Holly George-Warren

you alive and conscious when Janice had her success? Yes, um the end of her career. I got to see her, you know, on TV from my little hometown of North Carolina on the Dick Cabot Show. And of course, one of my first albums when I joined the Columbia House Record Club twelve albums for a penny, was Pearl, so I still have my original copy. How did you feel after getting the twelve albums free and then having to

pay list price for the ensuing records. I did a lot of babysitting in those days, and since I lived in a tiny town with not a lot of access to records, hey, I was cool with it. Okay, we're in North Carolina. It's a little town called Ashborough, not to be confused with Ashville, which everyone's heard of, the cool hipster town. But Ashboro was right smack dab in the center of the state, near Nascar Richard Petty Territory

for any of this. Okay, So for those of us who were ignorant city people, what's the closest town we would know of? Greensboro were the first sit ins took place at? So how far from Greensboro were you? Like twenty miles and okay, let's get back to it. Okay, so you bought Barol, you still have it? Yes, I have my copy too. And that was you know, I was a huge record fan already because when I was in third grade, Bob, I discovered on my little clock radio that I could tune into w ABC in New

York and w l S and Chicago. And this was the golden age of channels. That's why was ultimately and in my town, I think that there are one radio station which mostly played country and gospel, which, of course, you know, being a rock and roll kid, I hated it went off the air, you know, So I discovered this radio from far away that played this incredible mix of music because am just was amazing. In the mid sixties, I became so obsessed. I would not go to sleep

at night without listening to my radio. And that's the transistor under the pillow. Well, you know, I don't remember having it. It was the baby blue pastel you know, clock radio. My parents kind of just said whatever, you know, they didn't really care. And I started buying forty fives like crazy with my babysitting money. And so this was again I was third grade and I started my first little group. Then, so I became obsessed. Well I want to go deeper into this, Let's first get into the book.

So well, I can't as drop in. Why not? Well, because I discovered when I was asked to write liner notes for the Pearl Sessions, which was a two CD set in which they went and pulled out all these tapes from the vaults at Columbia and at least they were still there as opposed to universal tape. Yes, thank god. Right, And so you could hear Janice and Paul Rothschild, the producer of Pearl Talking Shop. Janice was leading the conversation coming up with guitar parts, arrangement ideas, you know, like

literally calling the shots. And I knew from work I'd done on the Doors and interviewed Bruce Botnick, the Great Engineer and other people, that Paul Rothschild was famously iron fisted producer, and in fact, Joni Mitchell did not like working with him because he was so bossy. And actually Paul Rothschild a little bit. I wish I could have met him. He seems like a cool guy. And you know, when I have to remember that, of course he cut all those early Electra records, but he was the son

of an opera singer. Did you know that? If I knew what I forgot it? I didn't know that, but um luckily I got some interviews with him from some journalist friends who did interview him before he passed away. So I suddenly realized that, you know, this persona this image that jan has created, which was so indelible and so vivid, wasn't all there was to the story of Janis Joplin. You know, she kind of had this image

of being this blues mama. I'm just all about the field, baby, you know, and you know that whole technique versus field idea, and I started thinking, you know what, I think there's more to this woman's music. Music musicianship then meets the eye. So I then started thinking, and wait a minute. She was growing up Port Arthur, Texas, very conservative, segregated town, oil town in the fifties. How did she even get access to records by Lead Belly and seventy Eights by

Bessie Smith. It must have taken a lot of effort on her part because I had read some of the other books about her, so I really was obsessed with tracing her musical journey and finding out how she got um Port Arthur, Texas to queen of the counterculture and then this big star with pearls. Okay, I want to hear that, But let's go back to the tapes. What

did you hear on the tapes? Well, again, with Paul's reputation of being a very um yeah, exactly, he was listening to Janice, he was like, wow, that's a great idea, you know, and he apparently inspired her to pursue being a producer. In fact, she told John Cook, her late road manager, who think goodness, I got to meet and interview that um Janice would make a great producer, and Janice was so excited about this idea. She was a

studio rat. I mean she wrote home letters as far back as the nineteen six six, the first time she went into the studio in Chicago for the first record Big Brother in the Holding Company did for mainstream records. She wrote home detelling the studio recording process, talking about double tracking her vocals and explaining what that was, the same kind of thing when they got signed to Lumbian did Cheap Thrills. She was very, very involved in the

recording process. Again, letters home describing what mixing was for example, and yeah, and Fred Catero, the great engineer, and have talked about she was the first one there and the last to leave. She was really really involved in that whole process. So there was that aspect of her that I think no one really realized that she was this studious, hard working musician that was perfecting her craft and wanting to learn every aspect of music. Not just that amazing

voice of her. What was her personality like? Again, she was very multifaceted. You know, we have the Janus image of her, you know, out on stage and just so intense, so impassion this music coming from deep within of her, expressing all this pain and all this um torment, you know, through her vocals and really reaching and touching her audiences. I wish I could have seen her live, because to this day I talked to people who saw her nineteen sixty six and they go into this reverie, describing it

as if it was last week. I mean, her impact was that powerful. But the other side of Janice, which she kept on the down low from her fans, was this very intellectual, studious woman who always had a book with her. She was a total book worm, love to read. And she also, you know, had her own fears and her own um shyness that again she kept tamped down through her whole stage bravado and all that kind of thing.

Let's go to the end. Do you think her death was inevitable for a pure accident, pure accident bomb, I mean, it's it's kind of what happened when we tragically lost Tom, Petty and Prince. The whole it's similar to that whole

fentinyl thing. Because she had had an addiction to heroin in nineteen sixty nine, um, but she had gotten clean in nineteen seventy she'd been off it for maybe four or five months, she still was a heavy drinker and the drinking is much worse on the voice than smack, and she was trying to cut back on the drinking while making Pearl because she knew that Paul wath Child would not tolerate her voice not being there and it

can really script your voice too much. Booz. So she happened to run into her dealer from before in l A at the Landmark Hotel where she always stayed and relapsed. Um. Now what happened that killed her was she, by weird chance, got this really strong heroine that had just been introduced to this country called China White, and it was really pure compared to her usual and she was by herself overdosed and it was a tragic accidym Okay, So how

did you actually decide to do the book? Well? Fortunately, over the years through different um things like there's been a couple of Janice uh conferences believe it or not? At the road Yeah, at the Rock and Wall Hall of Fame in Cleveland, wannabes or scholars yeah, well not scholars, but the people that were there. So in the nineties there was one and another one in the outs, and I got to participate as a panelist talking about Janiss legacy, etcetera.

