No one really realized at the time, and so she gradually got addicted to heroin in 1969. Unfortunately, heroin was pretty prevalent. So this was a secret vice of hers that she picked up. There was articles about her all the time and she had developed this whole hard-drinking blues mama image that she had. Again, she was still very much a focal point of media. Janis started turning to heroin as a way to just kind of numb herself from all the pressures and the fear of what it was like being a solo artist at that point time in her career. So early on, she realized that if something can kind of take you away from yourself, take you out of your head, it could be a good thing. She started drinking when she was a teenager. I think between that philosophy and all the pressures of leading a band, being in the spotlight, being a star, having to always live up to her image night after night on stage and, of course, in the recording studio, she wanted something that was going to numb those kind of feelings of anxiety and fear. On how Joplin's experience with the "kozmic blues" connected with her alcohol use She wanted to keep exploring different sounds, different kinds of music, and when she did that, it was really awful in that the boys' club of music critics just kind of raked over the coals for dropping her band and going off on her own, and they tried to say she was selling out and going showbiz. But they were often singling out her body parts and talking about her physical appearance in a way that, of course, male singers, rock singers, were really not getting that kind of attention from the press.Īlso, she really had to bust down barriers to be able to have control, to do what she wanted to do, because she loved being in Big Brother and the Holding Company, for example - the band with whom she catapulted to fame - but she was such a restless spirit as far as a musician goes. Once she was a public figure, the press would, of course, be amazed by her vocals, and critics would be talking about what a great singer she was. On the sexism she faced in the music industry But she was mostly inspired by Lead Belly, until she discovered, of course, Bessie Smith, and then that was all she wrote. She discovered Odetta, who had kind of the round tones, and she started trying to sing like Odetta on her records. But when she heard Lead Belly's voice, she wanted to experiment with roughing up her sound and making it more raw and she was a mimic. She sang in the church choir and the glee club. She just thought: Oh, anybody can sing soprano. Janis took her own vocals for granted until she discovered Lead Belly. On the black artists that influenced her sound She blew some journalists' minds when she used that expression, but it was a very sexual experience for her. compared singing on stage to having an orgasm. He was a very sexual performer and he was able to emit this heat on stage that Janis herself was able to do through her own way of manifesting these feelings that she had while singing these songs. She was a huge Otis fan until the day she died, and she got to see him perform live three nights in a row at the Fillmore back in 1966, and it transformed her. The other major influence was Otis Redding. She started performing Bessie Smith songs around 1963, and those kind of lyrics of sexuality, of sexual longing, sexual betrayal: Those very much informed Janis' own songwriting and the songs that she chose to sing. One was, of course, the great Bessie Smith, whose lyrics Janis knew by heart. You can look to two major influences that Janis had that I think affected her sexuality and the way she expressed it onstage. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Janis Author Holly George-Warren
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