Book celebrates life of Janis Joplin, born 80 years ago

The weight of the lyrics together with the hoarseness and emotion in the voice set the tone for the career of Janis Joplin, one of the most mythical and influential rock singers in history. Born exactly 80 years ago, on January 19, 1943, the singer had a life full of transgressions, paradigm shifts, love frustrations and family upsets. Written by Holly George-Warren, journalist and one of the most respected chroniclers in American music history, the biography Janis Joplin: Her Life, Her Music (Ed. Seoman, 432 pages, R$69.90) is an opportunity to recall the trajectory of a star who left early, but still shines as one of the most powerful figures in rock.

To describe Janis’s life, the author, who is also a specialist in biographies, turned to the singer’s family, friends, bandmates, researched archives, diaries, letters and long-lost interviews. It does, above all, a meticulous profile detailing the singer’s steps until the accidental heroin overdose, which claimed her life on October 4, 1970.

Reading the biography, the image of Janis Joplin as a musical avant-garde is consolidated. A rebellious woman, owner of great cunning and a complex personality, who broke the rules and challenged all gender conventions of her time, paving the way for women to be able to vent their pain and revolt in the artistic scene without being so oppressed by the male chauvinist universe existing in the field. musical. Although she became famous with rock, Janis moved easily through other styles, such as blues, soul and folk-rock. Although it only lasted a few years, the vocalist’s solo career was able to highlight songs like Mercedes Benz, Get It While You Can and Me and Bobby McGee.

Janis Joplin fearlessly exposed her convictions on topics such as sexuality and psychedelia. A posture that profoundly influenced names like Patti Smith, Debbie Harry (Blondie), Cyndi Lauper, Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Kate Pierson (B-52’s) and Ann and Nancy Wilson (Heart) – and which, through them and many others, it remains an example of freedom and confrontation against sexism in rock.

“Before Janis Joplin’s somewhat brief stint in success, it would have been difficult for these artists to find a female role model comparable to the Port Arthur, Texas beatnik. of American rock, changed everything”, says author Holly George-Warren in the book’s introduction.

Janis’ husky voice, capable of evoking feelings ranging from melancholy to rebelliousness, was like a natural, and at the same time almost magical, extension of a soul in pain. In Janis Joplin: Her Life, Her Music, there is also a woman in search of love, who, even looking for ways to combine her career with the dream of having a family, was never able to establish a solid and lasting relationship. A frustration that contributes to the melancholy that is perceptible in several moments of the artist, and that – the work speculates – may have played a role in the drug use that ended up leading to the premature and accidental death of Janis.