there was David Crosby
and Stephen Stills who used to live at the house,
so they were just always there and they were passing
this eternal joint back and forth. That motherfucker was like
(26:39):
the number of hive man. It just went on and
on forever. Crosby and Stills had magical powers. That was
the word going around the place. They touched a joint,
that thing would be good for a lifetime of tokes.
You think, Sweet Judy blue eyes, long chick up. This
fucking marijuana cigarette man across and the best smoke. And
everybody knew that, everybody but Roger mcgwinn gwyn tended to
(27:00):
cross his grass was dogshit to make a point or
to hold his little grudge for as long as he could.
He stood inside the house, gazing out through the floor
to ceiling window, his eyes full of anger and jealousy.
What the fund is his deal? Janis as cast. When
the Mama's and Papa singer was finally free for a moment,
mcgwen he fired Crosbie from the Birds. Crosby wrote a
(27:20):
song about a threesome and it defended mcgwyn's finer sensibilities.
Then he replaced Crosbie with a horse and the cover
of their new album Nobody Got It. He probably should
have made it a donkey, or at least a horse's ass,
you know. And they were suddenly interrupted by a loud shout,
a shout that was celebratory and show stopping and attention
commanding all at once. Janice turned around and there was
their host, Peter Tork, walking outside from his home. Mcgwenn
(27:43):
scowled in the background. Welcome to l A, Peter said,
and he extended his arms wide for hugs. He was
wearing a bathroom which wasn't tied shut, and not much else.
If San Francisco was liberated minds and Ideals, then l
A was liberation with a budget. Janison big Brother were
suddenly guests of this big budget liberation, guests because they
(28:04):
were on their way up in the world, newly signed
with the legendary Albert Grossman, and we're making moves to
get themselves on Columbia. Then, their first self titled album, Rush,
released by Mainstream Records in the summer of nineteen sixty seven,
was meant to capitalize on their growing success. Janice distanced
herself from it. The band didn't sign off on it,
it didn't represent their sound well, and it certainly didn't
(28:26):
represent Janezue. Peter understood the struggle. The Monkeys had just
come off a tour with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which
is like a sandwich of mayonnaise and peanut butter. They
had just released Headquarters, their third album, but only the
first where they were writing their own songs and playing
their own instruments. He got it when it came to
expectations and disappointments in the sort of ship you had
(28:47):
to outrun and lived down. That was part of the
reason he invited them out to his place. After all,
he sensed a fellow outcast, a fellow artists trying to
prove herself against all odds. But before too long, whatever
Torque was trying to say, it was drowned out by
the naked woman playing the drum set inside the house.
That's Renee, my girlfriend. He shouted over the noise at
(29:07):
Janis and the boys. He looked back towards the house.
Say Hi Renee. Renee raised her hand during one of
her drum fills in acknowledgement, but she really couldn't be bothered,
her long black hair barely obscuring a small portion of
her exposed body. If this was the big time, Janis
was going to need a moment to acclimate. They all were.
(29:28):
The big time would soon involve so many others, like
the m C five in Detroit, Leonard Cohen in New
York City, Country Joe and pig Pen vying to tell
Mama all about it, and in the middle of it,
the bandit to put together the album they would think
of as their first true LP. Trouble was, it would
take a miracle bigger than Albert Grossman and bigger than
(29:49):
a Peter tork Pool party to keep Big Brother in
the Holding Company in one piece, Um, Jake Brennan, And
this is the Seven Club, all right. This episode of
(30:11):
The Seven Club has brought to you by disgrace Land,
the award winning music and true crime podcast that I
also host. Disgrace Land is available only on the free
Amazon Music app to hear tons of insane stories about
your favorite musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. Nirvana, Prince,
Jerry Lee Lewis, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, Cardi
b In, many many more. Go to Amazon dot com,
(30:33):
slash disgrace Land, or if you have an Echo device,
just say hey Alexa play the disgrace Land podcast. The
seven Club is hosted and co written by me Jake Brennan.
