Janis Joplin
1969: January 1969 to December 1969

After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a funky, pop-oriented sound in contrast to many of the psychedelic/hard rock bands of the period.

By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day (equivalent to $1,662 in 2023) although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Gabriel Mekler, who produced the album, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that she had lived in his Los Angeles house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.

Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in theaters, in multiple documentaries. Janis, which was reviewed by The Washington Post on March 21, 1975, shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue, while an American female fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera. No security was used in Frankfurt, so by the end of the concert, the stage was so packed with people the band members could not see each other. Janis includes interviews with Joplin in Stockholm and from her visit to London, for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. The London interview was dubbed with a voiceover in the German language for broadcast on German television. John Byrne Cooke, road manager for Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band, wrote a book published in 2014 in which he discussed her knowledge of the risks of her ongoing use of narcotics, particularly when she was outside the United States.

On the episode of The Dick Cavett Show that was telecast in the United States on the night of July 18, 1969, Joplin and her band performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as " To Love Somebody ".

Released in September 1969, the Kozmic Blues album was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. Some music critics, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother... (if they'll have her)." Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post, devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice."

Columbia Records released " Kozmic Blues " as a single, which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", " To Love Somebody ", and " Little Girl Blue ", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached number five on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.

Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 am, on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She referred them to her friend and sometime lover Peggy Caserta as she was too excited to speak.

Initially, Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform, but was repeatedly delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform ahead of Joplin. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, Joplin spent some of that time shooting heroin and drinking alcohol with Caserta in a tent. The director's cut of the Woodstock movie shows Joplin and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick standing together near amplifiers watching the band Canned Heat's performance, which started at 7:30 pm. Saturday. Caserta does not appear within camera range. When Joplin reached the stage at approximately 2:00 am. Sunday, she was " three sheets to the wind ", according to biographer Alice Echols. During her performance, Joplin's voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy, and she struggled to dance.

Joplin pulled through, and engaged frequently with the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. The audience cheered for an encore, to which Joplin replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Pete Townshend, who performed with the Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said in his 2012 memoir, "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible."

Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. Starting at approximately 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18, Joplin was among many Woodstock performers who stood in a circle behind Crosby, Stills & Nash during their performance, which was the first time anyone at Woodstock ever had heard the group perform. This information was published by David Crosby in 1988. Later in the morning of August 18, Joplin and Joan Baez sat in Joe Cocker 's van and witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance, according to Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1989).

Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. She was ultimately unhappy with her performance, however, and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included, by her own insistence, in the 1970 documentary film or the soundtrack for Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of " Work Me, Lord ". The documentary film of the festival that was released in theaters during 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward Joplin's dressing room tent.

In addition to Woodstock, Joplin had problems at Madison Square Garden, in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman said she had witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during the Rolling Stones concert at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman said Joplin was "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania." An audio recording of the duet exists online. During another Garden concert where she had solo billing on December 19, some observers believed Joplin tried to incite the audience to riot. For part of this concert she was joined onstage by Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.

Joplin was arrested for "vulgar and indecent language" on November 16, 1969, at the Curtis Hixon Hall after yelling "Don't fuck with those people" towards the police doing crowd control during her performance. An hour after being booked, Joplin was released on a $504 bond. Joplin failed to attend the trial, and was subsequently found guilty and fined $200 plus court costs.

Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton, she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture.
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