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You are here: Home / Music / Open Thread (Bobby McGee is Weeping)

Open Thread (Bobby McGee is Weeping)

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The meaningless anniversary feature of my local radio station informed me that it was 41 years ago today that Janis Joplin’s ashes were scattered in the ocean off Stinson Beach in California.

She was 27 when she died of an overdose of insufficiently-stepped-on heroin.  This is what was lost:

<div align=”center”><iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/zuD6KGTRoFw” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

(The guitar player wasn’t half bad either.)

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Reader Interactions

69Comments

  2. 2.

    ruemara

    watching the tv and debating yelling at my writing partner for failing to show up for two writing sessions. I hope everyone else is having more fun.

  4. 4.

    Jenny

    Douche bag Joe Klein is upset the public is rallying around OWS and not around “job creators” and Mitt Romney.

    The self haters are the worst.

  5. 5.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    I saw her live at the Palm Beach Pop Festival, Thanksgiving 69. She not only played with the Full Tilt Boogie Band but Johnny Winter as well. We froze our asses off in the mud for 3 days but it was worth it. If you haven’t seen her performance in “Festival Express” do so, it’s the best footage of her that exists. Pearl

  13. 13.

    bkny

    one of the cables happened to play ‘janis’ a while back; i hadn’t seen it in years. god what a talent.

  15. 15.

    Cassidy

    Bobby McGee wept at that horrible Faith Hill rendition of “Piece of My Heart”. I’ve despised her since.

  16. 16.

    lamh34

    @JPL: It’s funny that with all the technological advances today, that the shoes she’s wearing are STILL the go-to shoes for toddlers learning to stand and walk. I had those same shoes 35 years ago and my mom had shoes like that 50 some-odd years ago and my granny too…

  20. 20.

    fleeting expletive

    Lawrence O’Donnell has talked about that odious Herman Cain just about the whole hour, and now has the Odious notJoenotPlumber. The gripe I almost always have about him, Ed, and Rachel is that they waste too much time talking about or to the Republicans. If I wanted to hear what Canotor (typo, but I like it) said today, I’d have watched Fox. I’d much rather them run positive stories about places where progressive policies have worked, people who have acted generously and behaved in progressive ways. I read something a few years ago about Curitiba, Brazil, a southern city–it has accomplished some astounding progress in nutrition, economy, health and education. I think it would do a lot of good to highlight innovative ideas that are cropping up all over the world.

    As to the House bill on women’s reproductive rights, I’d like for some good Dem to get up and speak up like this:

    “It happens in some cases that the pregnancy if it continues will be fatal to the woman. Gentlemen, what if this happened to your wife, your daughter. What if it had been your mother? Is sentencing your wife or daughter or mother to death by pregnancy how you would want to behave? Would your damaged sibling, in utero been worth your mother’s life?

  22. 22.

    eemom

    no disrespect to Janis, but Kris Kristofferson’s version of Bobby McGee (which is his song) is pretty awesome too.

  25. 25.

    lamh34

    i know you BJ commetners are way to hip to be bothered, but has ANYONE watched X-factor USA? If so what do ya’ll think?

  27. 27.

    realbtl

    @efgoldman:

    Gotta agree, the earlier the better for BB & tHC as well as Janis. I was fortunate to catch both her afternoon and evening shows at the Monterrey Pop Festival and saw the group live about 4 months later.

    The sets at Monterrey were truly amazing, this singer and band coming from out of nowhere to just blow everyone away. BB & t HC were the only act to have 2 separate sets that weekend. By the time the first album came out smack had already figuratively killed the band.

    I saw her again about 6 months before she passed and it was sad to see what she had become. RIP Janis.

  30. 30.

    Jenny

    @Dougerhead: He was on O’Donnell’s show, about an hour ago.

    He pulled a Broder and interviewed what he described as conservative Democrats and Romney supporters in rural Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri (states that voted for Maverick) and declared them the “new silent majority”. Then he literally had spittle on his chin when waxing about Romney.

    I know you love to mock Bobo and the Mustache, but can you mix in mockery on “Anonymous”.

