In a rare video Janis Joplin returns to home town,Port Arthur, Texas, for her 10th annual high school reunion.
June 25, 1970: Janis Joplin had a chat with American TV show host Dick Cavett.
He asked if she often returned to her hometown, Port Arthur, Texas. No, Joplin said, excitedly adding that she was planning on going back for her 10th annual high school reunion. Asked about her former schoolmates, she said: "They laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state. Now I'm gonna laugh." It was a moment of triumph and pain in the life of the megastar. (Video below)
Recently a new book of Janis Joplin: 'Days & Summers' was published in a limited edition of 2,000 copies worldwide in June 2022
Each book is hand-numbered and estate-stamped with Janis Joplin’s signature then hand-signed by her big brother bandmates Peter Albin and Dave Getz, Jefferson Airplane’s Jorma Kaukonen, and Janis’s siblings, Laura Joplin and Michael Joplin. It is also available in a Deluxe edition. (Rolling Stone, Joplin official store,Booksonline)
All copies in the limited edition include a special 7″ single containing two exceptionally rare recordings: two blues tracks from The Typewriter Tape recorded in 1964 by Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen (‘Daddy Daddy Daddy’ by Janis Joplin, and the blues standard ‘Trouble In Mind’).
Capturing Joplin at a pivotal moment, before joining Big Brother & the Holding Company, The Typewriter Tape has attained mythic status among bootleg recordings. Given the historic nature of the two tracks, the single is pressed on 180-gram audiophile vinyl.
More than half a century after her death, Janis Joplin’s legacy continues to loom large. Her estate kicked off this year with a 50th-anniversary edition of Pearl, while a children’s book featuring the icon teaching nouns arrives this spring. And, on June 10th, fans can take a deep dive into her personal archives with the scrapbook Janis Joplin: Days & Summers.
The scrapbook contains rare photographs, unpublished letters, newspaper clips, souvenirs, and more, documenting her career from 1966 through 1968. It features annotations from Joplin herself — as well as her family and friends — with an introduction by Grace Slick.
Read also: Janis Joplin's former lover denies she's to blame for the rocker's death
Hollywood, California, October 4, 1970. It was about 7 pm in the room 105 at the Landmark Hotel, John Byrne Cooke (photographer and road manager of Janis Joplin) found the lifeless body of the young singer from Texas. Cause of death: heroin overdose. Peggy Caserta, the on-again-off-again lover of the late rocker Janis Joplin is […]
Joplin’s early years in Port Arthur, Texas, are also featured; she began scrapbooking while at Thomas Jefferson High School in the late Fifties. The pages show class photographs, programs of plays, valentines, ribbons, and other memorabilia.
“Our mother was into photo albums and shared a lot of the family,” Joplin’s younger sister Laura tells Rolling Stone. “We learned about our own life in keeping a scrapbook, in our awareness that the page was an expression and how we we used it. And Janis really got into it. She was visually an expressive person as well as a singer.”
Later pages examine Joplin’s rise to fame, from playing gigs in coffee houses to joining Big Brother and the Holding Company. Vibrant photographs and posters show the psychedelic San Francisco scene with the Grateful Dead, while several spreads are devoted to Joplin’s breakthrough performance at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
“Monterey Pop was her primary introduction to the world,” Laura says. “It launched her career in that sense in terms of her musical performance. I think that Janis’s feminine energy and excitement created an identity.