But really I was a student. I got to meet her brother and sister who, um, we really hit it off. I also got to meet Sam Andrew was still alive for guitarists from Big Brother chet Helm's The Guy who Family Don't started the avalon who really is the guy that got Janis? At San Francisco not once, but twice in sixty three and again in sixty six. Jerry Ragavoy, who was her favorite songwriter that wrote a lot of

her great hits, was there. So I was learning more and more about her and just became, you know, fascinated. But so, when did you hear the unreleased tapes that was in around I think it was around twenty twelve something like that. Already been going to these conferences, Yes, I had just been, you know, a student, because I'm you know, I'm a general. Are you are you a student of other things? You're going to other conferences? Yes, I love I'm a conference junkie. Well, it used to

be called the e MP conference. Now it's called MoPOP in Seattle, which has been going since two thousand two. That's a great one. I try to go to that every year. So what what have you learned there? Oh? Gosh, what have I not learned? Because it goes all through like every genre going back to I've learned about artists that I like Eva Tingay. I think her name is who is this? Do you know her name? I know the name? The music? Yeah, just people go down the

rabbit hole at these conferences. And each year there's a theme, so it'll be everything from you know, drag. Last year it was death so perfect for Janas. How many people go? Um? Gosh, you know, it lasts about four days and there's lots and lots of you should go. Bobby would love it. UM and it's people and it's not just academics. It's UM fans, fancy and writers, musicians, the great John Langford, the me cons and the Wakeer Brothers has been part

of it. Um they have. They've had Janelle Mone, they had Solomon Burke. They'll have a keynote a lot of times, a musician, Um the tune smith woman I'm blanking on her or anyway, how many of these do you go to in a year? Um? See, I go to that when I go to the Americana Conference in Nashville. I used to go to south By Southwest every year and always do panels for that, and that was really fun. And again I saw amazing like Harold Bradley and Holly Yeah,

it's just kind of it's too big now. Um, so American is kind of stepping up to the plate now. And so you can actually see like Tanya Tucker, you know, talk Okay, So you're going to these panels, you hear the tapes, you write the liner notes, when do you decide you want to write a book? Well, I was able to talk to the siblings who control Anas. We were talking just because you're interested or in the back of your mind to do something with this, I know,

totally not thinking of doing something. But my literary agent, who was a wonderful person who actually has been She worked at Rolling Stone going back to the what's her name? Her name is Sarah Lason and she reps lots of rock writers, been functorus and you know Robert christcal and how did you get hooked up with her? Well, because one of my first jobs when I first moved to New York City, and besides waiting tables after graduating college with my policy English double major. Was I got a

job as a fact checker at Rolling Stone Press. Well, you know, they wish they still had that. Of course, is the books, not the magazine that they had a fact director would help their image. Yeah, definitely. So my first job, Bob, I think it was like five bucks an hour. It was fact checking the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, which of course I owned, Yes, And I got to meet all these guys pretty much.

They're all guys who I had read as a kid reading Rolling Stone, like you know, Dave marsh and different people. And then my job was like calling up question Mark of question Mark and the Mysterious and saying, is it true that you know you're really from Mars? And did did you know whatever? Davidout him in the sycopo. I have to ask, how did you get the job? Was it that easy? Just you know, you have to know somebody because I am a rock and roll geek, Bob,

and I obsessively always read rock and roll books. A friend of mine who I met at American Baby Magazine, where I also had a job, and you know, of course I was a long way from having kids or anything like that. But um she went to work for Rolling Stone and was Sarah Layson's assistant. Sarah was the director of the book division, and she knew I was this rock and roll geek. They needed a fact checker. I got to go in for the interview, and this

wonderful woman, Patti Romanowski, who has written. She went on to write a lot of co authorships with um Otis Williams of The Temptations, which now they've made that book into the Broadway musical. She did dream Girls, and Mary was anyway, she was the person hiring and we just started talking about our favorite rock and roll books and I was just geeking out with her. She's like, you

got the job, so perfect work for you. Let's stop there for a second, especially in the Me Too era and a second wave of feminism, shall we say, who are the unsung women writers in music who need to get more attention? Ellen Sander number, of course I love her writing and for the Yeah, and well that's Ellen Willis right, right, right, I hear from Ellen sand Yeah.

Ellen died a few years ago, and she she was definitely the most intellectual, culturally anthropological, anthropological kind of rock critic who I mean she was amazing, and of course reading her on Janice, her reviews of Janis at the Film or East and the New York Are are just mind blowing. But my last book, you know, was on Alex Chilton. She was a big box tops fans, Kay Sander. She lives in May, Yeah, yeah, she lived in Her

book Trips was amazing, which is a collection. I think she wrote for different magazines and she went on the road with different bands. Um. And she actually reviewed a lot of Janice concerts in New York back in the day. And Woodstock of course. Um, her writing on Woodstock is great. So both of those two jan you Helski, who was that Cream magazine? Um, who was an incredible writer. And I think she's actually working on a dock now about Cream,

but I think she was there in the late sixties. Yeah, definitely. So those are three right there. And are these people you have regular contact with? Is there a fraternity or shall I say a sorority of women music writers? Well, those women I kind of put on a pedestal, so I'm like a gushy fangirl um around them. But um, as far as other women go, it's, you know, there is kind of I would say, for the most part,

it is a very cool, supportive group of women. There's a great book called Women Who Rock, edited by Evelyn mcde mc nodal, who is out here in California, and Evelyn got a lot of different women writers to do essays on different women artists, again across the genre spectrum. I wrote a piece on Patsy Klein, for example. Then she got all women illustrators to do portraits of the

subjects and that book came out last year. And Evelyn, who teaches also out here, was really careful to include a lot of new, up and coming young women writers as well as us. You know, heggs have been out there doing it forever. So so it's it's great to get to meet all these different women writers who had this passion for rock and roll. Okay, so you have the agent and you were telling a story of how

this book came to be. Yes, so my agent Sarah Lays and new Laura Joplin and actually was her agent when she did a book that was basically a memoir with um referencing lots of letters at Janice wrote home and so she intruduce us to us, and she kind of paved the way for me to get to know uh, you know, Laura and Michael Joplin and then also Jeff jam Paul you probably know of course who represents yes exactly. And so we all hit it off and they but

your agent was basically pitching a book. Well she was kind of interfacing. I mean this, Bob, this took like many years. The first conversation I think was long before I started working on the Alex Chilton book, which was in so I would say in like the late audits, like around two thousand eight or so, essentially ten years. Yeah, So it was just conversations. This. How long after your agents started looking you up with these people, did you

actually have a go or get a deal? Probably? You know, like gosh, I would say, um, you know, like about six years or something. And this was us conversing back and forth deciding how could we do this? Uh. I gave them other books. I My first biography was of Gene Autry, the Great Singing Cowboy, who also his widow Jackie Autrey, had opened up her vaults and files and

all of his personal archives to me. Again, I will only do a book like this if I have complete editorial control over what I'm doing so the estate or the airs have to realize that they I would love for them to share all this incredible information with me. It's in these archives, but I can't give them any kind of control ever what I write, and you end

up getting into battles. Uh No, not really. I mean I think they trust me and they know that I am, like, I really, really dedicated to try to tell the story as accurately as possible, and to try to make it you know, all the different facets of someone. So have you ever written a book and then have the person argue with you or be disenchanted because you've got something wrong or you had an opinion they're not comfortable with. Well, not the actual people who um, I mean, some of

them disagree with the conclusions I draw. For example, Jackie Autrey, she still believes that Geane Autrey met Will Rogers in a telegraph office and he said, son, you should be doing more than just running this, you know, telegraph for the railroad. You should be a Hollywood star or whatever, which I did tons of geeky research and found out that that could not have taken place because when Will

Rogers died, etcetera. And so I have to depose this incredible myth like the John Ford don't you know, don't you know print the legend, you know, kind of thing that didn't really happen. And she, you know, because I think Jeane Autrey for himself, actually began to believe the story that a press agent created that he was discovered by Will Rogers, when in reality, the press agent created that totally. Okay, So she disagreed with that, but we

agreed to disagree. Okay. So this book, unlike a lot of music books, is with one of the biggest publishers in the nation, that Simon and Schuster. How did that come together? I just really lucked out. UM. The guy who was the head of UM. I guess Simon and Schuster is a guy who I worked with a long time ago when I was doing books at Rolling Stone because I ended up going back to Rolling Stone after

being a fact checker. I ended up going back there in the early nineties and re igniting the book division again. So I worked with him on some of this person's his name, Okay, you know, we're we're, we're, you know, having a senior moment. But then my editor, Priscilla Painton, who is this wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster. She's the one that I went and met with. She really got it, and she was not a typical music book editor.

