My Review
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.
Scars Of Sweet Paradise: The Life And Times Of Janis Joplin
Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin
Amazon Price: $11.56 (as of 11/22/2008)
"An interesting historical, and cultural analysis of Janis Joplin's life"
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Some Great Janis Joplin Websites
Check them out!
- Janis Joplin Bio - OfficialJanis.com
- Janis reigned as queen of rock, yet decades after her death, her reality still touches us. The official Janis Joplin website
- Janis Joplin - Kozmic Blues
- Janis Joplin and her Kozmic Blues. Extensive collection of Janis Joplin photographs, posters, friends, influences, postcards, biography, discography, lyrics, articles, news, films, quotes, art, video, RSS and ATOM feeds, message board, travel, chat and much more about Janis Joplin.
Janis Joplin Biography
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 ? October 4, 1970) was an influential American singer, songwriter, and music arranger, from Port Arthur, Texas. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and number 28 on its 2008 100 Greatest Singers of All Time list.
More books by Alice Echols
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Shaky Ground by Alice Echols
Alice Echols has never shied away from controversy more...0 points
Alice Echols has never shied away from controversy. Long before it was fashionable, she wrote searing critiques of antiporn feminism. Her subsequent books about the 1960s are trenchant and provocative, and written with unflinching honesty. Now she maps an alternative history of contemporary American culture, taking on such subjects as hippies, gay/lesbian and women's liberation, disco and the racial politics of music, and artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell and Lenny Kravitz. Echols upends many....
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What's the Web have to say about Scars Of Sweet Paradise: The Life And Times Of Janis Joplin ?
- Ropes and Pulleys: Book review: "Scars of Sweet Paradise"
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- Woodstock
- Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin. Henry Holt and Company, 2000. Found on...
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