Holly George-Warren

Holly George-Warren is the author of a new book on Janis Joplin entitled "Janis: Her Life and Music." Tune in for insights into Janis, along with tales from Ms. George-Warren's career working at "Rolling Stone" and authoring sixteen books on topics as varied as Woodstock, Alex Chilton and country & western music.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is Holly George Morn. He's got a
new book about Janice Joplin entitled Janice Joplin for Life
in Music. Holly, good to have you here. Thanks for
having me on your show, Bob. Okay, why a book
about Janice Joplin? Why? Now you know, Bob, I have been,

(00:30):
of course a fan like every one of Janice's voice,
going back to my teen years back in the Setona,
I have to ask, since you brought that up, were
you alive and conscious when Janice had her success? Yes,
um the end of her career. I got to see her,
you know, on TV from my little hometown of North
Carolina on the Dick Cabot Show. And of course, one
of my first albums when I joined the Columbia House

(00:51):
Record Club twelve albums for a penny, was Pearl, so
I still have my original copy. How did you feel
after getting the twelve albums free and then having to
pay list price for the ensuing records. I did a
lot of babysitting in those days, and since I lived
in a tiny town with not a lot of access
to records, hey, I was cool with it. Okay, we're

(01:11):
in North Carolina. It's a little town called Ashborough, not
to be confused with Ashville, which everyone's heard of, the
cool hipster town. But Ashboro was right smack dab in
the center of the state, near Nascar Richard Petty Territory
for any of this. Okay, So for those of us
who were ignorant city people, what's the closest town we
would know of? Greensboro were the first sit ins took

(01:32):
place at? So how far from Greensboro were you? Like
twenty miles and okay, let's get back to it. Okay,
so you bought Barol, you still have it? Yes, I
have my copy too. And that was you know, I
was a huge record fan already because when I was
in third grade, Bob, I discovered on my little clock
radio that I could tune into w ABC in New

(01:53):
York and w l S and Chicago. And this was
the golden age of channels. That's why was ultimately and
in my town, I think that there are one radio
station which mostly played country and gospel, which, of course,
you know, being a rock and roll kid, I hated
it went off the air, you know, So I discovered
this radio from far away that played this incredible mix

(02:17):
of music because am just was amazing. In the mid sixties,
I became so obsessed. I would not go to sleep
at night without listening to my radio. And that's the
transistor under the pillow. Well, you know, I don't remember
having it. It was the baby blue pastel you know,
clock radio. My parents kind of just said whatever, you know,

(02:37):
they didn't really care. And I started buying forty fives
like crazy with my babysitting money. And so this was
again I was third grade and I started my first
little group. Then, so I became obsessed. Well I want
to go deeper into this, Let's first get into the book.
So well, I can't as drop in. Why not? Well,
because I discovered when I was asked to write liner
notes for the Pearl Sessions, which was a two CD

(02:59):
set in which they went and pulled out all these
tapes from the vaults at Columbia and at least they
were still there as opposed to universal tape. Yes, thank god. Right,
And so you could hear Janice and Paul Rothschild, the
producer of Pearl Talking Shop. Janice was leading the conversation
coming up with guitar parts, arrangement ideas, you know, like

(03:21):
literally calling the shots. And I knew from work I'd
done on the Doors and interviewed Bruce Botnick, the Great
Engineer and other people, that Paul Rothschild was famously iron
fisted producer, and in fact, Joni Mitchell did not like
working with him because he was so bossy. And actually
Paul Rothschild a little bit. I wish I could have

(03:43):
met him. He seems like a cool guy. And you know,
when I have to remember that, of course he cut
all those early Electra records, but he was the son
of an opera singer. Did you know that? If I
knew what I forgot it? I didn't know that, but
um luckily I got some interviews with him from some
journalist friends who did interview him before he passed away.

(04:04):
So I suddenly realized that, you know, this persona this
image that jan has created, which was so indelible and
so vivid, wasn't all there was to the story of
Janis Joplin. You know, she kind of had this image
of being this blues mama. I'm just all about the field, baby,
you know, and you know that whole technique versus field idea,
and I started thinking, you know what, I think there's

(04:25):
more to this woman's music. Music musicianship then meets the eye.
So I then started thinking, and wait a minute. She
was growing up Port Arthur, Texas, very conservative, segregated town,
oil town in the fifties. How did she even get
access to records by Lead Belly and seventy Eights by

(04:46):
Bessie Smith. It must have taken a lot of effort
on her part because I had read some of the
other books about her, so I really was obsessed with
tracing her musical journey and finding out how she got
um Port Arthur, Texas to queen of the counterculture and
then this big star with pearls. Okay, I want to
hear that, But let's go back to the tapes. What

(05:08):
did you hear on the tapes? Well, again, with Paul's
reputation of being a very um yeah, exactly, he was
listening to Janice, he was like, wow, that's a great idea,
you know, and he apparently inspired her to pursue being
a producer. In fact, she told John Cook, her late

(05:29):
road manager, who think goodness, I got to meet and
interview that um Janice would make a great producer, and
Janice was so excited about this idea. She was a
studio rat. I mean she wrote home letters as far
back as the nineteen six six, the first time she
went into the studio in Chicago for the first record
Big Brother in the Holding Company did for mainstream records.

(05:50):
She wrote home detelling the studio recording process, talking about
double tracking her vocals and explaining what that was, the
same kind of thing when they got signed to Lumbian
did Cheap Thrills. She was very, very involved in the
recording process. Again, letters home describing what mixing was for example,
and yeah, and Fred Catero, the great engineer, and have

(06:13):
talked about she was the first one there and the
last to leave. She was really really involved in that
whole process. So there was that aspect of her that
I think no one really realized that she was this studious,
hard working musician that was perfecting her craft and wanting
to learn every aspect of music. Not just that amazing
voice of her. What was her personality like? Again, she

(06:37):
was very multifaceted. You know, we have the Janus image
of her, you know, out on stage and just so intense,
so impassion this music coming from deep within of her,
expressing all this pain and all this um torment, you know,
through her vocals and really reaching and touching her audiences.

(06:57):
I wish I could have seen her live, because to
this day I talked to people who saw her nineteen
sixty six and they go into this reverie, describing it
as if it was last week. I mean, her impact
was that powerful. But the other side of Janice, which
she kept on the down low from her fans, was
this very intellectual, studious woman who always had a book

(07:18):
with her. She was a total book worm, love to read.
And she also, you know, had her own fears and
her own um shyness that again she kept tamped down
through her whole stage bravado and all that kind of thing.
Let's go to the end. Do you think her death
was inevitable for a pure accident, pure accident bomb, I mean,

(07:39):
it's it's kind of what happened when we tragically lost Tom,
Petty and Prince. The whole it's similar to that whole
fentinyl thing. Because she had had an addiction to heroin
in nineteen sixty nine, um, but she had gotten clean
in nineteen seventy she'd been off it for maybe four
or five months, she still was a heavy drinker and

(08:00):
the drinking is much worse on the voice than smack,
and she was trying to cut back on the drinking
while making Pearl because she knew that Paul wath Child
would not tolerate her voice not being there and it
can really script your voice too much. Booz. So she
happened to run into her dealer from before in l
A at the Landmark Hotel where she always stayed and relapsed. Um.

(08:25):
Now what happened that killed her was she, by weird chance,
got this really strong heroine that had just been introduced
to this country called China White, and it was really
pure compared to her usual and she was by herself
overdosed and it was a tragic accidym Okay, So how

(08:45):
did you actually decide to do the book? Well? Fortunately,
over the years through different um things like there's been
a couple of Janice uh conferences believe it or not?
At the road Yeah, at the Rock and Wall Hall
of Fame in Cleveland, wannabes or scholars yeah, well not scholars,
but the people that were there. So in the nineties

(09:08):
there was one and another one in the outs, and
I got to participate as a panelist talking about Janiss legacy, etcetera.
But really I was a student. I got to meet
her brother and sister who, um, we really hit it off.
I also got to meet Sam Andrew was still alive
for guitarists from Big Brother chet Helm's The Guy who
Family Don't started the avalon who really is the guy

(09:31):
that got Janis? At San Francisco not once, but twice
in sixty three and again in sixty six. Jerry Ragavoy,
who was her favorite songwriter that wrote a lot of
her great hits, was there. So I was learning more
and more about her and just became, you know, fascinated.
But so, when did you hear the unreleased tapes that

(09:53):
was in around I think it was around twenty twelve
something like that. Already been going to these conferences, Yes,
I had just been, you know, a student, because I'm
you know, I'm a general. Are you are you a
student of other things? You're going to other conferences? Yes,
I love I'm a conference junkie. Well, it used to

(10:15):
be called the e MP conference. Now it's called MoPOP
in Seattle, which has been going since two thousand two.
That's a great one. I try to go to that
every year. So what what have you learned there? Oh? Gosh,
what have I not learned? Because it goes all through
like every genre going back to I've learned about artists
that I like Eva Tingay. I think her name is

(10:35):
who is this? Do you know her name? I know
the name? The music? Yeah, just people go down the
rabbit hole at these conferences. And each year there's a theme,
so it'll be everything from you know, drag. Last year
it was death so perfect for Janas. How many people go? Um? Gosh,
you know, it lasts about four days and there's lots
and lots of you should go. Bobby would love it.