She does a lot of their political books, a lot of their you know, big So you make the deal Simon and Schuster, as they say, Simon Schuster, Random House, these are like the biggest companies. Is the deal lucrative? Uh well, let's just put it this way. Janice was much more lucrative than Salally Jeane Autrey was. And this way you're writing writing a book on Janice Joplin. Theoretically, with the advance, could you live a year and do nothing else? Uh? Not if you have a son that's

in college. Okay, Okay, we got my general idea. Okay, so the book is like I teach also and I still write. You know, let's stay with Janice for a second. Okay. So there's been a number of books about Janice. I remember in seventy four vividly remember reading this book in Jackson, Wyoming and a diner, the Myra Friedman book. Yes, I read that book of any good you know, I totally

bought that book lock Stock and Barrel. It really formed my opinion of Janice, which is part of the reason why I wanted to do my book because now in retrospect, looking back, I realized Mayra Friedman, who was her publicist, worked for Albert Grossman, her manager, and truly loved Janice. You know, we're old enough now, Bob, that we've lost people, and we know the effect that has on you when you lose someone, especially at tragic death like Janice is

you're angry at that person. And now, looking back, I think that the portrait, my opinion, was very inaccurate. She made Janice seem like this tragic figure who was just just kind of um in this morass of you know, sadness and insecurity and just very neurotic and and all

that kind of thing. She I think it was very one dimensional portrait of her, and it was she was just too close to her subject, and I think she was really bitterly upset about her loss, so her anger came out and the way she cast okay, So you know, that's the one I read. How many books are their biography of Janice? L um gosh what some of them are no longer in print. Forget that they're not would say like about six or something like that. Okay, So

this is not a subject that has not been covered. Okay, so the question becomes, uh, why what do you think you can add or what is your goal in writing the book? I wanted to show Janice as a musician. I wanted to show her as you know, the real Janis Joplin, who persisted, who overcame so many obstacles to pursue her ambitions to be the greatest, you know. I mean she told Paul Rothschild when he said where do

you want to be? At age fifty? And this was when she was, you know, horribly twenty seven, she said, I want to be as good as a blue singer as Bessie Smith was, you know. She it was all about perfecting her craft, learning more, you know, getting better, you know, continuing to work hard at this. And I think that part of Janice's life, and that part of her story has never really been told. Okay, let's go back to Port Arthur, because you began there. What were

the circumstances of her upbringing? Well, it's an interesting story. She was very beloved by her parents. She was basically an only child until age six when her sister Laura came along. So her parents doated on her, but they were quite different people. You know, they came from you know, difficult backgrounds themselves. And the mom was, you know, wanted Janis to have the white picket fins, the perfect life, you know, the typical fifties kind of middle class life.

And Janis was born in forty three. The father was Janie called him a secret intellectual. His name with Seth Joplin. And he had a mid level management job at Texico then called the Texas Company. You know, the whole town was all oil distilleries and refineries, et cetera, and um. He came home from work, listened to Bach, loved classical music,

was a huge reader of philosophy, history. Every Saturday, he took Janice to the library and that she said, you know, in my family, as soon as you could write your name, you got a library card. And old in her love of book books. But also he was an atheist. Her mom was a evangelical, you know, Christian, you know, very religious woman. Janice started singing soprano and the church choir as a kid, you know, was baptized by immersion, you know, that whole thing. But the father never went to church.

He was an atheist, and so the father particularly kind of instilled in Janice, um, you know, a quest for knowledge, to think outside the box. The mother also really was a great singer, had been a singer as a teenager in Amarillo, Texas, and started teaching Janice how to sing when she was like three years old, how to play piano. So there was some music in the house. And they

discovered a Janice that she had this artistic talent. She was a quite good painter, and so they started buying her you know, paints and easels and everything when she was you know, quite young and all that. So they really supported her artistic endeavors. Now, Janice read On the Road by Caro wac when it came out, and that changed her life. Fifty oh, all the Carol people are gonna kill me. I think it was fifty seven, Okay, So but at that point she's already fourteen. Y yeah,

she was fourteen. She was fourteen years old. So yuh. Going back to her growing up, She's an elementary school. She a member of the group, she a leader, She an outcasts what issue see, I think, Bob the reason she you know, famously had this horrible situation by the end of her high school year where she was completely bullied, ostracized, etcetera. And I think she took it so to heart because she was, you know, barely popular. She had friends, she was in the Slide Rule Club. She you know, made

pep Rally posters. I mean, she was a typical girl. You can see all this in her scrap book. She's got her little crinoline you know, swatches of crinoline's and fabrics that her mom's made her, all these dresses and everything. And she was very raw, raw teen spirit kind of girl. But reading Caroac, meeting these guys who were a year older than she was who set her on her path

to listening to Lead belly Um. She discovered Odetta through them, Jeane Ritchie the grade to Appalachian folkusinger and started discovering other ways of thinking and moving away from that traditional Texas football culture, which you know, football rules in Texas.

And she started moving away from that and sneaking across the river and going to Louisiana at night with the Carlatto Boys to hear um swamp Rock Louisiana from Port It's well, it's very close because Port Arthur's right on the Gulf there, so it's right across the river and so, you know, maybe forty five minutes and hey, you know this was a m radio was still great then too, so this was like they caught it doing the the triangle.

They would drive from Port Arthur to Beaumont, Texas, you know where some great blues came out of Ivory Joe Hunter, et cetera. To Orange listening to the radio and picking up some black stations, hearing some R and B. Janice was so obsessed with it she would go and try to meet the DJs. There was a guy named Stevo, the night Rider. She would go and say, oh, can I get your coffee? She and her girlfriend would go up and visit the DJs at night. She was just

she's in high school. She starts living a somewhat bohemian lifestyle, shall we say, well, as much as could be living at home as a teenager. But my question is it's like, you know, I went and Ray Dat's on a Storyteller album, has a song, you know his art chicks, you know, babe. My point is I went to high school and remember the art people, they were a separate click. So at this point in high school. Is she a separate click

or is it still all homogeneous? It was pretty homogeneous, except for there was these four or five guys that were a great ahead of her who she started hanging out with, and she was almost like their little mascot or whatever. And also she started school at a very young a skipped a grade, so she was about a year and a half younger than most of the kids in her actual grade level. Okay, there's a famous story

where I believe she's voted best looking guys or something. Okay, by the time she you know, she had so many adventures. Beginning at age eighteen, she hit chiked out to San Franciscoco from l A, where she was living in Venice for a little while because she dropped out of college. Anyway, she was back. She goes to Texas, to Austin, Texas,

to ut and that's when she first starts. Yeah, and that's when she first performs for audiences in a little group called the Waller Creek Boys, which was again this little bohemian group of guys, a few women, but mostly guys who lived in a place called the Ghetto, this rundown apartment building in Austin, and of course they were very different because this was nineteen sixty two and most of the girls were buffon hair dues, a little cinched

waist shirt, dresses, bobby socks. Janice was wearing like an oversized men hurt with blue jeans or else the black turtlenecks. She was often barefooted, and she had that amazing voice already, and she was applying it to these records that she had discovered by blues artists. The Waller Creek Boys were mainly doing kind of folky um when he got three