  35. 35.

    piratedan

    well TRMS did a segment yesterday that centered around a poll about what America thinks are its real problems and noted that the OTHER section was so small as to not even registering a part of a percentage. Naturally, Abortion is grouped within that OTHER category. Then she went on to illustrate the number of jobs bills that the current Congress has passed to the number of abortion bills that have taken up time on the docket emphasizing that the legislation encouraged by the White House for a jobs program can’t even get to the floor for debate. Fully exposing the GOP War on Women for what it is and how the GOP could actually give a shit about solving the problems of the nation while they continue to engage in culture war.

  37. 37.

    realbtl

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):
    Highly unlikely. I was a very naive 18 year old musician who went around with my eyes bugging out going “This is cool, this is cool” the whole time. It was quite an experience as was Boulder CO where I went to college that fall. I’m lucky to have survived with at least some brain cells intact.

  38. 38.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @realbtl: I hear ya. I was 17 and in Korea and all I wanted was to be where your were! We’d get records when someone brought one over and played them do death on really great stereo’s from the PX!

  40. 40.

    realbtl

    It sometimes saddens/pisses me off to think of the lost potential of some of these folks. I’d love to hear what Hendrix would be playing today, he’d only be a few years older than I. Hindsight is a bitch.

    OK, end of old fart whining.

  41. 41.

    Elliecat

    @Cat Lady:

    Paul Simon’s 70 years old today.

    Feeling old – I haz it!

    I caught some of the live coverage from NY on 9/11 on the car radio and I wondered who the old man singing “Sounds of Silence” was. When they said it was Paul Simon—wow. Feeling very old.

  42. 42.

    b-psycho

    Speaking of Lawrence: he played a clip today of Cain being asked more about the stupid 999 plan. Apparently he said it’d let businesses completely write off domestic purchases. Someone asked if that would cover, say, buying an Apple computer (American company, mixed sourcing). Dude actually said, straight up, “I have NO idea!”…

    He might as well have said “muthafucka what you askin me for?“. I damn near fell out laughing.

  45. 45.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    .
    .
    Fortunately, President Obama and I have had quite enough of this Quds Lip Force. How dare they attack us on our own soil!
    .
    .

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    @fleeting expletive:
    “What if it was your wife/mother/sister?”

    You could ask the question but I think they would just look at you dumbfounded that you would even ask something so personal and that you could even think that something disgusting like that could happen to them.

  47. 47.

    Jebediah

    @lamh34:

    She’s sooo short

    Yeah, but she will probably grow a little taller…. and she has some serious cuteness going on there!

  49. 49.

    SBJules

    I agree that there was no hendricks on this cut; it has to be Big Brother & the Holding Company. I first saw them as the opening act for Country Joe & the Fish at UCSB. My brother had seen them in San Francisco & sent me their first album. She was fantastic, but to me better with her first band.

  50. 50.

    Tom Pretentious Art Douche Levenson

    @Lynn Dee: Thanks for the kind thought. The Constable in the post on housing if for you.

    (That one is a long-time fave; I’ve had the good fortune to look at it in person more than once.)

  53. 53.

    Kola Noscopy

    So Tom…what exactly was “lost?”

    Janis sounds like shit on this track, as per usual. Fingernails scraping over a shit covered chalk board, erratically; the aural equivalent of lemon juice on paper cuts.

    Her vocal chords must have been covered with scabs and lesions from the abuse, both alcoholic and vocal. And we hear the results in every phrase.

    Why do people pretend she was a great singer? I mean I get that liking Janis back in the day was a “fuck you” to the establishment mainstream, which generally embraced singers with good voices, but what’s the use of pretending in 2011 that this young woman is pleasant to listen to?

  54. 54.

    Jebediah

    @Kola Noscopy:

    but what’s the use of pretending in 2011 that this young woman is pleasant to listen to?

    I get, quite clearly, that you do not like her singing. Just like the dopes who drop into threads to complain about them have the option of just fucking skipping them, you have the option of not listening to Janis.
    But are you actually contending that everyone who says they enjoy it is “pretending?”

  55. 55.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @Kola Noscopy:
    Not every voice is about hitting notes, at least not to me. Janis, like Fogarty (not a fan of the man, but the voice, awesome) or Cobain even, hit something just right. Something cathartic. A lot of other performers attempt this, and it fails miserably. But sometimes one shows up that can pull it off, and the effect can give just as many goosebumps as any Aretha or whatever your bag is.