Zeth Landi is the lead writer and co producer. Matt
Boden mixes the show. Additional music and score elements by
Ryan Spraker and Henry Lenetta. The seven Club is produced
(30:53):
by myself for Double Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Sources for this episode are available at double this dot
com on the twenty seven Club series page. Our previous
season's on Jimmie Hendricks and Jim Morrison are available for
you to binge right now wherever you get your podcasts,
and if you're like we're here, please be sure to
find and follow the twenty seven Club on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your shows,
(31:17):
and if you'd like to win a free twenty seven
Club poster designed by the man himself, Nate Gonzalez. Then
leave a review for twenty seven Club on Apple Podcasts
or hashtag subscribe to twenty seven Club on social media,
and will pick two winners each week and announce them
on the Double Elvis Instagram page. That's at Double Elvis.
Give that a fall. So get out there and spread
(31:37):
the word about the twenty seven Club. You can talk
to me per usual on Instagram and Twitter at disgrace Land,
pod rock rolla, What year is
The twenty seven Club is a production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. Janice Joplin died at the age
of and she lived the life of constant change, for
both good and bad. I can give you twenty seven
reasons why that statement is true. Five would be the
number of musicians that comprised Big Brother in the Holding Company,
(00:23):
the band that put Janice in San Francisco at the
forefront of the rock and roll scene. Another four would
be the number of musicians that manager Albert Grossman would
soon find redundant when he became interested in taking on
Big Brother in the Holding Company as a client. Thirteen
more would be the age Janice was when she snuck
out of her house to see blues legend Etta James
(00:45):
perform in an adult venue, an experience that would shape
the way she would approach music performing an addiction years later.
Another two would be the number of hippie bands busted
by the cops in just four days in San Francisco
in October nine six seven, the same week that street
activists declared the hippie movement dead in the water. And
(01:06):
three would be the number of years she had left
to live after she was introduced to the darkest, deadliest
addiction she would come to know heroin a k a.
The Awful and Mighty Schmiz. On this our sixth episode
of season three, Albert Gross death to hippies, schmis In,
(01:26):
Janice Joplin walking a winding path to liberation. I'm Jake
Brennan and this is the club. Edda James had no
(02:15):
time to react. Within the blink of an eye, Etta
In her husband, Artist Mills, were surrounded on all sides
by men with their fingers on triggers. San Antonio's finest
narcotics cops. Step out of the car. Up with your
hands where we can see them. Who did the cops
think that they were? Frank Lucas bringing in the swat
(02:35):
style heat for a blue singer and her main man.
Edda fought the glare of the setting sun and looked
through the sedan's front windshield to make the leader of
the drug squad, wild Bill, the notorious narcotics officer. They
called him wild Bill because his man hunts frequently ended
in dramatic shootouts. Eda and Artists had nowhere to run.
(02:57):
They were in a San Antonio alleyway they'd been cruising
looking for the man and there was a hook up
along these back alleys, a guy with a short sleeve
button up pasty shirt and while lapel a crucifix around
his neck ox blood shoes. He knew it was him
because he was always flipping a plane card in his hands.
And then the cops came out of nowhere. Patrol cars
(03:18):
at either end of the alley. Eda an Artist were
tried sirens, lights, angry voices through standard tissue megaphones. Step
out of the car. Now Edda looked down at her
hands from where she sat in the passenger seat. She
was holding two balloons of heroin her hands shook. How
the funk were they getting rid of this ship? And
(03:39):
why the hell were they cruising for more dope? And
they had enough to get them by right here in
her hands. Her hands shook more rapidly. Now Artists kept
his right foot on the brake and massaged the steering
wheel compulsively with sweaty hands, something to keep his mind
off of what was happening, what was about to happen,
and what he was about to do. The cops started
an inch closer, now crouched in their action positions, and
(04:02):
there were at least five guns pointed at the car.
When Artists made the decision, his knuckles went white. He
inhaled deeply, held it for about five seconds, and then exhale.
He turned to Eda and said under his breath, give
me the ship. At A stared at him in disbelief.