ish kind of stuff bluegrass. So they started blending all these sounds and they started performing on campus and then at this great place thread Gills, which fortunately still exists, and building this audience. In the meantime, Janice was, as the kids say today, polyamorous. Um. She already was having flings with both men and women, and she didn't try

to hide it, and um, she really stuck out. There was actually an article written about her in the Texas the University of Texas newspaper called she Dares to be Different. So she was becoming kind of known around the campus. And every year this fraternity would have a fundraiser The ugliest man on campus contest, so you would have to pay you know, ten bucks to nominate someone nominated Janice and it was just heartbreaking for her. Um she did not win a linebacker for the football team one but

still just you know, very just hard. Was insecure about her look. She was yeah, and um she you know, I think she was a beautiful woman. And so it's weird to me to see how people singled out her body parts and her appearance. Even when she was getting huge as a star. Um, people would talk about her being playing or I think in Vogue magazine they said her her complexion was like pizza or so. I mean, it's like sickening the way that the media would cover

women and take this to heart. She bothered by all those negative information when she wasn't drinking or doing drugs. I think she was bothered by it. Okay, so you see he dropped on a school the first time. Yeah, where was she going the first time? She first went to um Lamar Tech, which was kind of the school where most of the kids from Now it was a regular university, but it was where you went to be

to get a job in the petroleum business. And where and then she did you know, wherever she went, she found a small little group of you know, outside the box people, So she found that in Beaumont. Then she ended up dropping out back in Port Arthur and she took business classes. If she was quite the good stenographer um and typeest, her mom demanded that she go to business college in Port Arthur, so she got a little

certificate for that. Then her mom sent her out to live in l a with her aunts who lived out in Los Angeles. She wanted to be a beat nick as I said, this was sixty one, she was eighteen. So she ends up in Venice, living there for a little while, goes to San Francisco, hitchhiking by herself, checking out the North Beach scene, whatever, runs out of money, takes a bus back to Port Arthur, and then she ends up discovering the scene in Austin. So that's when

she went to college in Austin. She went there for the summer session in the fall session, how does she end up back on the West coast. Well, that horrible incident occurred with her poster of her dominated for Auglass Mental Campus, and she had met Chet Helms, who was a former UT student who had been traveling around doing the Caro Wac thing and had been living out in

San Francisco. He heard her sing, and he's like, you're gonna knock their socks off in San Francisco because North Beach had a cafe scene, coffeehouse scene where people were doing folk music, some a little bit of blues. So in sixty three, a week after her twentieth birthday, she and Chet hitchhiked from Austin to San Francisco. Okay, just to be clear, was Chet living in San Francisco previously? Or did he go out with Janice? He had been

kind of living there for a little while. He had been traveling around, you know, doing the whole on the road. Did Was there a romantic relationship there? No, they were just platonic good friends. She really believed in her to San Francisco. Yeah, well, she did not stick around. She did not want to be managed. She wanted to be

an independent agent. They basically stayed for a few nights at David Freiberg's place, clashed on his floor, Quicksilver and Ultimate right and uh he uh he, and Chat took her down to Coffee and Confusion, a coffee house North Beach where she did an open mic night, and of course that voice just knocked people knocked their socks off, just like Chat said. So she pretty much started getting little gigs, playing at the coffee house, Circle Circuit. She

went out to um like San Jose. She met your Mcalchinan at like an open mic night, and they both loved the blues. I mean, most of these people were doing kind of more the folks stuff. They loved singing, singing. No, I mean, you know, five bucks a night for money, she's scraping by. She's sleeping in people's floors. I mean, she has no infrastructure, no support. Um, it's really not really okay. So is she just in the moment or does she have a dream of making it? Atte She

has a dream of making it, that's the thing. Even though she was living like a down and out beat nick, you know, on the streets, she still had this dream of making it. And people immediately recognized her talent. And she was nothing like the Janna Stop and we picture today, you know, the whole San Francisco freak rock. And then her later stuff she was doing. She had already started writing songs. She was doing her own stuff. She was

sometimes accompanying herself with auto harp. She really wanted to learn to play guitar so she could learn how to back herself. So she started learning guitar. Gotta you know, pawn shop guitar and stuff, and um, she was making some noise. People were interested in her, but she was a very you know, she had was living a very unsettled existence. Okay, is Big Brother her first band? Or

does she go through a few iterations with other people? Well, she had had the Waller Creek Boy, but she had never had electric Okay, So basically this whole blues singer thing lasted almost three or. She actually ended up coming to New York City the summer of sixty four and trying to make it there and ended up making most of her money as a pool shark. She was a great pool player, so she was like beating all these

guys at pool and that's pretty much how she got back. Suddenly, she went back to San Francisco, tried to make it the end, but horribly, she'd picked up a really nasty drug habit. She got addicted to methamphetamine, which was very prevalent in San Francisco and New York at that period, and she ended up getting down eighty eight pounds, I mean, really facing death. Her friends put her on a Greyhound back to Port Arthur Ve. She was back in Texas for a year. Cleaned up, Irrat went back to school,

back to Lamar as a commuter this time. But now she was trying to do the you know, campus co ed thing. But the music was gnawing at her. She really she could not stop doing. Is that she was writing songs. She wrote Turtle Blues then, which was on cheap Thrills. She started doing little gigs again, um in Houston where Towns van Zandt was performing. Guy Clark was hanging out. Then, So how did she get back to San Francisco. She ended up getting gigs in Austin because

of you know, doing her shows again. And chet Helms was now fully entrenched in this so the you know, cool scene, the counterculture happening in San Francisco with the family dog the Avalon Ballroom. He was managing big brother in the holding company. They decided they wanted a chick singer doing those little yes and so he's like, I know,

the perfect girl now. Peter Alban, the bass player, the founder of the band who was doing most of the vocals had actually seen Janice back in her blues singing folky days, um, you know, on the on that scene, so he remembered she had a great voice. So they sent an emissary, a mutual friend from San Francisco, who drove to Austin and absconded with Janice and she you know,

and tell her parents. You know, they were horrified and just petrified that she was gonna end up in a bad situation again like she had before with the speaker. So how long did she play with Big Brother before they make the mainstream deal? She was very briefly. She got there in June of sixty six. They immediately bonded. Um. She was just one of the guys in the in the beginning, you know, she only sang maybe three or

four songs the set as the lead singer. Everybody contributed material, everybody took turn singing lead, except for day of the drummer and Um. Interestingly enough, Paul Rothschild came into the picture. He was working for Jack Holsman and Electra and they had the idea of putting together a supergroup and putting together they heard Janice, you know, and again no one knew her and she was just part of Big Brother. They had heard her vocals and it was gonna be

Taj Mahal, the great guitarist, Stephen Grossman, Janice Um. They wanted to put them together record an album for Electra, etcetera. So Janice almost quit Big Brother and like the end of the summer, you know, like July August of sixty six to do join this venture because it promised more success than Big Brother, because they were still pretty crazy. Cacophon is you know, freak rock. Okay, So they got

the deal with Mainstream. The great song down on Me is there, but that's in an era certainly when being on an independent label you're a second class citizen. Well and plus the label just didn't get this. They wanted to try to cash in on the San Francisco sound, and Bob Chad, who ran the label, had great ears. He had worked with Carmen McCrae. He was mainly a jazz producer, had been in the business for a long time, but he wanted to get on what the kids are doing.