(10:57):
UM and it's people and it's not just academics. It's
UM fans, fancy and writers, musicians, the great John Langford,
the me cons and the Wakeer Brothers has been part
of it. Um they have. They've had Janelle Mone, they
had Solomon Burke. They'll have a keynote a lot of times,
a musician, Um the tune smith woman I'm blanking on

(11:19):
her or anyway, how many of these do you go
to in a year? Um? See, I go to that
when I go to the Americana Conference in Nashville. I
used to go to south By Southwest every year and
always do panels for that, and that was really fun.
And again I saw amazing like Harold Bradley and Holly Yeah,
it's just kind of it's too big now. Um, so

(11:40):
American is kind of stepping up to the plate now.
And so you can actually see like Tanya Tucker, you know,
talk Okay, So you're going to these panels, you hear
the tapes, you write the liner notes, when do you
decide you want to write a book? Well, I was
able to talk to the siblings who control Anas. We

(12:01):
were talking just because you're interested or in the back
of your mind to do something with this, I know,
totally not thinking of doing something. But my literary agent,
who was a wonderful person who actually has been She
worked at Rolling Stone going back to the what's her name?
Her name is Sarah Lason and she reps lots of

(12:21):
rock writers, been functorus and you know Robert christcal and
how did you get hooked up with her? Well, because
one of my first jobs when I first moved to
New York City, and besides waiting tables after graduating college
with my policy English double major. Was I got a
job as a fact checker at Rolling Stone Press. Well,
you know, they wish they still had that. Of course,

(12:42):
is the books, not the magazine that they had a
fact director would help their image. Yeah, definitely. So my
first job, Bob, I think it was like five bucks
an hour. It was fact checking the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia
of Rock and Roll, which of course I owned, Yes,
And I got to meet all these guys pretty much.
They're all guys who I had read as a kid
reading Rolling Stone, like you know, Dave marsh and different people.

(13:03):
And then my job was like calling up question Mark
of question Mark and the Mysterious and saying, is it
true that you know you're really from Mars? And did
did you know whatever? Davidout him in the sycopo. I
have to ask, how did you get the job? Was
it that easy? Just you know, you have to know
somebody because I am a rock and roll geek, Bob,
and I obsessively always read rock and roll books. A

(13:26):
friend of mine who I met at American Baby Magazine,
where I also had a job, and you know, of
course I was a long way from having kids or
anything like that. But um she went to work for
Rolling Stone and was Sarah Layson's assistant. Sarah was the
director of the book division, and she knew I was
this rock and roll geek. They needed a fact checker.
I got to go in for the interview, and this

(13:48):
wonderful woman, Patti Romanowski, who has written. She went on
to write a lot of co authorships with um Otis
Williams of The Temptations, which now they've made that book
into the Broadway musical. She did dream Girls, and Mary
was anyway, she was the person hiring and we just
started talking about our favorite rock and roll books and
I was just geeking out with her. She's like, you
got the job, so perfect work for you. Let's stop

(14:11):
there for a second, especially in the Me Too era
and a second wave of feminism, shall we say, who
are the unsung women writers in music who need to
get more attention? Ellen Sander number, of course I love
her writing and for the Yeah, and well that's Ellen

(14:31):
Willis right, right, right, I hear from Ellen sand Yeah.
Ellen died a few years ago, and she she was
definitely the most intellectual, culturally anthropological, anthropological kind of rock
critic who I mean she was amazing, and of course
reading her on Janice, her reviews of Janis at the
Film or East and the New York Are are just

(14:53):
mind blowing. But my last book, you know, was on
Alex Chilton. She was a big box tops fans, Kay Sander.
She lives in May, Yeah, yeah, she lived in Her
book Trips was amazing, which is a collection. I think
she wrote for different magazines and she went on the
road with different bands. Um. And she actually reviewed a
lot of Janice concerts in New York back in the day.

(15:15):
And Woodstock of course. Um, her writing on Woodstock is great.
So both of those two jan you Helski, who was
that Cream magazine? Um, who was an incredible writer. And
I think she's actually working on a dock now about Cream,
but I think she was there in the late sixties. Yeah, definitely.

(15:36):
So those are three right there. And are these people
you have regular contact with? Is there a fraternity or
shall I say a sorority of women music writers? Well,
those women I kind of put on a pedestal, so
I'm like a gushy fangirl um around them. But um,
as far as other women go, it's, you know, there

(15:56):
is kind of I would say, for the most part,
it is a very cool, supportive group of women. There's
a great book called Women Who Rock, edited by Evelyn
mcde mc nodal, who is out here in California, and
Evelyn got a lot of different women writers to do
essays on different women artists, again across the genre spectrum.
I wrote a piece on Patsy Klein, for example. Then

(16:18):
she got all women illustrators to do portraits of the
subjects and that book came out last year. And Evelyn,
who teaches also out here, was really careful to include
a lot of new, up and coming young women writers
as well as us. You know, heggs have been out
there doing it forever. So so it's it's great to
get to meet all these different women writers who had

(16:40):
this passion for rock and roll. Okay, so you have
the agent and you were telling a story of how
this book came to be. Yes, so my agent Sarah
Lays and new Laura Joplin and actually was her agent
when she did a book that was basically a memoir
with um referencing lots of letters at Janice wrote home
and so she intruduce us to us, and she kind

(17:01):
of paved the way for me to get to know uh,
you know, Laura and Michael Joplin and then also Jeff
jam Paul you probably know of course who represents yes exactly.
And so we all hit it off and they but
your agent was basically pitching a book. Well she was
kind of interfacing. I mean this, Bob, this took like

(17:23):
many years. The first conversation I think was long before
I started working on the Alex Chilton book, which was
in so I would say in like the late audits,
like around two thousand eight or so, essentially ten years. Yeah,
So it was just conversations. This. How long after your
agents started looking you up with these people, did you

(17:44):
actually have a go or get a deal? Probably? You know,
like gosh, I would say, um, you know, like about
six years or something. And this was us conversing back
and forth deciding how could we do this? Uh. I
gave them other books. I My first biography was of
Gene Autry, the Great Singing Cowboy, who also his widow

(18:06):
Jackie Autrey, had opened up her vaults and files and
all of his personal archives to me. Again, I will
only do a book like this if I have complete
editorial control over what I'm doing so the estate or
the airs have to realize that they I would love
for them to share all this incredible information with me.

