60’s Nostalgia – Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin has no competition. She was a cuckoo’s egg hatched in a middle class Texas household and her entire life she struggled to find her place. Despite professional acclaim, she never found it and died of a drug overdose in 1970.  She is truly a child of the 60’s.

It is impossible for me to categorize Janis as an artist. Unlike other 60’s performers, she didn’t adopt a style. She didn’t evolve. She was real, raw emotion with no pretense or posturing. You either liked her or were repulsed and you knew that she didn’t care what you thought- or maybe she had just given up hoping.

Her story is a sad one. She struggled between conforming and freeing the raging forces within her. She wasn’t yet thirty when she died, burning brightly and then snuffed out.

The video clip is from 1970 just before her death. Janis defines 60’s music and barely entered the 70’s. This clip shows her style most clearly and the lyrics perhaps reveal the inner Janis. Janis truly represents the struggles of the 60’s between the rock solid American values of the 50’s and the free spirited cultural diversity of today. It was a battle she never won and America is still fighting.