So they were actually marooned in Chicago, big Brother in the holding company. They had a month long residency at this club. Mother Blues, which was a disaster. People like what you know, they're like, what are these freaky people doing? You know, they're horrible And they were having to play three sets tonight, no money, barely getting by. So Bob Chad offers them this deal, which was a really bad deal.

Now chat Helms was no longer their manager. They fired him because they thought he was too busy with the avalon and given not giving them any attention. So they had no manager to without a manager, and it was without a lawyer. Uh the lawyer was provided by Bob shadd by Mainstream. So it was a horrible deal. And also worst of all was that, you know the engineer. They did the first recordings right there in Chicago. They

didn't even get an advance. They thought they would get an advanced so they'd have the money to get back to San Francisco. They couldn't get home. They were stuck there. How long after that did they played the Monterey Poff Festoral That was in June of sixty seven, This is like August September of sixty six. As the band stayed together for nine months. Well, they finally got back they did when it remember drive away cars, Okay, so they

got a drive away car got back. The good thing about that bad situation was they were having to try to win over these people that were appalled by their music, and that really pushed Janis to develop this incredible stage presence even more than she was already doing with the loving audiences that they had at the at the Avalon, So she was really pushing herself. They were really expanding the repertoire. They had to do three sets a night, so it really helped her, you know, hone her skills.

She was also a really good percussionist. Dave Gets, the drummer, told me she really took She was playing that um all kinds of percussion instruments at Girton all that, so she was really improving her chops. So by the time they got back to San Francisco, thanks were really moving along with the whole counterculture. Um. You know, one of the first music fanzines was you know, writing about them. Jerry Garcia was telling people what a great singer Janity.

I was not aware of the mainstream albuntil after She Thrills was released. Well that's because it was rushed out after they were at Monterey Pop UM, so we didn't even come out. Yeah, they put out singles because you know, Bob the paradigm was still the whole am radio singles driven market. So they released two singles um on mainstream, which you know, a rarecle actables if you can find them.

And so again Janice wasn't even featured on the first single, Harley Down on Me Find was the second single of them, recalling correctly, um, but the album didn't come out until after moderate. Yeah, so they're at Monterey Pop. The legend is that Clive Davis was there and became enamored and signed them. Is that the truth? Well, what happened was no one had really heard of Janice. A few people had heard of Big Brother, but they were mainly known

in the Bay Area. Okay, So they had a Saturday early afternoon slot on the Heart because, um, you know, Adler lew Adler and John Phillips really wanted to have kind of credibility that this was a cool festival. So they wanted the cool San Francisco bands who were very suspicious of these slick l A guys and the slick music because it was, you know, the counterculture thing. And so that's how they came kind of in a package was like Grateful Dead and you know some other bands

from the Bay Area, Jefferson Airplane. So they have an early Saturday movie afternoon. Yeah, yeah, because they were the least known you know, the Dead, Yeah, something like that. And so the deal was that um ABC TV had given the producers of Monterey Pop a deal to do a made for TV movie and they had brilliantly hired d A. Pina Baker, the late great documentarian who you know worked with Dylan et cetera. So he was filming this.

Now the San Francisco people, being suspicious of their ulterior motives, refused to sign the release so their sets could not be filmed. Well, Janice and Big Brother went out and just killed I mean people were I mean to use the brit term gobs match by the same to the movie doesn't come out until the year after which, yeah, yeah, exactly. So d A. Pina Baker was like, I don't We've got to film this woman they have, We've got to film,

you know, the famous shot of Mama Cass's face. And that was the only thing that was the only thing they were able to film. They couldn't film the band. So so Big Brother said no to the filming, correct, as did the Dead and others. Okay. So they had a manager at this point who had been a Mary prankster with Ken Kiss, Julius Carpin, okay, and so he was very like, forget it. You know they're gonna rip

us off, don't you can't do it. So this huge fight happens because the producers say to Janus and Big Brother, we will give you another time slot. You'll be the under only band to play twice if you let us film you for the movie. And so of course Janice, yes, yes, yes, we gotta do what we gotta do it. Albert Grossman is there because some of his clients, Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield run the bill. He was there. I mean,

everybody was floored. Clive Davis in the audience, everybody was blown away by what they saw that Saturday afternoon first, the first one, and so they were finally convinced to play again on Sunday evening, like around dusk. Who did

you know who they followed? I do know, but it's kind of been a cock webs, right, but but they yeah, they go on and again they killed and you know I think this time they only did like a three song set, or they ended with the amazing version of Ball and Chain that Janie and Janie and the band had gone and seen Big Mama Thornton, who, by the way, Janie had discovered as a teenager, you know when when Big Mama recorded for Houston Labels and did the original

hound Dog, which Janice loved. So they saw her do Ball and Chain, went backstage, met her, learned the song and you know, hence we have So they killed there in their filmed How do their business arrangements, Well, what happened was so many music writers were there. Every music writer in the country was there. Everybody went nuts over Janice. She was in the headlines and it suddenly elevated, you know, her stature and suddenly, I mean, it really affected the

democratic dynamic of the band. But in the meantime, different labels started coming to call. They were locked into this horrible deal with Mainstream five year contract, you know, really bad, like no, you know, teeny little percentage of royalties. They hadn't seen any money from the singles. Mainstream will not release them from the contracts. So they're getting despairing about that. Um so Eventually what happens is they end up having a falling out with their you know, hippie manager because

he again was very suspicious of business practices. Anyway, they end up signing with Albert Gross want them. He wanted Janice. You know, he loved Janice. He was blown away by her voice and they really had a meeting of the minds too. I mean he became like a father figure to her, you know. So they signed with Albert how long after the pop festival? Um see, the pop festival was in June, so I think around November something like that.

They ended up firing Julius and aetting him, and then he started to the negotiation and negotiations with Clive Davis, newly president of Columbia, who was able to come up with a huge amount of money to buy them out of their contract. Was there any other label involved? It wasn't always Columbia, but there were some others that were interested. But and even initially the first offer from Columbia wasn't huge.

But this was again, you know, nineteen sixty seven, and they think it was like two fifty thousand dollars to buy out the contract, which in ninety seven dollars was a ton of money, and so they ended up at this point the mainstream record had come out, and you know, Big Brother refused to even promote the record. They told everybody it was terrible, you know, as a cash in kind of deal. And actually, I like, I enjoyed listening

to that. Legend is when the deal is signed, Janice says that she and Clive should have sex to cement the deal. Is that apocryphal or true? That's Clive story. I would not doubt it though. Um I think Albert Grossman actually mentioned something about it as well. So Janice love to uh, you know, she loved to share experiences with people, so she was not averse to ceiling deals with with flesh. Okay, let's go talk about cheap thrills.

UM Ultimately was a live album cut in the studio, the version that we hear on the record, No, not really, Okay, that's how much was the album worked on before we got the version that came out a ton and again they this They were working with John Simon, who knew Grossman. Grossman Ultimately, Yeah, he had already done the band album which got them signed. UM. He had produced their demos.