(18:27):
It's in these archives, but I can't give them any
kind of control ever what I write, and you end
up getting into battles. Uh No, not really. I mean
I think they trust me and they know that I am, like,
I really, really dedicated to try to tell the story
as accurately as possible, and to try to make it

(18:48):
you know, all the different facets of someone. So have
you ever written a book and then have the person
argue with you or be disenchanted because you've got something
wrong or you had an opinion they're not comfortable with. Well,
not the actual people who um, I mean, some of
them disagree with the conclusions I draw. For example, Jackie Autrey,
she still believes that Geane Autrey met Will Rogers in

(19:11):
a telegraph office and he said, son, you should be
doing more than just running this, you know, telegraph for
the railroad. You should be a Hollywood star or whatever,
which I did tons of geeky research and found out
that that could not have taken place because when Will
Rogers died, etcetera. And so I have to depose this
incredible myth like the John Ford don't you know, don't

(19:32):
you know print the legend, you know, kind of thing
that didn't really happen. And she, you know, because I
think Jeane Autrey for himself, actually began to believe the
story that a press agent created that he was discovered
by Will Rogers, when in reality, the press agent created
that totally. Okay, So she disagreed with that, but we
agreed to disagree. Okay. So this book, unlike a lot

(19:53):
of music books, is with one of the biggest publishers
in the nation, that Simon and Schuster. How did that
come together? I just really lucked out. UM. The guy
who was the head of UM. I guess Simon and
Schuster is a guy who I worked with a long
time ago when I was doing books at Rolling Stone
because I ended up going back to Rolling Stone after

(20:14):
being a fact checker. I ended up going back there
in the early nineties and re igniting the book division again.
So I worked with him on some of this person's
his name, Okay, you know, we're we're, we're, you know,
having a senior moment. But then my editor, Priscilla Painton,
who is this wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster. She's

(20:39):
the one that I went and met with. She really
got it, and she was not a typical music book editor.
She does a lot of their political books, a lot
of their you know, big So you make the deal
Simon and Schuster, as they say, Simon Schuster, Random House,
these are like the biggest companies. Is the deal lucrative?
Uh well, let's just put it this way. Janice was

(21:01):
much more lucrative than Salally Jeane Autrey was. And this
way you're writing writing a book on Janice Joplin. Theoretically,
with the advance, could you live a year and do
nothing else? Uh? Not if you have a son that's
in college. Okay, Okay, we got my general idea. Okay,
so the book is like I teach also and I

(21:22):
still write. You know, let's stay with Janice for a second. Okay.
So there's been a number of books about Janice. I
remember in seventy four vividly remember reading this book in Jackson,
Wyoming and a diner, the Myra Friedman book. Yes, I
read that book of any good you know, I totally

(21:43):
bought that book lock Stock and Barrel. It really formed
my opinion of Janice, which is part of the reason
why I wanted to do my book because now in retrospect,
looking back, I realized Mayra Friedman, who was her publicist,
worked for Albert Grossman, her manager, and truly loved Janice.
You know, we're old enough now, Bob, that we've lost people,
and we know the effect that has on you when

(22:05):
you lose someone, especially at tragic death like Janice is
you're angry at that person. And now, looking back, I
think that the portrait, my opinion, was very inaccurate. She
made Janice seem like this tragic figure who was just
just kind of um in this morass of you know,

(22:26):
sadness and insecurity and just very neurotic and and all
that kind of thing. She I think it was very
one dimensional portrait of her, and it was she was
just too close to her subject, and I think she
was really bitterly upset about her loss, so her anger
came out and the way she cast okay, So you know,

(22:48):
that's the one I read. How many books are their
biography of Janice? L um gosh what some of them
are no longer in print. Forget that they're not would
say like about six or something like that. Okay, So
this is not a subject that has not been covered. Okay,
so the question becomes, uh, why what do you think

(23:10):
you can add or what is your goal in writing
the book? I wanted to show Janice as a musician.
I wanted to show her as you know, the real
Janis Joplin, who persisted, who overcame so many obstacles to
pursue her ambitions to be the greatest, you know. I

(23:30):
mean she told Paul Rothschild when he said where do
you want to be? At age fifty? And this was
when she was, you know, horribly twenty seven, she said,
I want to be as good as a blue singer
as Bessie Smith was, you know. She it was all
about perfecting her craft, learning more, you know, getting better,
you know, continuing to work hard at this. And I

(23:51):
think that part of Janice's life, and that part of
her story has never really been told. Okay, let's go
back to Port Arthur, because you began there. What were
the circumstances of her upbringing? Well, it's an interesting story.
She was very beloved by her parents. She was basically
an only child until age six when her sister Laura
came along. So her parents doated on her, but they

(24:12):
were quite different people. You know, they came from you know,
difficult backgrounds themselves. And the mom was, you know, wanted
Janis to have the white picket fins, the perfect life,
you know, the typical fifties kind of middle class life.
And Janis was born in forty three. The father was
Janie called him a secret intellectual. His name with Seth Joplin.

(24:33):
And he had a mid level management job at Texico
then called the Texas Company. You know, the whole town
was all oil distilleries and refineries, et cetera, and um.
He came home from work, listened to Bach, loved classical music,
was a huge reader of philosophy, history. Every Saturday, he
took Janice to the library and that she said, you know,

(24:56):
in my family, as soon as you could write your name,
you got a library card. And old in her love
of book books. But also he was an atheist. Her
mom was a evangelical, you know, Christian, you know, very
religious woman. Janice started singing soprano and the church choir
as a kid, you know, was baptized by immersion, you know,
that whole thing. But the father never went to church.

(25:17):
He was an atheist, and so the father particularly kind
of instilled in Janice, um, you know, a quest for knowledge,
to think outside the box. The mother also really was
a great singer, had been a singer as a teenager
in Amarillo, Texas, and started teaching Janice how to sing

(25:37):
when she was like three years old, how to play piano.
So there was some music in the house. And they
discovered a Janice that she had this artistic talent. She
was a quite good painter, and so they started buying
her you know, paints and easels and everything when she
was you know, quite young and all that. So they
really supported her artistic endeavors. Now, Janice read On the

(26:01):
Road by Caro wac when it came out, and that
changed her life. Fifty oh, all the Carol people are
gonna kill me. I think it was fifty seven, Okay,
So but at that point she's already fourteen. Y yeah,
she was fourteen. She was fourteen years old. So yuh.
Going back to her growing up, She's an elementary school.

(26:22):
She a member of the group, she a leader, She
an outcasts what issue see, I think, Bob the reason
she you know, famously had this horrible situation by the
end of her high school year where she was completely bullied, ostracized, etcetera.
And I think she took it so to heart because
she was, you know, barely popular. She had friends, she
was in the Slide Rule Club. She you know, made

(26:45):
pep Rally posters. I mean, she was a typical girl.
You can see all this in her scrap book. She's
got her little crinoline you know, swatches of crinoline's and
fabrics that her mom's made her, all these dresses and everything.
And she was very raw, raw teen spirit kind of girl.
But reading Caroac, meeting these guys who were a year
older than she was who set her on her path

(27:07):
to listening to Lead belly Um. She discovered Odetta through them,
Jeane Ritchie the grade to Appalachian folkusinger and started discovering
other ways of thinking and moving away from that traditional
Texas football culture, which you know, football rules in Texas.
And she started moving away from that and sneaking across

(27:28):
the river and going to Louisiana at night with the
Carlatto Boys to hear um swamp Rock Louisiana from Port
It's well, it's very close because Port Arthur's right on
the Gulf there, so it's right across the river and so,
you know, maybe forty five minutes and hey, you know
this was a m radio was still great then too,

(27:50):
so this was like they caught it doing the the triangle.
They would drive from Port Arthur to Beaumont, Texas, you
know where some great blues came out of Ivory Joe Hunter,
et cetera. To Orange listening to the radio and picking
up some black stations, hearing some R and B. Janice
was so obsessed with it she would go and try
to meet the DJs. There was a guy named Stevo,

(28:11):
the night Rider. She would go and say, oh, can
I get your coffee? She and her girlfriend would go
up and visit the DJs at night. She was just
she's in high school. She starts living a somewhat bohemian lifestyle,
shall we say, well, as much as could be living
at home as a teenager. But my question is it's like,
you know, I went and Ray Dat's on a Storyteller album,

(28:32):
has a song, you know his art chicks, you know, babe.
My point is I went to high school and remember
the art people, they were a separate click. So at
this point in high school. Is she a separate click
or is it still all homogeneous? It was pretty homogeneous,
except for there was these four or five guys that
were a great ahead of her who she started hanging

(28:54):
out with, and she was almost like their little mascot
or whatever. And also she started school at a very
young a skipped a grade, so she was about a
year and a half younger than most of the kids
in her actual grade level. Okay, there's a famous story
where I believe she's voted best looking guys or something. Okay,

(29:15):
by the time she you know, she had so many adventures.
Beginning at age eighteen, she hit chiked out to San
Franciscoco from l A, where she was living in Venice
for a little while because she dropped out of college. Anyway,
she was back. She goes to Texas, to Austin, Texas,
to ut and that's when she first starts. Yeah, and
that's when she first performs for audiences in a little

(29:37):
group called the Waller Creek Boys, which was again this
little bohemian group of guys, a few women, but mostly
guys who lived in a place called the Ghetto, this
rundown apartment building in Austin, and of course they were
very different because this was nineteen sixty two and most
of the girls were buffon hair dues, a little cinched
waist shirt, dresses, bobby socks. Janice was wearing like an