Her hands were vibrating now, and the cops drew in
tighter the ship, Give me the ship now. At Eda
(04:23):
held onto the balloons even tighter. Now she knew what
Artist was thinking, and she wasn't going to just hand
it over to him without thinking it through. But she
had no time. She turned her head to the front
of the car again, saw a wild Bill's finger go
all itchy on his pistols trigger, and then Artists reached
over to grab the balloons of dope from his wife's
hands and stuck them deep into his jeans pockets. He
(04:46):
put the Sitan in park, opened the driver's side door,
stepped out with his hands up, and felt the front
end of the car eat his abdomen when wild Bill
shoved him mercilessly onto the hood. Artists would take the fall,
He said, the heroine was his and his alone, and
they sent him to prison for ten years. It was
nineteen seventy two, Etta James was thirty two years old.
(05:09):
She would wind up in the Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital for
seventeen months back in California, and then to court ordered
rehab for Etta James, one of the greatest and also
one of the most troubled blues singers of all time.
The bust in San Antonio was just the latest twist
in a turbulent life of ups and downs. She was
(05:30):
born James Etta Hawkins in Los Angeles in to a
mother who was only fourteen years old. She was told
that her father was Minnesota Fats, the legendary pool hustler,
but she could never confirm it. As a kid, Edta
was a great singer and a juvenile delinquent, though not
always in that order. At fifteen, she was discovered by
(05:51):
band leader Johnny Otis, who flip flopped her first name
to give her her stage name, James Etta Etta James,
and by the time she was twenty one she was
recording for Chess Records. She had also developed a heroin
habit to threaten to derail her entire career. She fought
back from heroin briefly and from her professional slump. In
ninety seven, when Chess center to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to
(06:14):
record with Rick Hall at the Seminal Fame Studios, Leonard
Chess hoped the change in scenery would help keep Eda's
mind off junk and focus on making the label some money.
One of the songs from those sessions, Tell Mama, was
exactly what the doctor ordered along with at Last. Tell
Mama would become one of Eda's signature tunes, peaking at
(06:36):
number ten on the R and B Chart and at
number twenty three on the Billboard Hot One, the highest
she'd ever make it on the pop charts. Though it
provided her temporary reprieve from her addictions, the hit wasn't
able to deliver her entirely from her demons. Janice Joplin
had more than a few things in common with Edda James.
They were both hard headed, both fought addictions throughout their lifetime.
(06:58):
Both sang the Blue was like Nobody's business. One of
Janice's earliest memories of a woman commanding a stage, in fact,
was a show at a played at the Big Tin
Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the mid fifties. Edda, as usual,
was in charge every set of ears and eyes there
were under her spell. Janice was out on another of
(07:19):
her late night under the radar sneaks, soaking up the
sights and sounds of destinations that were decidedly not for kids.
The big tin was all cigarette smoke and spilled booze,
the smell of an undercut by the odor refer that
wafted from inside the bathrooms and backstage dressing rooms. Janice
podded through the crowd like a dogwood flower that had
(07:39):
fallen into a river and was passed from current to current,
shore to shore, Eddie to Eddie, its pedals pulled in
every direction. She went right to the source that night.
First she passed by a couple making out against the
edge of the bar. She bumped into a fight that
had broken out at one of the tables, and nearly
took an empty bottle of bourbon into the face. The
room rollicked, the shouts and murmurs, curse words and cat calls,
(08:02):
hustles and proposals. She asserted herself all the way backstage
and straight to the dressing room door that would get
her a few minutes of FaceTime with Miss James herself.
She would tell Mama all about it, and she wanted
Mama to tell her to. Years later, in nineteen sixty nine,
Janice Choplin once again found herself in the same room
(08:23):
as one of her idols, Etta James, again and this
time as a fly on the wall and Ata's latest
recording session. It was one of Edda's first sessions after
the famed studio states that had yelled and tell Mama
that After one particularly gritty take, Edda looked into the
control room and saw a white woman sitting next to
the console. She wore a puffy fur coat and some
sort of hat that looked like a dead animal draped
(08:45):
across the top of her head. I thought this is
a private session, she said to the piano player standing
next to her, Who the funk is this? Jame? She
didn't remember Janice Choplin, the teen who came to her
dressing room and Tulsa to pay homage all those years before,
And she didn't know Janice Joplin, the hippie rock goddess,
because she didn't pay attention to that sort of thing.