He produced Leonard Cohen. You know, he was an amazing producer, but he and big brother, the Holding company, were on the opposite end of this. Back from as far as the statics go. He it was terrible to them in the studio. He undermined their confidence. He you know, I know you love his book and everything, but he really browbeated them. Is that a word browbeated anyway? Okay, okay, So they you know, they were losing confidence in their

own ability. They were a great live band, and they really communicated with their audiences, you know, at the a blond ballroom in film or et cetera. But in the studio and it's sterile environment, it was not working and they were messing up. And now Janis, on the other hand, she killed in the studio. She was a pro. Things wouldn't get to her. She would just keep going and going and going, and in fact, I find it kind

of funny. John criticized John Simon criticized her for being inauthentic because she could redo a vocal part perfectly note to note exactly the way she had just done it before what we hear released LP. Was it one long session or did they start with many, many, many many, many many sessions in New York. No, no, no, Um, they ended up moving out doing them out here in Los Angeles, um prime at the Columbias. These were back in the days where and you had to use the engineers,

the union engineers and all that kind of stuff. So they only I think, ended up cutting two songs in the New York And some of those sessions you can see because Pinna Baker wanted to make a documentary about Janis, so he filmed um some of the sessions, so you can see some of that footage and see what the dynamic was like in the studio. Was very fraught, but Janice loved being in the studio and just ate it up. Took to it so that most of it was recorded out in l A. And most of those tracks are

completely um splice. You know, this is the day of cutting tape spliced together, many many different takes of vocal part here, instrumental part there, blah blah blah. Whose decision was to make it a full live album? Um well, I think originally the the I don't think, I know.

Originally they wanted to make a live album, so they first tried to record at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, which was kind of the Detroit version of the Avalon and they were on sadly a double bill with the hometown heroes m C five, who were freaking killer live okay, and who were up to prove that they were better than anybody, right, So just nominated for the rock and roll Yeah for about the fifth time, I think, so

maybe this is the charm, fifth times the charm. But anyway, um, so they were kind of not on their game big brother in the holding company, and again Janice always pulled it off, so she sounded great, but there were a lot of flubs with the band and they were under all this pressure. So they came back to New York. They sat down in Grossman's office. He played they had a remote recording there, and they were like, listen, all

these mistakes. This is terrible, and you, Sam Andrew, you should play bass and somebody should play you know, just criticised. I mean, really they're poor confidences. Oh yeah, And the same thing with Columbia. So that next at what point was it decided the studio recordings would have elements added so that it would appear live. I think because that was really the aesthetic of big brother than the Honing Company. Was that live band? You know? Okay, so the album

is an immediate splash. Did they anticipate that, Yeah, it's shipped gold well, I think because there had been a lot of hype about Janice and um about the band, and they had come out to for the They didn't play in on the East Coast until they came out in February sixty eight for their very first ever shows. They played at colleges like Wesleyan University and ris Dy in places like that, mostly a lot of colleges and started getting a following, and the press just went nuts.

You know. So what's the process of firing the band? It was very painful, and again, Janice Choplin was nothing but fearless. She was driven, driven to be the musician, to move, keep moving forward and evolving as a musician. She could not stay stuck in a rut and she felt like the band wasn't moving Okay, But the way the legend goes is those surrounding her never mind the press. I remember the press of the time said the band was not as good as she was, and they were untogether.

Was it she wanted to fire the band or was it. Everybody around her said, convinced her they gotta go. I think it was a combination. Bob, I'm sure Grossman Um. You know he was always um criticizing the band. And you know, Clive Davis told me that he tried to stay out of that. And in fact, early on he Clive wanted it to be Janis Choplin with Big Brother the Holding Company on cheap thrill. She said, absolutely not. This is a band, same thing, Bill Graham. They were

the first band. They played the first night of the film or East in New York. He wanted the Marquis Janis Choplin. Absolutely not. I mean, she wanted it to stay this communal. Okay, so they fire, she fires the band, but she didn't fire them. She just said she was leaving the band. She was gonna go. And and I mean she loved those guys. I mean, Bob, after all the horrible things that happened to her, you know that hurt her own confidence and helped her, you know, made

her be insecure. They gave her so much confidence. They were her first real family, this tribe. I mean, they lived together and lag Anita's say, you know, they squabbled like siblings. But there was love among them, and she loved them, but she knew that they were doing their thing and she wanted to do other things. She wanted a horn. She was inurve with Otis Redding. She wave. Did she talk to them again? Oh? Yeah, they toured

she this was at the beginning. This was she told them right before they did a show with the Staple Singers at Fillmore East that she was going to do this huge tour. I mean, they had a very book tour to promote the album. She was going to do the tour and then um, in December she would be leaving. This all came down. They played the Newport Folk Festival,

which people loved. Grossman again. Uh, the rhythm seption was really off, you know, and I told them that right in front of you know, Rick Danko and Levin Helmer's. You know, they were just mortified. So it was right after that when she quit. But she said I'm gonna do the rest. She left in December of six. So now we ultimately get the album. I got them Old Cosmic Blues again, Mama Okay, which had the great single Try had incredible players, but externally looked like it really

wasn't a success, you know. But you know what, Bob, You know, I grew up, you know, reading all the rock critics, so I never even gave that record the time of day. I went back to it, you know, I don't know, twenty years ago whatever, and it's a freaking great record. But my different question is inside the camp Janice Clive Albert, did they think it was success

or did they want something better? What happened was there was a huge backlash against Janice because she dared to leave the boy band behind and do her own thing. She was accused of selling out. Going show biz Paul Nelson famously wrote this scathing article this portrait rolling Stone, painting her as this neurotic mess, and its title was Janice Choplin the next Judy Garland. No, I'm sorry, Rocks, Judy got the Judy Garland of rock. That was the

exact thing that Judy Garland. Judy, of course died a few months, so she was really castigated by former champions. Even the great Ralph Gleason, who had loved her, said she should drop this band and go go crawling back to Big Brother if they'll have her, you know, stuff like that. So then how is it decided that she's going to work with Paul Rothstow. Well, what happened was

she had been working NonStop. She immediately segued from being one of the guys and big brother to being the band leader of what was later called Cosmic Blues on the road NonStop, and really within sixty nine, that Cosmic Blues experience really took her to the top as far as that's when she did ed Sullivan. That's when she toured Europe for the first and only time. She sold out Royal Albert Hall, got the audience out of their seat. She did Woodstock. I mean, she did all these big,

big festivals, working non stop, so she was worn out. Okay, so she finally, um, you know, at the end of sixty nine, they did their last show, a big show at Madison Square Garden and she you know, let the band go except for two players, the guitarists and the bass player. And then she took a break and went to Brazil and got off heroin um and started writing

new songs, started kind of just getting re energized. She bought a house in Larkspur and Marin County and started, you know, meeting with some new players to put together a new band. This was much more of an organic kind of band. Some of the guys that played with the Hawks, Albert knew some of them, a lot of

more Canadians, um. So they started kind of rehearsing together in her garage and they formed a really great kind of harmonious relationship where she was the band leader, but she was also still like had his camaraderie and that hadn't really happened with the Cosmic Blues. Okay, So how did she end up working with Paul? She had kind of burned her bridges with some people who thought she was a junkie, and Paul was one of those people. Uh,

she was able to contact him. She had been hanging out with him, you know in the l A days because he was working with the Doors, et cetera. Bobby Newworth, Paul John Cook, her road manager, was a dear friend of of Paul's. So he decided to give her a chance. He was, you know, the son of an opera singer. He knew great singers and him yes for her last record. So they cut the record and he wasn't sure, but when he saw her performing again, he's like, this girl

has got good. She touched the record, and the story is that these are all guide vocals rough vocals. Is that true on Pearl for the most part, yes, but she was jams chop Jann's job on rough. You know, rough takes are like people fired. She ended up cutting Mercedes Benz. There's different stories. I like the one that Bobby Womack tells, so I'm gonna go with that one, and that she had already done that song, um when they had She had pulled that out and done it

live in poor Chester at the Capitol Theater. She had written it in a bar before going on stage that night with ripped torn Generaldy and Page and Bob Newmark looking, oh yeah, that's definitely true, and Bob was writing down you know, they were just kind of riffing in this bar. Right, it's great. So she goes out and does it. The band jumps in and tries to play along. So anyway, it was just kind of a fun thing to do,

inspired by Michael McClure thing, etcetera. So she was working in the studio, Bobby new Worth came in, I mean, sorry, Bob. Bobby Womack came in to pitch his songs for the record, and so he ended up playing guitar on his track, and then they started drinking partying. He's going to give her a ride in his Mercedes. So they're in his Mercedes. She starts, according to Bobby well Matt, she starts seeing Mercedes Benz and she's like, oh man, you know, turn around,

take me back, take me back. I want to go back to the studio. I want to go back to the studio. He goes back and only Paul Rothschild's there the sunset sound and um He's like, man, and what She's like, I want to put this down, Let's do this. So she just kind of does it as a lark.

