Janis Joplin

 
Love, Janis
by Laura Joplin
Paperback: 352 pages
Acid Test; ISBN: 1888358084; (April )

Pearl: The Obsessions and Passions of Janis Joplin
by Ellis Amburn
Paperback:Warner Books
ISBN: 0446395064; Reprint edition

Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin
by Alice Echols
To call Janis Joplin the Judy Garland of the Woodstock set is in some sense a fair characterization. The brassy, carnal, extravagant, and ultimately pitiable queen of psychedelic rock is indeed a cultural icon. And while Joplin reveled in her own ballsy, boozy legend, its needy, inebriated, real-life equivalent was a shadow that darkened her short life and, in the decades since her 1970 drug-induced death, has come to eclipse the party-girl persona. To her great credit, author Alice Echols reconciles the two faces of Joplin in this ambitious, thoroughly readable biography. She does so by tracing Joplin from her youth as a natural-born libertine in dreary Port Arthur, Texas, to her emergence as the sole female rock superstar of her era--a period when beneath-the-surface sexism hampered Joplin's progress even while women's liberation was being widely touted. The author does not shy away from sordid sex-and-drugs episodes, and there's plenty of raw material---the singer was promiscuous, bisexual, and, at various times, an alcoholic, a speed freak, and a junkie. Echols, however, elevates this biography above run-of-the-mill rock profiles by painting her subject against an elaborate and ever-changing cultural backdrop. Here is Joplin the aspiring folksinger, the white-picket-fence wannabe, the wayward daughter, the hit-and-miss recording artist, and, finally, the ill-starred spirit with nothing left to lose. --Steven Stolder - Amazon.com
Paperback: 408 pages
Owl Books; ISBN: 0805053948;

Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin
by Myra Friedman
Paperback: 353 pages
Harmony Books; ISBN: 0517586509; (September 1992)

Janis Joplin (They Died Too Young)
by Dynise Balcavage
(Library Binding)

Janis Joplin : A Performance Diary 1966-1970
by John Byrne Cooke (Editor), David Dalton (Introduction)
(Hardcover)

Piece of My Heart: A Portrait of Janis Joplin (Da Capo Paperback)
by David Dalton
(Paperback - October 1991)

For a broader understanding of the 60's: 
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Living in the Dead Zone: Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison
by Gerald A. Faris, Ralph M. Faris
(Paperback)
 
 
 

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Movies featuring Janis Joplin

Janis (1974) VHS

Monterey Pop (1968) VHS
~ Grace Slick
Special order

Big Brother and the Holding Company: Ball and Chain (1967)
~ Big Brother & Holding Company
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Janis Joplin on DVD

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I wonder if Solzhenitsyn was aware of the more well-known version, "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free" by Kris Kristofferson and made famous by Janis Joplin in the song Me and Bobby McGee, her only number one single and only the second posthumous number one single in rock & roll history. 
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