(09:07):
The following year, Janice who dig deep, real deep all
the way back to that night in Tulsa to perform
one of the most indelible versions of Telling Mama delivered
by Edda James or anyone during a date on the
Festival Express tour of Canada with The Grateful Dead. She
delivered the song at the peak of her powers, in
the height of her fame. She was transcending Edda and
(09:27):
Bessie Smith and Big Mama Thornton and all the female
singers she had been inspired by. And that moment was
all made possible by a manager who saw her talent
and her potential. It made her a deal, but there
were a few caveats. She had to uphold her into
the bargain if she wanted to reach the top. So
she promised that she would. There's no such thing as
(10:15):
an honest man. That was Albert Grossman talking. He was
in her head. He'd been in her head since Monterey Pop,
probably even before that. He'd been in her head since
the time she first took notice of the Big Man,
the older man who stood in Bob Dylan's shadow. He
wasn't just in Dylan's shadow. He filled the square footage
of that shadow. And then some they called him the Bear.
(10:38):
And this was why he ate shadows. When she panicked
at Monterey in sixty seven because she found out that
she wasn't going to be included in d A. Penna
Baker's documentary thanks to her deluded money hungry manager. Janice
Joplin found Grossman backstage and asked for his help. Grossman
was Gotham slick, Metropolis slick. The guy was a fucking
(10:59):
superhero and a decidedly on hip suit. He was part
of the machine, not too far off from one of
the shady Los Angelenos running the show, and the San
Franciscans had been instructed to always be skeptical of that type.
And that type was a buck making type, nothing else.
Grossman made the bucks because he was ruthless, and Janice
needed to bend the year of a ruthless man. Teach me,
(11:21):
she seemed to say to him with her desperate eyes.
Teach me to be ruthless. There's no such thing as
an honest man, he told Janice. She assumed he was
including himself in that statement. He told her how to
handle Big Brothers manager Julius Carpet, and so she did.
He told her to hit the guy where it hurt,
in the back pocket, and that's where he kept his wallet,
(11:42):
And so she did, and she wound up one of
the most talked about performers in Penna Baker's film. She
carried Grossman's fatherly advice around with her, kept it in
her back pocket, and she used it again when it
was absolutely necessary. Julius's next bush lead move was to
pull Big brother out of a Bill Graham produced bill
at the Hollywood Bowl, a show called Bill Graham Presents
(12:03):
the San Francisco Sound with the Dead and the Airplane headlining,
and Julius pulled them days before the show. Bill Graham
had made nice with Janice, put the whole local ragship
talk thing behind them, because he realized Janice would make
him more money by playing his venue than not playing
his venue. And this Hollywood Bowl thing was a getman,
a big get. But Julius, his infinite wisdom, outdone only
(12:24):
by his short sighted woe is Me game. Fuck that
up real good, and Julius blamed Graham said. Graham cut
Big Brothers set time in half at the last minute,
so Julius countered by pulling the band at the last minute,
and Julius thought he had the upper hand. Graham laughed
him off. He didn't have time for the bush league
Julius saved face by throwing the band under the bus.
(12:45):
The press, in turn placed the blame squarely on Janis
and Big Brother, and then the public eight or alive.
It was typical Janie, they said, this is exactly what
she did. A coffee and confusion and all those joints.
Years ago, Janice was to be high and asbian bars somewhere.
Janice was livid. First of all, who give a ship
where she went or who she hung out with? Women?
(13:07):
Men men women? Why was that anyone's business? It was
nine sixty seven, the funk up. Second of all, Julius,
That motherfucker had to go. Third, she had just the
guy who could take over as a Big Brother's proper manager,
the bear. She could make it happen, she was sure.
And fourth, fun those people who said she was blowing
off a show to go get lifted. Not that she
(13:27):
wasn't getting high, but she was learning how to balance
one thing so that it didn't totally interfere with the
other thing. She could do both. All these thoughts bounced
around in her head as she closed her eyes to
pull the needle from her arm, relaxed the belt, and
slunk back in her chair. I think positive, she told herself.
The rush of the junk hitting her now like a
giant Persian rug enveloping her from the ceiling on down.