(29:58):
oversized men hurt with blue jeans or else the black turtlenecks.
She was often barefooted, and she had that amazing voice already,
and she was applying it to these records that she
had discovered by blues artists. The Waller Creek Boys were
mainly doing kind of folky um when he got three
ish kind of stuff bluegrass. So they started blending all

(30:19):
these sounds and they started performing on campus and then
at this great place thread Gills, which fortunately still exists,
and building this audience. In the meantime, Janice was, as
the kids say today, polyamorous. Um. She already was having
flings with both men and women, and she didn't try
to hide it, and um, she really stuck out. There

(30:40):
was actually an article written about her in the Texas
the University of Texas newspaper called she Dares to be Different.
So she was becoming kind of known around the campus.
And every year this fraternity would have a fundraiser The
ugliest man on campus contest, so you would have to
pay you know, ten bucks to nominate someone nominated Janice

(31:01):
and it was just heartbreaking for her. Um she did
not win a linebacker for the football team one but
still just you know, very just hard. Was insecure about
her look. She was yeah, and um she you know,
I think she was a beautiful woman. And so it's
weird to me to see how people singled out her

(31:22):
body parts and her appearance. Even when she was getting
huge as a star. Um, people would talk about her
being playing or I think in Vogue magazine they said
her her complexion was like pizza or so. I mean,
it's like sickening the way that the media would cover
women and take this to heart. She bothered by all
those negative information when she wasn't drinking or doing drugs.

(31:47):
I think she was bothered by it. Okay, so you
see he dropped on a school the first time. Yeah,
where was she going the first time? She first went
to um Lamar Tech, which was kind of the school
where most of the kids from Now it was a

(32:07):
regular university, but it was where you went to be
to get a job in the petroleum business. And where
and then she did you know, wherever she went, she
found a small little group of you know, outside the
box people, So she found that in Beaumont. Then she
ended up dropping out back in Port Arthur and she
took business classes. If she was quite the good stenographer

(32:29):
um and typeest, her mom demanded that she go to
business college in Port Arthur, so she got a little
certificate for that. Then her mom sent her out to
live in l a with her aunts who lived out
in Los Angeles. She wanted to be a beat nick
as I said, this was sixty one, she was eighteen.
So she ends up in Venice, living there for a

(32:49):
little while, goes to San Francisco, hitchhiking by herself, checking
out the North Beach scene, whatever, runs out of money,
takes a bus back to Port Arthur, and then she
ends up discovering the scene in Austin. So that's when
she went to college in Austin. She went there for
the summer session in the fall session, how does she
end up back on the West coast. Well, that horrible

(33:11):
incident occurred with her poster of her dominated for Auglass
Mental Campus, and she had met Chet Helms, who was
a former UT student who had been traveling around doing
the Caro Wac thing and had been living out in
San Francisco. He heard her sing, and he's like, you're
gonna knock their socks off in San Francisco because North
Beach had a cafe scene, coffeehouse scene where people were

(33:34):
doing folk music, some a little bit of blues. So
in sixty three, a week after her twentieth birthday, she
and Chet hitchhiked from Austin to San Francisco. Okay, just
to be clear, was Chet living in San Francisco previously?
Or did he go out with Janice? He had been
kind of living there for a little while. He had
been traveling around, you know, doing the whole on the road.

(33:55):
Did Was there a romantic relationship there? No, they were
just platonic good friends. She really believed in her to
San Francisco. Yeah, well, she did not stick around. She
did not want to be managed. She wanted to be
an independent agent. They basically stayed for a few nights
at David Freiberg's place, clashed on his floor, Quicksilver and

(34:16):
Ultimate right and uh he uh he, and Chat took
her down to Coffee and Confusion, a coffee house North
Beach where she did an open mic night, and of
course that voice just knocked people knocked their socks off,
just like Chat said. So she pretty much started getting
little gigs, playing at the coffee house, Circle Circuit. She
went out to um like San Jose. She met your

(34:39):
Mcalchinan at like an open mic night, and they both
loved the blues. I mean, most of these people were
doing kind of more the folks stuff. They loved singing, singing. No,
I mean, you know, five bucks a night for money,
she's scraping by. She's sleeping in people's floors. I mean,
she has no infrastructure, no support. Um, it's really not

(35:05):
really okay. So is she just in the moment or
does she have a dream of making it? Atte She
has a dream of making it, that's the thing. Even
though she was living like a down and out beat nick,
you know, on the streets, she still had this dream
of making it. And people immediately recognized her talent. And
she was nothing like the Janna Stop and we picture today,

(35:26):
you know, the whole San Francisco freak rock. And then
her later stuff she was doing. She had already started
writing songs. She was doing her own stuff. She was
sometimes accompanying herself with auto harp. She really wanted to
learn to play guitar so she could learn how to
back herself. So she started learning guitar. Gotta you know,
pawn shop guitar and stuff, and um, she was making

(35:47):
some noise. People were interested in her, but she was
a very you know, she had was living a very
unsettled existence. Okay, is Big Brother her first band? Or
does she go through a few iterations with other people? Well,
she had had the Waller Creek Boy, but she had
never had electric Okay, So basically this whole blues singer
thing lasted almost three or. She actually ended up coming

(36:08):
to New York City the summer of sixty four and
trying to make it there and ended up making most
of her money as a pool shark. She was a
great pool player, so she was like beating all these
guys at pool and that's pretty much how she got back. Suddenly,
she went back to San Francisco, tried to make it
the end, but horribly, she'd picked up a really nasty
drug habit. She got addicted to methamphetamine, which was very

(36:32):
prevalent in San Francisco and New York at that period,
and she ended up getting down eighty eight pounds, I mean,
really facing death. Her friends put her on a Greyhound
back to Port Arthur Ve. She was back in Texas
for a year. Cleaned up, Irrat went back to school,
back to Lamar as a commuter this time. But now
she was trying to do the you know, campus co

(36:54):
ed thing. But the music was gnawing at her. She
really she could not stop doing. Is that she was
writing songs. She wrote Turtle Blues then, which was on
cheap Thrills. She started doing little gigs again, um in
Houston where Towns van Zandt was performing. Guy Clark was
hanging out. Then, So how did she get back to
San Francisco. She ended up getting gigs in Austin because

(37:16):
of you know, doing her shows again. And chet Helms
was now fully entrenched in this so the you know,
cool scene, the counterculture happening in San Francisco with the
family dog the Avalon Ballroom. He was managing big brother
in the holding company. They decided they wanted a chick
singer doing those little yes and so he's like, I know,

(37:38):
the perfect girl now. Peter Alban, the bass player, the
founder of the band who was doing most of the
vocals had actually seen Janice back in her blues singing
folky days, um, you know, on the on that scene,
so he remembered she had a great voice. So they
sent an emissary, a mutual friend from San Francisco, who
drove to Austin and absconded with Janice and she you know,

(38:00):
and tell her parents. You know, they were horrified and
just petrified that she was gonna end up in a
bad situation again like she had before with the speaker.
So how long did she play with Big Brother before
they make the mainstream deal? She was very briefly. She
got there in June of sixty six. They immediately bonded. Um.