Apparently when she died, you know, before the album was completed and they were putting together all the sessions and different tracks and everything, he remembered that song that she had just done for fun and she had at some point called um out and spoken to Michael McClure to

get his permission to do it. And so anyway, he pulled that and put it on the end of the album and you can just hear her do her a little cackle at the end of It's I mean, when I think about those guys gathered in the studio to hear that, You know, to hear that album must have been How does end up cutting me and Bobby? Oh well, Bobby new Worth, I'm telling you the Zelig of cool. Famously, we know him from being Dylan's buddy and etcetera. He was kind of her aide de camp on the road

with her. He worked for Grossman, etcetera. He actually heard that song being played in Grossman's office in New York, and of course no one had heard of Chris Christofferson and it was being played by Gordon Lightfoot, who had heard the song heard a demo, and so he's like, man, that's a great song. Teach me that song. So Bobby North learns the song in Albert's office from Gordon Lightfoot, goes over sees Janis at the Chelsea Hotel. Man, you gotta hear the song, plays her the song. She goes

nuts over it. He teaches her the song, and so she's this is in sixty nine, so she's still got the Cosmic Blues band. She pulls it out and plays it for the first time live in Nashville show in December. I think it was a sixty nine, you know, and said, oh, this is from a guy, hometown guy. You guys are gonna hear about him, Chris Christofferson. I haven't met him yet,

but this is a great song kind of thing. So then fast forward to nineteen seventy, Bobby Newworth finally meets Chris Christofferson when he has some gigs in the village. They gone this crazy, as he called it, great tequili book, great tequila boogie, this wild tear, fly out to California to the ghost. Let's go see Janice, you know. So that's when she meets Chris Christofferson. They are just like m two Texans brought together by song and attraction and

all that stuff. He teaches her Sunday Morning coming down, which she there's a bootleg of her doing that in Austin. She loved his music, loved his writing, and I just wish she had lived to do I can't you imagine her doing help me make it through the night the Sammi Smith hit. You know, Okay, so we've covered I mean, there's so much people can read the book for more details. But getting to the author behind the book. You've written like sixteen books. What's your favorite book of the of

course the one I just did. Um. Well, you know, I love both my gene Autry and my children biographies because to me, right, I grew up loving to read biographies. They're still my favorite kind of book to read and to be able to pull off those books. It's really really hard to write biographies, but then putting so much of my heart and soul into it, I really feel

like my subject becomes part of my life. So I still, you know, with the ken Burns doc series, all the gene Autrey stuff, I was like, yes, yes, you know, I love it when they're getting their recognition. So both I would say, both my gene Autry and my Alex Children. Why did Alex Children sound so different vocally in the Box Tops in Big Star? Well, because he was, you know, sixteen years old, you know when he was in the Box Tops and he was coached by Dan Penn to

do the letter in that way. He'd stayed out all night having a little frolicking fun with his girlfriend in a graveyard, drinking, smoking cigarettes. So he's had that rasp naturally, and if you even see him on some live things from that period, he you know, he liked to drink and smoke in those days, so he had that kind of teenage rasp. But you know, people didn't know what

he looked like. They thought he was like a forty year old black man, you know, and that's why they got to be on a tour with He had National healthcare with alex children still be alive today, No, I you know, sadly, that didn't really have anything to do with it. Um. He was very actually pretty health conscious, but like most of us, he was afraid of getting a bad diagnosis. His family had a history of heart problems. His father had a heart attack at a young age,

his sister did, his brother. He had a fear, but he also could have afforded it. I think he could have because he was in New Orleans and you know, yes, I mean at the end of his life he was a money Oh yeah, yeah, because of that seventies show Baby. You know, he made a lot of money from that show, using one of his big star songs as the theme song for that show and thanks to you know, for three placements and then counting Crows. I mean, he was getting a lot of props from these young artists, so

he was doing quite well. He actually bought this really gorgeous, expensive piano. He had a little house in New Orleans and Tremay, and he he liked to live on the down low, but he liked, you know, a nice piano. But he could have afforded healthcare, but he did not want to find out that he had a heart problem and that killed him. Okay, so what's your next book? How to sleep? That's obviously a joke. Do you have any idea what your next book? We do? But you know,

I don't want to jink. Let's say you know someone, Okay, a couple of questions here, lightning round. Albert Grossman crook or honest. He was a sharp businessman and an incredible esteete. So did he do right by Janice? Yes, he did right by Janice. Okay, you've met a lot of your heros. I presume who lived up to the rep Oh gosh, well, I did get to meet Geane Autrey when he was eighty nine years old, and that's kind of what led me to doing that book. So that was an amazing experience.

Of course, I didn't know Alex long before. I was in a little combo that he actually produced, called clam Bake. So that's how I got to know him. UM, as far as most of my heroes, you know, you you learned not to um expect too much. Johnny Cash incredible, UM and June Carter Cash getting to interview him and hitting it off by talking about the Carter family and cowboys stuff. He was a big Gene Autry fan. He ended up inviting me over to their house and I

you know, so that was totally lived up to my heroes. UM. Patti Smith, you know, she was one of the reasons I moved to New York as I She played at U n C. Chapel Hill when I was in college, and I've never seen a woman like she was, like my, you know, Janie. I guess as far as seeing a transformative, you know, woman on stage and like, wow, what is that? You know? So I would say she you know, I got to hang out with her and interview her. So and then of course I love just kids, so so

I'd say, okay. So, then you've written books about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, what female performers are not in who should be in? Oh? Well, I'd love to see the Shango Laws in there. Of course, one of their songs and the Choka Khan definitely. I mean, year after year she's on the ballot. She's on the ballot this year with Rufus so, you know, and that was kind of like Patti Smith. First it was the Patti Smith group, then it was just Patti Smith and she got in. So one year it's Choka kN Once

with Rufus. So I'm hoping she really really deserves to be in. She's amazing. There's some more pioneers that should be in. Big Mama Thornton should be in. It was so cool to get Nina Simone and Wanted Wanted Jackson, some other maybe more outlier in the public consciousness women. It would be great to get in some of the other point. I think Patsy Klein should be in there.