(13:50):
She kept her eyes closed so that she could see
this rug and not just feel it. It felt so real.
And then something changed and she felt shame. She felt
like she was doing something wrong. She felt like she
was hiding something, like she was living alive. And she
was back to thinking about Albert Grossman. He was in
her head again. There's no such thing as an honest man.
(14:12):
You want to talk about honest men, like how long
had Girlely been holding out on her? James Gurley, big
Brother's lead guitarist, had taken the dive into the deep
end at some point and started to funk around with heroin.
First he did it alone, and then he did it
with some friends, friends who weren't in the band, and
then girle and Janice, who were backstage in Huntington Beach
after a show with Big Mama Thornton of all people
(14:35):
that Blues Godess herself and Girly teased out of bagging
between his thumb and his forefinger. It dangled, and he
asked Janice if she wanted to go higher than speed,
higher than meth. She thought about Julius throwing her under
the bus, about what the public said about her, about
Peter to Blank and Port Arthur, and her parents, what
everyone had said about her from time to time as
she struggled to escape what she once was and become
(14:57):
when she was meant to be. Fuck yeah, she wanted
to go higher, So she took the bat. Now she
was thinking about Grossman again, and about his rule, his
one rule that he had if he was going to
become their manager, he would take them places they've never
been before, make them more famous than their wildest dreams.
He even thought that Janie had a standalone career that
(15:17):
didn't involve the guys in the band, to be quite honest,
but he and Janice were keeping that hush hush for now.
He had one rule, No schmis, He had to elaborate
what he told them. Schmis, you know, dope jump heroine.
Grossman insisted he had his reasons. He saw the toll
it took on brilliant musicians. His first wife died of
(15:39):
an overdose. He took it personally, and the band said yes,
and they agreed. They said they wouldn't touch the stuff.
Janis and Girly shot conspiratorial glances at one another behind
Grossman's back. Grossman doubled all their salaries two hundred a week.
He told them he was close with Clive Davis at Columbia.
He told him he was gonna work on Clive to
buy the band out of their shitty can tracked with
(16:00):
Bob shadd and mainstream records. He just needed time. But
if anyone could do it, it was Albert Grossman. It
was the bear. Grossman was twenty years older than the
bands he managed. He wore sweater vests and tweeted coats,
salt and pepper hair. Dylan said he was like Sydney
green Street in the Maltese Falcon. He looked like the
hip uncle of the rock scene, the one who had
(16:21):
good taste, deep pockets, and two distinct sides, the one
he wanted to be on and the one you wouldn't
want to be caught dead on. He didn't funk around,
not with his clients, not even with his ex clients.
He would spend the better part of the late seventies
and early eighties tied up in a legal battle with Dylan.
When Dylan decided that he wasn't gonna work on Grossman's
farm no more. Grossman was from Chicago. He opened one
(16:43):
of the first folk clubs in the country. He launched
the Newport Folk Festival. He made Woodstock, New York, the
place to see and be seen as a musician in
the late sixties, specifically Bearsville, a hamlet where he established
a recording studio and a record label. Grossman reinvented what
it meant to manage a performing artist, and he did
so while spearheading the careers of Odetta, Peter, Paul and Mary,
(17:06):
and the artist formerly known as Robert Zimmerman. In late
nineteen sixty seven, he followed in the steps of his
number one client and went electric. He turned his attention
from the folk east to the rockers, Paul Butterfield, the
Electric Flag the band. He didn't have anyone from San
Francisco on his roster. Janie and Big Brother changed that.
But Grossman didn't really want Big Brother in the holding company.
(17:29):
He wasn't much interested in Girl, or in Sam Andrew
or Peter Alban or Dave gets. Grossmand wanted Janice, and
Grossman thought that Janice's true success was out on her
own and that Big Brother was holding her back. He
thought his biggest challenge would be extracted Janice from her band,
but it turned out to keeping her head above water
and out of the schmis would be the biggest challenge
(17:50):
of all. We'll be right back after this word word word.
Janice was the first one to spot the cops from
the stage. They weren't even trying to be incognito. Their
(18:13):
heads were held high and their posture was rock solid.
They were looking for trouble. They wanted trouble to notice them.