(38:20):
She was just one of the guys in the in
the beginning, you know, she only sang maybe three or
four songs the set as the lead singer. Everybody contributed material,
everybody took turn singing lead, except for day of the
drummer and Um. Interestingly enough, Paul Rothschild came into the picture.
He was working for Jack Holsman and Electra and they
had the idea of putting together a supergroup and putting

(38:41):
together they heard Janice, you know, and again no one
knew her and she was just part of Big Brother.
They had heard her vocals and it was gonna be
Taj Mahal, the great guitarist, Stephen Grossman, Janice Um. They
wanted to put them together record an album for Electra, etcetera.
So Janice almost quit Big Brother and like the end
of the summer, you know, like July August of sixty

(39:02):
six to do join this venture because it promised more
success than Big Brother, because they were still pretty crazy.
Cacophon is you know, freak rock. Okay, So they got
the deal with Mainstream. The great song down on Me
is there, but that's in an era certainly when being
on an independent label you're a second class citizen. Well
and plus the label just didn't get this. They wanted

(39:25):
to try to cash in on the San Francisco sound,
and Bob Chad, who ran the label, had great ears.
He had worked with Carmen McCrae. He was mainly a
jazz producer, had been in the business for a long time,
but he wanted to get on what the kids are doing.
So they were actually marooned in Chicago, big Brother in
the holding company. They had a month long residency at
this club. Mother Blues, which was a disaster. People like

(39:47):
what you know, they're like, what are these freaky people doing?
You know, they're horrible And they were having to play
three sets tonight, no money, barely getting by. So Bob
Chad offers them this deal, which was a really bad deal.
Now chat Helms was no longer their manager. They fired
him because they thought he was too busy with the
avalon and given not giving them any attention. So they

(40:08):
had no manager to without a manager, and it was
without a lawyer. Uh the lawyer was provided by Bob
shadd by Mainstream. So it was a horrible deal. And
also worst of all was that, you know the engineer.
They did the first recordings right there in Chicago. They
didn't even get an advance. They thought they would get
an advanced so they'd have the money to get back

(40:29):
to San Francisco. They couldn't get home. They were stuck there.
How long after that did they played the Monterey Poff
Festoral That was in June of sixty seven, This is
like August September of sixty six. As the band stayed
together for nine months. Well, they finally got back they
did when it remember drive away cars, Okay, so they
got a drive away car got back. The good thing

(40:50):
about that bad situation was they were having to try
to win over these people that were appalled by their music,
and that really pushed Janis to develop this incredible stage
presence even more than she was already doing with the
loving audiences that they had at the at the Avalon,
So she was really pushing herself. They were really expanding
the repertoire. They had to do three sets a night,

(41:10):
so it really helped her, you know, hone her skills.
She was also a really good percussionist. Dave Gets, the drummer,
told me she really took She was playing that um
all kinds of percussion instruments at Girton all that, so
she was really improving her chops. So by the time
they got back to San Francisco, thanks were really moving
along with the whole counterculture. Um. You know, one of

(41:31):
the first music fanzines was you know, writing about them.
Jerry Garcia was telling people what a great singer Janity.
I was not aware of the mainstream albuntil after She
Thrills was released. Well that's because it was rushed out
after they were at Monterey Pop UM, so we didn't
even come out. Yeah, they put out singles because you know,
Bob the paradigm was still the whole am radio singles

(41:53):
driven market. So they released two singles um on mainstream,
which you know, a rarecle actables if you can find them.
And so again Janice wasn't even featured on the first single,
Harley Down on Me Find was the second single of them,
recalling correctly, um, but the album didn't come out until
after moderate. Yeah, so they're at Monterey Pop. The legend

(42:16):
is that Clive Davis was there and became enamored and
signed them. Is that the truth? Well, what happened was
no one had really heard of Janice. A few people
had heard of Big Brother, but they were mainly known
in the Bay Area. Okay, So they had a Saturday
early afternoon slot on the Heart because, um, you know,

(42:37):
Adler lew Adler and John Phillips really wanted to have
kind of credibility that this was a cool festival. So
they wanted the cool San Francisco bands who were very
suspicious of these slick l A guys and the slick
music because it was, you know, the counterculture thing. And
so that's how they came kind of in a package
was like Grateful Dead and you know some other bands

(42:59):
from the Bay Area, Jefferson Airplane. So they have an
early Saturday movie afternoon. Yeah, yeah, because they were the
least known you know, the Dead, Yeah, something like that.
And so the deal was that um ABC TV had
given the producers of Monterey Pop a deal to do
a made for TV movie and they had brilliantly hired

(43:20):
d A. Pina Baker, the late great documentarian who you
know worked with Dylan et cetera. So he was filming this.
Now the San Francisco people, being suspicious of their ulterior motives,
refused to sign the release so their sets could not
be filmed. Well, Janice and Big Brother went out and

(43:41):
just killed I mean people were I mean to use
the brit term gobs match by the same to the
movie doesn't come out until the year after which, yeah, yeah, exactly.
So d A. Pina Baker was like, I don't We've
got to film this woman they have, We've got to film,
you know, the famous shot of Mama Cass's face. And
that was the only thing that was the only thing

(44:02):
they were able to film. They couldn't film the band.
So so Big Brother said no to the filming, correct,
as did the Dead and others. Okay. So they had
a manager at this point who had been a Mary
prankster with Ken Kiss, Julius Carpin, okay, and so he
was very like, forget it. You know they're gonna rip

(44:22):
us off, don't you can't do it. So this huge
fight happens because the producers say to Janus and Big Brother,
we will give you another time slot. You'll be the
under only band to play twice if you let us
film you for the movie. And so of course Janice, yes, yes, yes,
we gotta do what we gotta do it. Albert Grossman
is there because some of his clients, Mike Bloomfield and

(44:43):
Paul Butterfield run the bill. He was there. I mean,
everybody was floored. Clive Davis in the audience, everybody was
blown away by what they saw that Saturday afternoon first,
the first one, and so they were finally convinced to
play again on Sunday evening, like around dusk. Who did
you know who they followed? I do know, but it's

(45:05):
kind of been a cock webs, right, but but they yeah,
they go on and again they killed and you know
I think this time they only did like a three
song set, or they ended with the amazing version of
Ball and Chain that Janie and Janie and the band
had gone and seen Big Mama Thornton, who, by the way,
Janie had discovered as a teenager, you know when when

(45:28):
Big Mama recorded for Houston Labels and did the original
hound Dog, which Janice loved. So they saw her do
Ball and Chain, went backstage, met her, learned the song
and you know, hence we have So they killed there
in their filmed How do their business arrangements, Well, what
happened was so many music writers were there. Every music

(45:49):
writer in the country was there. Everybody went nuts over Janice.
She was in the headlines and it suddenly elevated, you know,
her stature and suddenly, I mean, it really affected the
democratic dynamic of the band. But in the meantime, different
labels started coming to call. They were locked into this
horrible deal with Mainstream five year contract, you know, really bad,

(46:14):
like no, you know, teeny little percentage of royalties. They
hadn't seen any money from the singles. Mainstream will not
release them from the contracts. So they're getting despairing about that.
Um so Eventually what happens is they end up having
a falling out with their you know, hippie manager because
he again was very suspicious of business practices. Anyway, they
end up signing with Albert Gross want them. He wanted Janice.

(46:40):
You know, he loved Janice. He was blown away by
her voice and they really had a meeting of the
minds too. I mean he became like a father figure
to her, you know. So they signed with Albert how
long after the pop festival? Um see, the pop festival
was in June, so I think around November something like that.
They ended up firing Julius and aetting him, and then

(47:01):
he started to the negotiation and negotiations with Clive Davis,
newly president of Columbia, who was able to come up
with a huge amount of money to buy them out
of their contract. Was there any other label involved? It
wasn't always Columbia, but there were some others that were interested.
But and even initially the first offer from Columbia wasn't huge.

(47:22):
But this was again, you know, nineteen sixty seven, and
they think it was like two fifty thousand dollars to
buy out the contract, which in ninety seven dollars was
a ton of money, and so they ended up at
this point the mainstream record had come out, and you know,
Big Brother refused to even promote the record. They told

(47:42):
everybody it was terrible, you know, as a cash in
kind of deal. And actually, I like, I enjoyed listening
to that. Legend is when the deal is signed, Janice
says that she and Clive should have sex to cement
the deal. Is that apocryphal or true? That's Clive story.
I would not doubt it though. Um I think Albert
Grossman actually mentioned something about it as well. So Janice

(48:07):
love to uh, you know, she loved to share experiences
with people, so she was not averse to ceiling deals
with with flesh. Okay, let's go talk about cheap thrills.
UM Ultimately was a live album cut in the studio,
the version that we hear on the record, No, not really, Okay,

(48:30):
that's how much was the album worked on before we
got the version that came out a ton and again
they this They were working with John Simon, who knew Grossman.
Grossman Ultimately, Yeah, he had already done the band album
which got them signed. UM. He had produced their demos.