  56. 56.

    John Weiss

    No thanks to you for reminding me.

    I loved her voice, her delivery and she left too soon. Still hurts. After all those years.

  58. 58.

    Kola Noscopy

    @Jebediah:

    But are you actually contending that everyone who says they enjoy it is “pretending?”

    Yes, this I contend. Never underestimate the power of artistic pretension to make people lie through their teeth.

    It is akin to “pretending” that the sensation of razor blades to the inner ear is enjoyable. To a masochist, yes, but that is a pathology, which proves my point.

  60. 60.

    Amir Khalid

    @John Weiss:
    @Colonoscopy:
    Colonoscopy isn’t here for the conversation, y’know. He doesn’t even present a particular point of view like the resident RW trolls. He’s just here to start flame wars. Because the flames are so nice and pretty. Isn’t that right, Colonoscopy?

  61. 61.

    Kola Noscopy

    @Amir Khalid:

    He doesn’t even present a particular point of view like the resident RW trolls. He’s just here to start flame wars.

    Seriously? My comments on Janice’s alleged singing don’t present a point of view?

    Hmmm…apparently you are just here to hear what you already think flung back at you so you can feel secure.

    Simpleton.

  62. 62.

    someofparts

    Used to cross my mind that if the blues hadn’t already been around for a while, someone would have invented them for her after they heard that voice. Just the most perfect blues voice ever.

  63. 63.

    BobS

    That wasn’t Jimi Hendrix playing guitar (and I’m not sure how anyone could mistake it for his playing). That sounds like Big Brother & the Holding Company, with James Gurley and Sam Andrew on guitars. I never saw that legendary San Francisco band, but years later saw their bass player Peter Albin in a band called the Dinosaurs with Spencer Dryden (Jefferson Airplane), Robert Hunter (wrote many Grateful Dead songs), and John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service), probably the most unknown of all the great San Francisco guitar players of that era.

  64. 64.

    Bruce S

    Since there are a lot of folks here who love to get agitated over Douthat/Brooks/Sullivan/McArdle – and I totally understand the impulse and, as evident from this offering, engage it myself more often than I wish I did – this might be the worst (or perhaps just the most ridiculous) Marty Peretz column ever that’s not about the nefarious Arabs…

    http://www.tnr.com/article/tel-aviv-journal/96255/elizabeth-warren-herman-cain?utm_source=The+New+Republic&utm_campaign=2f9cb37ce1-TNR_Daily_101411

    Honest to God, I loathe the man and expect nothing but garbage and/or bigotry to emanate from his pen, but I admit I was a bit taken aback…

    (I stumbled on this checking out a John Judis review of the Suskind book…I do not, repeat do not, seek out Peretz’ crap.)

  66. 66.

    Older

    @eemom: You’d be surprised. 70 doesn’t actually feel any different than say 50, or even, let’s say 30. You still feel like the same person, even iv you do look different to other people.

  67. 67.

    Cheap Thrills Fan

    BobS has it right, it is not Hendrix. It’s Sam Andrew and James Gurley on Summertime. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTFF-BaT0MM from the Cheap Thrills album. If you go to http://www.bbhc.com there is a discography for the band. I personally love Janis, Bille, and all the voices music today is missing. I don’t want to hear the same sounding voices of today. Between auto-tune and everyone thinking they need to be the next Disney pop sound alike music is losing much of its edge.

  69. 69.

    Kola Noscopy

    @Cheap Thrills Fan:

    Between auto-tune and everyone thinking they need to be the next Disney pop sound alike music is losing much of its edge.

    Ummm…there are a lot of degrees between Janice’s screeching and Disney auto-tune robots. I present to you a current voice with character, plenty of texture, style, and edge: Adele.

    The difference between her and Janice being that the listener’s inner ear does not bleed while listening to the former.

    Janice’s early voice had its moments, but she destroyed it with booze, cigs, drugs, and vocal chord abuse through her “style” of singing…she was basically shredding her chords a little more during every performance. And her “fans” cheered on her self destruction. There is a reason why she is dead.

    Amy Winehouse, who was stunning in her early career, basically did the same thing, though to a less extreme degree…there’s nothing artistic or bluesy about purposefully destroying a physical gift.

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