Walk up to them and ask them what the funk
they were doing there? Give them a reason to show
them what the funk they were doing there. Janie could
see it in their eyes. One of the cops looked
straight at her and made eye contact. He kept his
eyes on her and leaned into The shorter cop next
(18:35):
to him, shouted into his ear and pointed at Janie.
She didn't know what exactly was about to happen next,
but she didn't like it. October nine, San Francisco, the
Matrix nightclub, Janis and Big Brother were in the middle
of combination of the two the frenetic rocker that they
used to kick a show off in high gear, or
(18:56):
to jump start a crowd that was dragging. Janis and
Sam Andrew stood next to each other and both hollered
into one microphone. Janison Sam's voice were a siren call.
The audience responded hips shimmying and long hair flailing around wildly.
Those that were truly lost in the music didn't even
notice the blue Shirts. Cops didn't just come, especially an
(19:19):
indoor rock show, especially show at the Matrix out on
Fillmore Stream. That place was crawling with countercultural revolutionaries, beat
nix and hippies and burnouts and dropouts reigned supreme. The
police were not welcome. The Matrix was owned and operated
by musicians. Marty Ballin of Jefferson Airplane had a stake.
It was small, and the ceilings were low, and there
(19:39):
was a giant mural the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
on the wall. Hunter rest Thompson sculpt around the joint
after consulting his briefcase of illicit substances. Like the other
live music venues in San Francisco, it felt like a
place where the freaks could gather with like minded freaks
and freaked. The funk Out was a refuge a safe house,
a place where they could all be free. All it
(20:01):
took was a couple of officers of the law started
blue shirts and thumbs resting on their basic black belts
just a little too close to their loaded standard issue
weapon to ruin the entire vibe, and the cop kept
his eyes locked on Janice. He motioned to the shorter cop,
who went over to the wall and turned on all
the house slights and the oblivious dancers and the crowd paused.
(20:22):
They knew something was up now, and the cop raised
his hand, flattened out like a knife, in motioned nearest throat,
and then Janice knew they were shutting them down. The
sun had barely said on the Summer of Love when
the Hippie dream began to draw its final breaths. First
George Harrison sounded the alarm when he came to town.
The scene was turning grass and LSD and quickly given
(20:44):
way to heroin, math and barbiturates. The scene was curdling
right in front of the quiet Beetle. The Diggers, that
ragtag group of social street warriors so central to the
San Francithos, posted a parade that they called Death of hippie.
It happened on the afternoon into Big Brothers Matrix show.
They carried a symbolic casket through the hate. The casket
(21:04):
was filled with beads and sense flowers, even long hair
that some of the group had cut donated. And they
ended the march at the Psychedelic Shop, where they gave
everything away for free and closed it up for good.
And then the authorities started to crack down on the
hate scene. The police haunted Hate Street and they put
over thirty people in cuffs for truancy just days before
(21:27):
Big Brother's Faithful Matrix show. On October two, n San
Francisco's finest rated the Grateful Dead's thirteen room Ashbury Street path.
Inside they found some of the band, along with their
business managers and some groupies, and the Dead never saw
it coming, and they were putting cuffs and marched down
the front steps like there was some prized trophy. And
(21:48):
the police paused for good measures so that the press,
who the cops had tipped off, could get some juicy
photos to run with their front page expossse and the
reason a little grass and a big chip on the
shoulder of Johnny Law and then the cops decided to
diversify their bus beyond the immediate circle of the grateful dead,
and what about other news associates, what about Big brother
(22:09):
in the holding company Big Brothers m O was to
play as loud as they possibly could, and they thrashed
and pounded, and the twin guitars of Sam Andrew and
James Gurley twisting and nodding around the smashing rhythm. San
Franciscan's found it invigorating, transcendent. Really. Albert Grossman found her remedial,
and newer Janice could do better. The sheer intensity of
(22:30):
the sound would push Janice further. She'd have to ratchet
her voice up to ear splitting levels just to compete
with the instruments, and then she'd had to shrud her
voice raw to be heard above them. It was the
endearing part of their sound, but it was also unsustainable
if the police had any say. The band had already
gone on too long. Ever, once again playing too loud,
and they had their reason for walking through the doors
(22:51):
that night. The band was already nervous with them, Everyone
was nervous. The police rate in the deads Place was
all and one was talking about it made people parento frightened.