(48:50):
He produced Leonard Cohen. You know, he was an amazing producer,
but he and big brother, the Holding company, were on
the opposite end of this. Back from as far as
the statics go. He it was terrible to them in
the studio. He undermined their confidence. He you know, I
know you love his book and everything, but he really

(49:11):
browbeated them. Is that a word browbeated anyway? Okay, okay,
So they you know, they were losing confidence in their
own ability. They were a great live band, and they
really communicated with their audiences, you know, at the a
blond ballroom in film or et cetera. But in the
studio and it's sterile environment, it was not working and

(49:32):
they were messing up. And now Janis, on the other hand,
she killed in the studio. She was a pro. Things
wouldn't get to her. She would just keep going and
going and going, and in fact, I find it kind
of funny. John criticized John Simon criticized her for being
inauthentic because she could redo a vocal part perfectly note
to note exactly the way she had just done it

(49:53):
before what we hear released LP. Was it one long
session or did they start with many, many, many many,
many many sessions in New York. No, no, no, Um,
they ended up moving out doing them out here in
Los Angeles, um prime at the Columbias. These were back
in the days where and you had to use the engineers,

(50:13):
the union engineers and all that kind of stuff. So
they only I think, ended up cutting two songs in
the New York And some of those sessions you can
see because Pinna Baker wanted to make a documentary about Janis,
so he filmed um some of the sessions, so you
can see some of that footage and see what the
dynamic was like in the studio. Was very fraught, but
Janice loved being in the studio and just ate it up.

(50:35):
Took to it so that most of it was recorded
out in l A. And most of those tracks are
completely um splice. You know, this is the day of
cutting tape spliced together, many many different takes of vocal
part here, instrumental part there, blah blah blah. Whose decision
was to make it a full live album? Um well,
I think originally the the I don't think, I know.

(50:59):
Originally they wanted to make a live album, so they
first tried to record at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit,
which was kind of the Detroit version of the Avalon
and they were on sadly a double bill with the
hometown heroes m C five, who were freaking killer live okay,
and who were up to prove that they were better
than anybody, right, So just nominated for the rock and

(51:21):
roll Yeah for about the fifth time, I think, so
maybe this is the charm, fifth times the charm. But anyway, um,
so they were kind of not on their game big
brother in the holding company, and again Janice always pulled
it off, so she sounded great, but there were a
lot of flubs with the band and they were under
all this pressure. So they came back to New York.

(51:42):
They sat down in Grossman's office. He played they had
a remote recording there, and they were like, listen, all
these mistakes. This is terrible, and you, Sam Andrew, you
should play bass and somebody should play you know, just criticised.
I mean, really they're poor confidences. Oh yeah, And the
same thing with Columbia. So that next at what point

(52:03):
was it decided the studio recordings would have elements added
so that it would appear live. I think because that
was really the aesthetic of big brother than the Honing Company.
Was that live band? You know? Okay, so the album
is an immediate splash. Did they anticipate that, Yeah, it's
shipped gold well, I think because there had been a
lot of hype about Janice and um about the band,

(52:25):
and they had come out to for the They didn't
play in on the East Coast until they came out
in February sixty eight for their very first ever shows.
They played at colleges like Wesleyan University and ris Dy
in places like that, mostly a lot of colleges and
started getting a following, and the press just went nuts.
You know. So what's the process of firing the band?

(52:47):
It was very painful, and again, Janice Choplin was nothing
but fearless. She was driven, driven to be the musician,
to move, keep moving forward and evolving as a musician.
She could not stay stuck in a rut and she
felt like the band wasn't moving Okay, But the way

(53:08):
the legend goes is those surrounding her never mind the press.
I remember the press of the time said the band
was not as good as she was, and they were untogether.
Was it she wanted to fire the band or was it.
Everybody around her said, convinced her they gotta go. I
think it was a combination. Bob, I'm sure Grossman Um.
You know he was always um criticizing the band. And

(53:32):
you know, Clive Davis told me that he tried to
stay out of that. And in fact, early on he
Clive wanted it to be Janis Choplin with Big Brother
the Holding Company on cheap thrill. She said, absolutely not.
This is a band, same thing, Bill Graham. They were
the first band. They played the first night of the
film or East in New York. He wanted the Marquis
Janis Choplin. Absolutely not. I mean, she wanted it to

(53:54):
stay this communal. Okay, so they fire, she fires the band,
but she didn't fire them. She just said she was
leaving the band. She was gonna go. And and I
mean she loved those guys. I mean, Bob, after all
the horrible things that happened to her, you know that
hurt her own confidence and helped her, you know, made

(54:14):
her be insecure. They gave her so much confidence. They
were her first real family, this tribe. I mean, they
lived together and lag Anita's say, you know, they squabbled
like siblings. But there was love among them, and she
loved them, but she knew that they were doing their
thing and she wanted to do other things. She wanted
a horn. She was inurve with Otis Redding. She wave.

(54:38):
Did she talk to them again? Oh? Yeah, they toured
she this was at the beginning. This was she told
them right before they did a show with the Staple
Singers at Fillmore East that she was going to do
this huge tour. I mean, they had a very book
tour to promote the album. She was going to do
the tour and then um, in December she would be leaving.
This all came down. They played the Newport Folk Festival,

(55:01):
which people loved. Grossman again. Uh, the rhythm seption was
really off, you know, and I told them that right
in front of you know, Rick Danko and Levin Helmer's.
You know, they were just mortified. So it was right
after that when she quit. But she said I'm gonna
do the rest. She left in December of six. So
now we ultimately get the album. I got them Old

(55:23):
Cosmic Blues again, Mama Okay, which had the great single
Try had incredible players, but externally looked like it really
wasn't a success, you know. But you know what, Bob,
You know, I grew up, you know, reading all the
rock critics, so I never even gave that record the
time of day. I went back to it, you know,

(55:44):
I don't know, twenty years ago whatever, and it's a
freaking great record. But my different question is inside the
camp Janice Clive Albert, did they think it was success
or did they want something better? What happened was there
was a huge backlash against Janice because she dared to
leave the boy band behind and do her own thing.

(56:07):
She was accused of selling out. Going show biz Paul
Nelson famously wrote this scathing article this portrait rolling Stone,
painting her as this neurotic mess, and its title was
Janice Choplin the next Judy Garland. No, I'm sorry, Rocks,
Judy got the Judy Garland of rock. That was the
exact thing that Judy Garland. Judy, of course died a
few months, so she was really castigated by former champions.

(56:31):
Even the great Ralph Gleason, who had loved her, said
she should drop this band and go go crawling back
to Big Brother if they'll have her, you know, stuff
like that. So then how is it decided that she's
going to work with Paul Rothstow. Well, what happened was
she had been working NonStop. She immediately segued from being
one of the guys and big brother to being the
band leader of what was later called Cosmic Blues on

(56:54):
the road NonStop, and really within sixty nine, that Cosmic
Blues experience really took her to the top as far
as that's when she did ed Sullivan. That's when she
toured Europe for the first and only time. She sold
out Royal Albert Hall, got the audience out of their seat.
She did Woodstock. I mean, she did all these big,
big festivals, working non stop, so she was worn out. Okay,

(57:17):
so she finally, um, you know, at the end of
sixty nine, they did their last show, a big show
at Madison Square Garden and she you know, let the
band go except for two players, the guitarists and the
bass player. And then she took a break and went
to Brazil and got off heroin um and started writing
new songs, started kind of just getting re energized. She

(57:40):
bought a house in Larkspur and Marin County and started,
you know, meeting with some new players to put together
a new band. This was much more of an organic
kind of band. Some of the guys that played with
the Hawks, Albert knew some of them, a lot of
more Canadians, um. So they started kind of rehearsing together
in her garage and they formed a really great kind

(58:02):
of harmonious relationship where she was the band leader, but
she was also still like had his camaraderie and that
hadn't really happened with the Cosmic Blues. Okay, So how
did she end up working with Paul? She had kind
of burned her bridges with some people who thought she
was a junkie, and Paul was one of those people. Uh,
she was able to contact him. She had been hanging

(58:24):
out with him, you know in the l A days
because he was working with the Doors, et cetera. Bobby Newworth,
Paul John Cook, her road manager, was a dear friend
of of Paul's. So he decided to give her a chance.
He was, you know, the son of an opera singer.
He knew great singers and him yes for her last record.
So they cut the record and he wasn't sure, but

(58:45):
when he saw her performing again, he's like, this girl
has got good. She touched the record, and the story
is that these are all guide vocals rough vocals. Is
that true on Pearl for the most part, yes, but
she was jams chop Jann's job on rough. You know,
rough takes are like people fired. She ended up cutting

(59:07):
Mercedes Benz. There's different stories. I like the one that
Bobby Womack tells, so I'm gonna go with that one,
and that she had already done that song, um when
they had She had pulled that out and done it
live in poor Chester at the Capitol Theater. She had