What about pat Benatar has nominated. I think that's great, know, I mean, she's an amazing role model and that she had all those hits toured with her husband, the guitarists, and they're still together after all these years. She should be in for that reason alone, I think. Okay, so what do you think about today's music? I love you know, I am a music Spotify Top fifty which is mostly hip hop and pop. Well, you know, there's some hip hop I like. Of course, you know, I gotten into

post Malone. I've gotten too little Nazacs and and I have to be honest. I mainly got into them because they're cool. Nuty suits and the Western thing, you know, because I'm really into nuty suits. I wrote a book called How the West Was Worn. I love Nudy and the whole Ryanstone Cowboy look. Um. But you know, I'm still kind of a roots rock kind of gal. I love the Avid Brothers. I love all those Americana bands. I love you know. Um, oh my god, what's the

new guy? Oh? Oh yeah, I love Sturgill Simpson and I love the other guy, Jason Isabel and his um partner is amazing. I love her record, which is really outside the box. Um. I love Orville Peck. Have you seen him yet? Oh my god, you gotta check him out. He's got a kind of Roy Orbison, amazing voice. He wears the weird fringed mask. I saw him at the Americana Conference a few weeks ago. He was awesome. Anybody you haven't seen who you want to see? Oh gosh, yeah,

there's still alive. Oh that's still alive. Um, let's see most of the ones that I wanted to see have sadly passed on. Um, that's a good question of concerts you've been to top three? Oh my gosh, Bob, I hate picking top things. It doesn't just give me the ones to come tomorrow. Okay, Well again, I would say seeing Patti Smith and Chapel Hill in nineteens seventy seven, I think it was changed my life. Seeing the Clash in New York City at the Palladium when I first

moved there in nineteen. I think that was seventy nine or eighty change my life. Seeing the Jackson five that was my first ever concert at the Greensboro Coliseum and Michael and I were close in age. That was an amazing show to see the Jackson five. And somehow I ended up like sixth row or something I was in like junior high school. I don't know how that happened. So is there a woman rock writer sorority? You are you a loaner or a loan gun person, or you're

part of a group. I'm a people person. That's why I hate writing. I like I love the research. I love being out interviewing. I love hob nobbing with other writers with artists. I love meeting people and talking to people. You've got the perfect job, you know. But you're a great writer. Okay, thank you. So a couple of people unsung that people should be aware of, a couple of artists that are on song. Oh gosh, all right, let me thank oh boy. That's let's see who who who?

Who's not a test. It doesn't have to be the coolest, you know. Holly Williams um Hank William's granddaughter, Hank Junior's daughter, who was featured also in the Kinburns thing as one of the talking heads. She's an amazing artist. Um I look forward to hearing her next record. She's not really that very well known. Um Oh. There's a great band from the Woodstock area where I live called the Mammals, which is um Ruthie Unger and Mike Marinda's band. They

are amazing. She's an incredible singer and they go out. They do a lot of the kind of Americana circuit festivals and things. Okay, so you live in Woodstock, Yeah, well I live in Phoenicia, which is nearly right outside of and so how how long you've been living there? I moved up there in the end of two thousand one, I had a little cabin in the woods up there. I lived on St. Mark's Place in the East Village for twenty three years. So I started needing some treats.

We were talking, uh, you know before the podcast began that you have a son at Wesleyan. Yes, senior in the film program. Senior in the film program. So where is his father? His father is probably his He's actually as we speak, in the recording studio in Rosendale, New York right now, working on a new recording. So is he someone we know? His name is Robert Burke Warren and he I met him when he was in the Flesh Towns and I was in an all girl punk rock poka band at the time called the Dust for

a Lines back in the eighties. So we were on some double bills and that's how we met. And we've been together ever since. And so you're still together. Yeah, we're so together. That's why Pat's and Neil or my idol. Has he been married thirty years? Okay? So your first marriage? Yes, my one and only one. And he lived in England for a year. He played Buddy Holly on The West End, that musical that ran over there for a long time.

Um my husband. I met when we did a gig together out in East Hampton Labor Day weekend of nineteen eighty seven and with the Fleshtowns and dust for a lines. So that's how we met, was an instant romance. Well, you know, he's from Atlanta, I'm from North Carolina, so we had that in common in our first date was actually in New York City going to Sylvia's the Salt food restaurant and to the Cloisters. And is your son

at Wesley and your only child? Well, I have another child art, which takes up a lot of our time and money, so I don't have any children. Jack is our only his name is Jack Laaren. He's going to be a great filmmaker someday. And he is our only human son. Yes, he's our only human child. I'm a stunt. You're still together. That's great, Yeah, it's you know, it's I'm very, very fortunate. He's he's a great writer himself. He wrote a rock and roll novel called Perfectly Broken

that came out a few years ago. And he's a songwriter and he's a great editor, so he reads all my work. And gives me great advice. And he's also a musician, so whenever he helps me get all the music stuff right, and he's been in the recording studio and many, many, many times. Back to this book, What is the promotion? What are you doing to make people aware of it other than this podcast? Your show? This

is it? Man? Well, actually, you know, these days, with what's going on in the world, as we know, you never know when you're going to get canceled. But I think I'm going to be on CBS Sunday Morning. Really, yeah, that'll be great. How did that come together? Um? They just said, Holly, come on our show. Well, that's not the way it works. Someone had previous Jonathan carp my wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster, and Priscilla Paynton, my

wonderful editor at Simon and Schuster. I guess they said, hey, you know, check out this book. And but I will tell you a really cool thing because I was actually on CBS Sunday Morning twelve years ago from my gene Autry book, and the guy who produced that segment was my producer on this new segment. And it turns out I didn't realize that that was his first ever big segment that he produced. So we just reunited in Brooklyn last Friday for this already shot it. Yeah, I did

it last Friday. Okay, did you get a huge bump on CBS Sunday Morning with the GENA? Oh? Yes, I actually, and you know I was on Oxford University Press for not exactly a powerhouse and the promotion. I mean a great, great publisher, but you know, not the super you know, big books, you know, get get this story out there. But yeah, I actually I think I made it in to the Amazon top ten for a cop for a

couple of days. You know, it was either that A couple of questions before we come to the end of the feeling we can we talk for two we could, but you know, the the editor to what degree did they either steer you or change your writing? My editor was amazing. I've had some great editors before, but this woman gets down in the weeds. I mean she does the old school pencil writing comments on the manuscript pages, which actually I'm kind of old school like that too.

So we did like deep, deep dives into the Yeah, and she I think really helped me elevate my prose totally. She i trusted her implicitly, and she was actually the perfect kind of reader, because usually my editors are music people, and that's the main thing. Of course, she knew Janice Choplin, but she didn't She wasn't a music geek like me, so she was able to have this perspective. I think that was really important for the book. So I didn't go to the weeds too much or you know, usually

I tend to write way too much. So she helped me figure out where to trim and part that only geeks like me would care about. You know. So, uh, the book is coming out. You're gonna be on CBS Sunday morning. It's a major publisher. There are certain events in the world not always planned to kick start another thing. Journey would not be touring the world the way it is today if it hadn't been for the last Sopranos episode. You having done this book, do you believe it will

kickstart certain things in the Janice Joplin's legacy. I hope so, because she deserves to be recognized as the important artist that she was and as a college professor. When I do happen to turn my kids on play, you know, ball and Chain at Monterey Pop for them on YouTube or something. I mean, they are blown away by the

power and the authenticity. Yeah, her talent is palpable, and I think people today need that real nous that Janice was about real nous and the way she was able to touch these deep emotions that people are afraid to let out. You know, she would let out her fear, she would let out her disappointments for everyone to see. And I think with this world we're living in of lies and facades. I mean, Janice was a truth teller and I think we need people like her as role models. Listen,

that's perfect. We need to end it there, because artists used to be beacons, and Janice Chopolin still is. You're bringing her back to like Holly, thanks so much for doing the podcast. I can't believe you have me on. I'm so happy. Thank you. Okay, great, Until next time, It's Bob left side.