If it happened to the dead, it could happen to
any of them. No band was safe, big brother, the
airplane won't be great Blue Cheer. Any one of them
could be taken down for any reason. The cops deemed fit,
and the paranoia extended beyond the safety and well being
(23:13):
of the bands themselves. But what about the movement, the
idyllic San Francisco scene. It was a vital, progressive, expressive
locomotive of a thing. But if the bands were all silence,
then the thing was silenced. You could hear how nervous
the band was that night by how they play, chopping fast, unsure.
The cops could sense it too, and they were ready
to feed off. The cop with the eagle eye was
(23:35):
still making the gesture with his hand to his neck.
The matrix was small and closed, too tiny to risk anything.
Stupid Janice stopped singing. The rest of the band caught
onto the situation at hand and stopped playing. The cops
are on the stage now they stunk of the authority
of an agency that had arrested members of a dope
smoking rock band only days earlier, and now this was
(23:55):
a new day, a new band, and they figured they'd
have a new reason. Did you goddamn loud? The cop
told the band, as the din of the confused crowd
behind him grew. You can try to be quieter, but
if you keep playing this loud, we're gonna have to
take you downtown for disturbing the peace. Maybe best just
to quit while you're ahead and call it a night.
Maybe San Francisco didn't want them anymore, didn't want any
(24:17):
of them. You. They all came to San Francisco in
search of a way out, in search of something new
and liberating, and they didn't find it. So they made it.
And now that they made it and they had it,
others didn't want it. There there was a world outside
of San Francisco, and they'd have to go there, find
the sympathizers, find the like minded freaks, find liberation in
different area codes, in different time zones. First stop, Los Angeles,
(24:41):
where rock music's elite would welcome them with open arms
and a smile, even if they weren't wearing much more
than their birthday suits. The pool of Peter Tork's home
(25:12):
and Laurel Canyon and was full of naked bodies on
the edge of the pool. Flesh jiggled and jostled as
partygoers made their way in and out of the water.
In the pool, the water glistened in the late day sun.
A guy with a thick beard and long wet hair
held a hash pipe as far above the water as
he could while he held a tope deep in his lungs.
(25:33):
He made eye contact with a naked guy nearby it
with his blazed eyes made a gesture that said, you
want to hit man. Another man and a woman nestled
into one of the pool's corners and sucked face. A
half empty wine jug bobbed in the water, passed on
a way from person to person. Every now and then
someone would grab it and take a swing, and the
(25:53):
cap wasn't even on it anymore. It floated elsewhere on
its own. The jug was definitely tainted with some rogue
pool water. Hippie Miss Janice wasn't approved, and neither were
the guys and Big Brother. But this was a scene
unlike any that they had experienced in San Francisco. That
was for sure, high above Los Angeles and the hills
and the canyons, and there were just as many clothes
(26:16):
attendees as there were nude ones, and they were everywhere.
And there was Mama Cass talking with Johnny Echols of
Love and Mickey Dolan's were galing Joni Mitchell with the
story about his bat ship neighbor, this guy who called
himselves at Alice Cooper. And then there was David Crosby
and Stephen Stills who used to live at the house,
so they were just always there and they were passing
this eternal joint back and forth. That motherfucker was like
(26:39):
the number of hive man. It just went on and
on forever. Crosby and Stills had magical powers. That was
the word going around the place. They touched a joint,
that thing would be good for a lifetime of tokes.
You think, Sweet Judy blue eyes, long chick up. This
fucking marijuana cigarette man across and the best smoke. And
everybody knew that, everybody but Roger mcgwinn gwyn tended to
(27:00):
cross his grass was dogshit to make a point or
to hold his little grudge for as long as he could.
He stood inside the house, gazing out through the floor
to ceiling window, his eyes full of anger and jealousy.
What the fund is his deal? Janis as cast. When
the Mama's and Papa singer was finally free for a moment,
mcgwen he fired Crosbie from the Birds. Crosby wrote a
(27:20):
song about a threesome and it defended mcgwyn's finer sensibilities.