(59:29):
written it in a bar before going on stage that
night with ripped torn Generaldy and Page and Bob Newmark looking,
oh yeah, that's definitely true, and Bob was writing down
you know, they were just kind of riffing in this bar. Right,
it's great. So she goes out and does it. The
band jumps in and tries to play along. So anyway,
it was just kind of a fun thing to do,
inspired by Michael McClure thing, etcetera. So she was working

(59:51):
in the studio, Bobby new Worth came in, I mean, sorry, Bob.
Bobby Womack came in to pitch his songs for the record,
and so he ended up playing guitar on his track,
and then they started drinking partying. He's going to give
her a ride in his Mercedes. So they're in his Mercedes.
She starts, according to Bobby well Matt, she starts seeing
Mercedes Benz and she's like, oh man, you know, turn around,

(01:00:14):
take me back, take me back. I want to go
back to the studio. I want to go back to
the studio. He goes back and only Paul Rothschild's there
the sunset sound and um He's like, man, and what
She's like, I want to put this down, Let's do this.
So she just kind of does it as a lark.
Apparently when she died, you know, before the album was
completed and they were putting together all the sessions and
different tracks and everything, he remembered that song that she

(01:00:36):
had just done for fun and she had at some
point called um out and spoken to Michael McClure to
get his permission to do it. And so anyway, he
pulled that and put it on the end of the
album and you can just hear her do her a
little cackle at the end of It's I mean, when
I think about those guys gathered in the studio to
hear that, You know, to hear that album must have

(01:00:56):
been How does end up cutting me and Bobby? Oh well,
Bobby new Worth, I'm telling you the Zelig of cool. Famously,
we know him from being Dylan's buddy and etcetera. He
was kind of her aide de camp on the road
with her. He worked for Grossman, etcetera. He actually heard
that song being played in Grossman's office in New York,

(01:01:19):
and of course no one had heard of Chris Christofferson
and it was being played by Gordon Lightfoot, who had
heard the song heard a demo, and so he's like, man,
that's a great song. Teach me that song. So Bobby
North learns the song in Albert's office from Gordon Lightfoot,
goes over sees Janis at the Chelsea Hotel. Man, you
gotta hear the song, plays her the song. She goes

(01:01:39):
nuts over it. He teaches her the song, and so
she's this is in sixty nine, so she's still got
the Cosmic Blues band. She pulls it out and plays
it for the first time live in Nashville show in December.
I think it was a sixty nine, you know, and said, oh,
this is from a guy, hometown guy. You guys are
gonna hear about him, Chris Christofferson. I haven't met him yet,
but this is a great song kind of thing. So

(01:02:01):
then fast forward to nineteen seventy, Bobby Newworth finally meets
Chris Christofferson when he has some gigs in the village.
They gone this crazy, as he called it, great tequili book,
great tequila boogie, this wild tear, fly out to California
to the ghost. Let's go see Janice, you know. So
that's when she meets Chris Christofferson. They are just like
m two Texans brought together by song and attraction and

(01:02:24):
all that stuff. He teaches her Sunday Morning coming down,
which she there's a bootleg of her doing that in Austin.
She loved his music, loved his writing, and I just
wish she had lived to do I can't you imagine
her doing help me make it through the night the
Sammi Smith hit. You know, Okay, so we've covered I mean,
there's so much people can read the book for more details.
But getting to the author behind the book. You've written

(01:02:46):
like sixteen books. What's your favorite book of the of
course the one I just did. Um. Well, you know,
I love both my gene Autry and my children biographies
because to me, right, I grew up loving to read biographies.
They're still my favorite kind of book to read and

(01:03:08):
to be able to pull off those books. It's really
really hard to write biographies, but then putting so much
of my heart and soul into it, I really feel
like my subject becomes part of my life. So I still,
you know, with the ken Burns doc series, all the
gene Autrey stuff, I was like, yes, yes, you know,
I love it when they're getting their recognition. So both

(01:03:29):
I would say, both my gene Autry and my Alex Children.
Why did Alex Children sound so different vocally in the
Box Tops in Big Star? Well, because he was, you know,
sixteen years old, you know when he was in the
Box Tops and he was coached by Dan Penn to
do the letter in that way. He'd stayed out all
night having a little frolicking fun with his girlfriend in

(01:03:51):
a graveyard, drinking, smoking cigarettes. So he's had that rasp naturally,
and if you even see him on some live things
from that period, he you know, he liked to drink
and smoke in those days, so he had that kind
of teenage rasp. But you know, people didn't know what
he looked like. They thought he was like a forty
year old black man, you know, and that's why they
got to be on a tour with He had National

(01:04:13):
healthcare with alex children still be alive today, No, I
you know, sadly, that didn't really have anything to do
with it. Um. He was very actually pretty health conscious,
but like most of us, he was afraid of getting
a bad diagnosis. His family had a history of heart problems.
His father had a heart attack at a young age,

(01:04:34):
his sister did, his brother. He had a fear, but
he also could have afforded it. I think he could
have because he was in New Orleans and you know, yes,
I mean at the end of his life he was
a money Oh yeah, yeah, because of that seventies show Baby.
You know, he made a lot of money from that show,
using one of his big star songs as the theme

(01:04:55):
song for that show and thanks to you know, for
three placements and then counting Crows. I mean, he was
getting a lot of props from these young artists, so
he was doing quite well. He actually bought this really gorgeous,
expensive piano. He had a little house in New Orleans
and Tremay, and he he liked to live on the

(01:05:15):
down low, but he liked, you know, a nice piano.
But he could have afforded healthcare, but he did not
want to find out that he had a heart problem
and that killed him. Okay, so what's your next book?
How to sleep? That's obviously a joke. Do you have
any idea what your next book? We do? But you know,

(01:05:35):
I don't want to jink. Let's say you know someone, Okay,
a couple of questions here, lightning round. Albert Grossman crook
or honest. He was a sharp businessman and an incredible esteete.
So did he do right by Janice? Yes, he did
right by Janice. Okay, you've met a lot of your heros.

(01:06:00):
I presume who lived up to the rep Oh gosh, well,
I did get to meet Geane Autrey when he was
eighty nine years old, and that's kind of what led
me to doing that book. So that was an amazing experience.
Of course, I didn't know Alex long before. I was
in a little combo that he actually produced, called clam Bake.
So that's how I got to know him. UM, as

(01:06:20):
far as most of my heroes, you know, you you
learned not to um expect too much. Johnny Cash incredible,
UM and June Carter Cash getting to interview him and
hitting it off by talking about the Carter family and
cowboys stuff. He was a big Gene Autry fan. He
ended up inviting me over to their house and I

(01:06:40):
you know, so that was totally lived up to my heroes. UM.
Patti Smith, you know, she was one of the reasons
I moved to New York as I She played at
U n C. Chapel Hill when I was in college,
and I've never seen a woman like she was, like my,
you know, Janie. I guess as far as seeing a transformative,
you know, woman on stage and like, wow, what is that?
You know? So I would say she you know, I

(01:07:03):
got to hang out with her and interview her. So
and then of course I love just kids, so so
I'd say, okay. So, then you've written books about the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, what female performers are
not in who should be in? Oh? Well, I'd love
to see the Shango Laws in there. Of course, one
of their songs and the Choka Khan definitely. I mean,

(01:07:23):
year after year she's on the ballot. She's on the
ballot this year with Rufus so, you know, and that
was kind of like Patti Smith. First it was the
Patti Smith group, then it was just Patti Smith and
she got in. So one year it's Choka kN Once
with Rufus. So I'm hoping she really really deserves to
be in. She's amazing. There's some more pioneers that should
be in. Big Mama Thornton should be in. It was

(01:07:45):
so cool to get Nina Simone and Wanted Wanted Jackson,
some other maybe more outlier in the public consciousness women.
It would be great to get in some of the
other point. I think Patsy Klein should be in there.
What about pat Benatar has nominated. I think that's great, know,
I mean, she's an amazing role model and that she
had all those hits toured with her husband, the guitarists,

(01:08:07):
and they're still together after all these years. She should
be in for that reason alone, I think. Okay, so
what do you think about today's music? I love you know,
I am a music Spotify Top fifty which is mostly
hip hop and pop. Well, you know, there's some hip
hop I like. Of course, you know, I gotten into

(01:08:28):
post Malone. I've gotten too little Nazacs and and I
have to be honest. I mainly got into them because
they're cool. Nuty suits and the Western thing, you know,
because I'm really into nuty suits. I wrote a book
called How the West Was Worn. I love Nudy and
the whole Ryanstone Cowboy look. Um. But you know, I'm
still kind of a roots rock kind of gal. I
love the Avid Brothers. I love all those Americana bands.