Then he replaced Crosbie with a horse and the cover
of their new album Nobody Got It. He probably should
have made it a donkey, or at least a horse's ass,
you know. And they were suddenly interrupted by a loud shout,
a shout that was celebratory and show stopping and attention
commanding all at once. Janice turned around and there was
their host, Peter Tork, walking outside from his home. Mcgwenn
(27:43):
scowled in the background. Welcome to l A, Peter said,
and he extended his arms wide for hugs. He was
wearing a bathroom which wasn't tied shut, and not much else.
If San Francisco was liberated minds and Ideals, then l
A was liberation with a budget. Janison big Brother were
suddenly guests of this big budget liberation, guests because they
(28:04):
were on their way up in the world, newly signed
with the legendary Albert Grossman, and we're making moves to
get themselves on Columbia. Then, their first self titled album, Rush,
released by Mainstream Records in the summer of nineteen sixty seven,
was meant to capitalize on their growing success. Janice distanced
herself from it. The band didn't sign off on it,
it didn't represent their sound well, and it certainly didn't
(28:26):
represent Janezue. Peter understood the struggle. The Monkeys had just
come off a tour with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which
is like a sandwich of mayonnaise and peanut butter. They
had just released Headquarters, their third album, but only the
first where they were writing their own songs and playing
their own instruments. He got it when it came to
expectations and disappointments in the sort of ship you had
(28:47):
to outrun and lived down. That was part of the
reason he invited them out to his place. After all,
he sensed a fellow outcast, a fellow artists trying to
prove herself against all odds. But before too long, whatever
Torque was trying to say, it was drowned out by
the naked woman playing the drum set inside the house.
That's Renee, my girlfriend. He shouted over the noise at
(29:07):
Janis and the boys. He looked back towards the house.
Say Hi Renee. Renee raised her hand during one of
her drum fills in acknowledgement, but she really couldn't be bothered,
her long black hair barely obscuring a small portion of
her exposed body. If this was the big time, Janis
was going to need a moment to acclimate. They all were.
(29:28):
The big time would soon involve so many others, like
the m C five in Detroit, Leonard Cohen in New
York City, Country Joe and pig Pen vying to tell
Mama all about it, and in the middle of it,
the bandit to put together the album they would think
of as their first true LP. Trouble was, it would
take a miracle bigger than Albert Grossman and bigger than
(29:49):
a Peter tork Pool party to keep Big Brother in
the Holding Company in one piece, Um, Jake Brennan, And
this is the Seven Club, all right. This episode of
(30:11):
The Seven Club has brought to you by disgrace Land,
the award winning music and true crime podcast that I
also host. Disgrace Land is available only on the free
Amazon Music app to hear tons of insane stories about
your favorite musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. Nirvana, Prince,
Jerry Lee Lewis, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, Cardi
b In, many many more. Go to Amazon dot com,
(30:33):
slash disgrace Land, or if you have an Echo device,
just say hey Alexa play the disgrace Land podcast. The
seven Club is hosted and co written by me Jake Brennan.
Zeth Landi is the lead writer and co producer. Matt
Boden mixes the show. Additional music and score elements by
Ryan Spraker and Henry Lenetta. The seven Club is produced
(30:53):
by myself for Double Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Sources for this episode are available at double this dot
com on the twenty seven Club series page. Our previous
season's on Jimmie Hendricks and Jim Morrison are available for
you to binge right now wherever you get your podcasts,
and if you're like we're here, please be sure to
find and follow the twenty seven Club on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your shows,
(31:17):
and if you'd like to win a free twenty seven
Club poster designed by the man himself, Nate Gonzalez. Then
leave a review for twenty seven Club on Apple Podcasts
or hashtag subscribe to twenty seven Club on social media,
and will pick two winners each week and announce them
on the Double Elvis Instagram page. That's at Double Elvis.
Give that a fall. So get out there and spread
(31:37):
the word about the twenty seven Club. You can talk
to me per usual on Instagram and Twitter at disgrace Land,
pod rock rolla, What year is
Host
Jake Brennan
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