(01:08:48):
I love you know. Um, oh my god, what's the
new guy? Oh? Oh yeah, I love Sturgill Simpson and
I love the other guy, Jason Isabel and his um
partner is amazing. I love her record, which is really
outside the box. Um. I love Orville Peck. Have you
seen him yet? Oh my god, you gotta check him out.
He's got a kind of Roy Orbison, amazing voice. He

(01:09:12):
wears the weird fringed mask. I saw him at the
Americana Conference a few weeks ago. He was awesome. Anybody
you haven't seen who you want to see? Oh gosh, yeah,
there's still alive. Oh that's still alive. Um, let's see
most of the ones that I wanted to see have
sadly passed on. Um, that's a good question of concerts

(01:09:35):
you've been to top three? Oh my gosh, Bob, I
hate picking top things. It doesn't just give me the
ones to come tomorrow. Okay, Well again, I would say
seeing Patti Smith and Chapel Hill in nineteens seventy seven,
I think it was changed my life. Seeing the Clash
in New York City at the Palladium when I first

(01:09:56):
moved there in nineteen. I think that was seventy nine
or eighty change my life. Seeing the Jackson five that
was my first ever concert at the Greensboro Coliseum and
Michael and I were close in age. That was an
amazing show to see the Jackson five. And somehow I
ended up like sixth row or something I was in
like junior high school. I don't know how that happened.
So is there a woman rock writer sorority? You are

(01:10:20):
you a loaner or a loan gun person, or you're
part of a group. I'm a people person. That's why
I hate writing. I like I love the research. I
love being out interviewing. I love hob nobbing with other
writers with artists. I love meeting people and talking to people.
You've got the perfect job, you know. But you're a
great writer. Okay, thank you. So a couple of people

(01:10:43):
unsung that people should be aware of, a couple of
artists that are on song. Oh gosh, all right, let
me thank oh boy. That's let's see who who who?
Who's not a test. It doesn't have to be the coolest,
you know. Holly Williams um Hank William's granddaughter, Hank Junior's daughter,
who was featured also in the Kinburns thing as one
of the talking heads. She's an amazing artist. Um I
look forward to hearing her next record. She's not really

(01:11:04):
that very well known. Um Oh. There's a great band
from the Woodstock area where I live called the Mammals,
which is um Ruthie Unger and Mike Marinda's band. They
are amazing. She's an incredible singer and they go out.
They do a lot of the kind of Americana circuit
festivals and things. Okay, so you live in Woodstock, Yeah,

(01:11:25):
well I live in Phoenicia, which is nearly right outside
of and so how how long you've been living there?
I moved up there in the end of two thousand one,
I had a little cabin in the woods up there.
I lived on St. Mark's Place in the East Village
for twenty three years. So I started needing some treats.
We were talking, uh, you know before the podcast began
that you have a son at Wesleyan. Yes, senior in

(01:11:46):
the film program. Senior in the film program. So where
is his father? His father is probably his He's actually
as we speak, in the recording studio in Rosendale, New
York right now, working on a new recording. So is
he someone we know? His name is Robert Burke Warren
and he I met him when he was in the
Flesh Towns and I was in an all girl punk
rock poka band at the time called the Dust for

(01:12:07):
a Lines back in the eighties. So we were on
some double bills and that's how we met. And we've
been together ever since. And so you're still together. Yeah,
we're so together. That's why Pat's and Neil or my idol.
Has he been married thirty years? Okay? So your first marriage? Yes,
my one and only one. And he lived in England
for a year. He played Buddy Holly on The West End,

(01:12:28):
that musical that ran over there for a long time.
Um my husband. I met when we did a gig
together out in East Hampton Labor Day weekend of nineteen
eighty seven and with the Fleshtowns and dust for a lines.
So that's how we met, was an instant romance. Well,
you know, he's from Atlanta, I'm from North Carolina, so
we had that in common in our first date was

(01:12:50):
actually in New York City going to Sylvia's the Salt
food restaurant and to the Cloisters. And is your son
at Wesley and your only child? Well, I have another
child art, which takes up a lot of our time
and money, so I don't have any children. Jack is
our only his name is Jack Laaren. He's going to
be a great filmmaker someday. And he is our only

(01:13:11):
human son. Yes, he's our only human child. I'm a stunt.
You're still together. That's great, Yeah, it's you know, it's
I'm very, very fortunate. He's he's a great writer himself.
He wrote a rock and roll novel called Perfectly Broken
that came out a few years ago. And he's a
songwriter and he's a great editor, so he reads all
my work. And gives me great advice. And he's also

(01:13:34):
a musician, so whenever he helps me get all the
music stuff right, and he's been in the recording studio
and many, many, many times. Back to this book, What
is the promotion? What are you doing to make people
aware of it other than this podcast? Your show? This
is it? Man? Well, actually, you know, these days, with
what's going on in the world, as we know, you
never know when you're going to get canceled. But I

(01:13:56):
think I'm going to be on CBS Sunday Morning. Really, yeah,
that'll be great. How did that come together? Um? They
just said, Holly, come on our show. Well, that's not
the way it works. Someone had previous Jonathan carp my
wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster, and Priscilla Paynton, my
wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster. I guess they said, hey,

(01:14:17):
you know, check out this book. And but I will
tell you a really cool thing because I was actually
on CBS Sunday Morning twelve years ago from my gene
Autry book, and the guy who produced that segment was
my producer on this new segment. And it turns out
I didn't realize that that was his first ever big
segment that he produced. So we just reunited in Brooklyn
last Friday for this already shot it. Yeah, I did

(01:14:39):
it last Friday. Okay, did you get a huge bump
on CBS Sunday Morning with the GENA? Oh? Yes, I actually,
and you know I was on Oxford University Press for
not exactly a powerhouse and the promotion. I mean a great,
great publisher, but you know, not the super you know,
big books, you know, get get this story out there.
But yeah, I actually I think I made it in

(01:15:00):
to the Amazon top ten for a cop for a
couple of days. You know, it was either that A
couple of questions before we come to the end of
the feeling we can we talk for two we could,
but you know, the the editor to what degree did
they either steer you or change your writing? My editor
was amazing. I've had some great editors before, but this

(01:15:22):
woman gets down in the weeds. I mean she does
the old school pencil writing comments on the manuscript pages,
which actually I'm kind of old school like that too.
So we did like deep, deep dives into the Yeah,
and she I think really helped me elevate my prose totally.
She i trusted her implicitly, and she was actually the

(01:15:44):
perfect kind of reader, because usually my editors are music people,
and that's the main thing. Of course, she knew Janice Choplin,
but she didn't She wasn't a music geek like me,
so she was able to have this perspective. I think
that was really important for the book. So I didn't
go to the weeds too much or you know, usually
I tend to write way too much. So she helped

(01:16:05):
me figure out where to trim and part that only
geeks like me would care about. You know. So, uh,
the book is coming out. You're gonna be on CBS
Sunday morning. It's a major publisher. There are certain events
in the world not always planned to kick start another thing.
Journey would not be touring the world the way it
is today if it hadn't been for the last Sopranos episode.

(01:16:28):
You having done this book, do you believe it will
kickstart certain things in the Janice Joplin's legacy. I hope so,
because she deserves to be recognized as the important artist
that she was and as a college professor. When I
do happen to turn my kids on play, you know,

(01:16:50):
ball and Chain at Monterey Pop for them on YouTube
or something. I mean, they are blown away by the
power and the authenticity. Yeah, her talent is palpable, and
I think people today need that real nous that Janice
was about real nous and the way she was able
to touch these deep emotions that people are afraid to

(01:17:10):
let out. You know, she would let out her fear,
she would let out her disappointments for everyone to see.
And I think with this world we're living in of
lies and facades. I mean, Janice was a truth teller
and I think we need people like her as role models. Listen,
that's perfect. We need to end it there, because artists

(01:17:32):
used to be beacons, and Janice Chopolin still is. You're
bringing her back to like Holly, thanks so much for
doing the podcast. I can't believe you have me on.
I'm so happy. Thank you. Okay, great, Until next time,
It's Bob left side.