COOL PEOPLE -JANIS JOPLIN- Tony Winner Will Play Janis Joplin in Upcoming Biopic

Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin – Ball And Chain (Amazing Performance at Monterey)

With Big Brother and the Holding Company, she performed the song at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 to an enthusiastic audience and critical reception. The first performance on June 17 was not filmed, so the band was persuaded to perform the song again on the next day. This shorter version

http://youtu.be/Bld_-7gzJ-o

Janis Joplin – Piece Of My Heart

http://youtu.be/7uG2gYE5KOs

 

Singer (1943–1970)

Bio

QUICK FACTS

NAME

Janis Joplin

OCCUPATION

Singer

BIRTH DATE

January 19, 1943

DEATH DATE

October 4, 1970

EDUCATION

University of Texas at Austin, Thomas Jefferson High School, Lamar State College of Technology,Port Arthur College

PLACE OF BIRTH

Port Arthur, Texas

Singer Janis Joplin rose to fame in the late 1960s and was known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals. She died of an accidental drug overdose in 1970.

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QUOTES

“You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That’s what music is to me.”

—Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin – Mini Biography (TV-14; 02:53) Breaking new ground for women in rock music, Janis Joplin rose to fame in the late 1960s and was known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals

Synopsis

 

Born on January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas, Janis Joplin developed a love of music at an early age, but her career didn’t take off until she joined the band Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1966. Their 1968 album, Cheap Thrills, was a huge hit. However, friction between Joplin and the band prompted her to part ways with Big Brother soon after. Known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals, Joplin released her first solo effort, I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, in 1969. The album received mixed reviews, but her second project, Pearl (1971), released after Joplin’s death, was a huge success. The singer died of an accidental overdose on October 4, 1970, at age 27.

Wild Child

Janis Lyn Joplin was born on January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas. Breaking new ground for women in rock music, Joplin rose to fame in the late 1960s and became known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals. She grew up in a small Texas town known for its connections to the oil industry with a skyline and dotted with oil tanks and refineries. For years, Joplin struggled to escape from this confining community, and spent even longer to trying to overcome her memories of her difficult years there.Developing a love for music at an early age, Joplin sang in her church choir as a child and showed some promise as a performer. She was an only child until the age of 6, when her sister, Laura, was born. Four years later, her brother, Michael, arrived. Joplin was a good student and fairly popular until around the age of 14, when some side effects of puberty started to kick in. She got acne and gained some weight.At Thomas Jefferson High School, Joplin began to rebel. She eschewed the popular girls’ fashions of the late 1950s, often choosing to wear men’s shirts and tights, or short skirts. Joplin, who liked to stand out from the crowd, became the target of some teasing as well as a popular subject in the school’s rumor mill. She was called a “pig” by some, while others said that she was sexually promiscuous.Joplin eventually developed a group of guy friends who shared her interest in music and the Beat Generation, which rejected the standard norms and emphasized creative expression (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were two of the Beat movement’s leading figures).

Early Musical Interests

Musically, Janis Joplin and her friends gravitated toward blues and jazz, admiring such artists as Lead Belly. Joplin was also inspired by legendary blues vocalists Bessie Smith, MaRainey andOdetta, an early leading figure in the folk music movement. The group frequented local working-class bars in the nearby town of Vinton, Louisiana. By her senior year of high school, Joplin had developed a reputation as a ballsy, tough-talking girl who like to drink and be outrageous.After graduating from high school, Joplin enrolled at Lamar State College of Technology in the neighboring town of Beaumont, Texas. There, she devoted more time to hanging out and drinking with friends than to her studies. At the end of her first semester at Lamar, Joplin left the school. She went on to attend Port Arthur College, where she took some secretarial courses, before moving to Los Angeles in the summer of 1961. This first effort to break away from wasn’t a success, however, and Joplin thus returned to Port Arthur for a time.In the summer of 1962, Joplin fled to the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied art. In Austin, Joplin began performing at folksings—casual musical gatherings where anyone can perform—on campus and atThreadgill’s, a gas station turned bar, with the Waller Creek Boys, a musical trio with whom she was friends. With her forceful, gutsy singing style, Joplin amazed many audience members. She was unlike any other white female vocalist at the time (folk icons like Joan Baez and Judy Collins were known for their gentle sound).In January 1963, Joplin ditched school to check out the emerging music scene in San Francisco with friend Chet Helms. But this stint out west, like her first, proved to be unsuccessful, as Joplin struggled to make it as a singer in the Bay Area. She played some gigs, including a side-stage performance at the 1963 Monterey Folk Festival—but her career didn’t gain much traction. Joplin then spent some time in New York City, where she hoped to have better luck getting her career off the ground, but her drinking and drug use (she’d begun regularly using speed, or amphetamine, among other drugs) there proved to be detrimental to her musical aspirations. In 1965, she left San Francisco and returned home in an effort to get herself together again.

Back in Texas, Joplin took a break from her music and her hard-partying lifestyle, and dressed conservatively, putting her long, often messy hair into a bun and doing everything else she could to appear straight-laced. But the conventional life was not for her, and her desire to pursue her musical dreams wouldn’t remain submerged for long.

Joplin slowly returned to performing, and in May 1966, was recruited by friend Travis Rivers to audition for a new psychedelic rock band based in San Francisco, Big Brother and the Holding Company. At the time, the group was managed by another longtime friend of Joplin’s, Chet Helms. Big Brother, whose members included James Gurley, Dave Getz, Peter Albin and Sam Andrew, was part of the burgeoning San Francisco music scene of the late 1960s; among the other bands involved in this scene were the Grateful Dead.Big Brother

Joplin blew the band away during her audition, and was quickly offered membership into the group. In her early days with Big Brother, she sang only a few songs and played the tambourine in the background. But it wasn’t long before Joplin assumed a bigger role in the band, as Big Brother developed quite a following in the Bay Area. Their appearance at the now legendary Monterey Pop Festival in 1967—specifically their version of “Ball and Chain” (originally made famous by R&B legend Big Mama Thornton) brought the group further acclaim. Most of the praise, however, focused on Joplin’s incredible vocals. Fueled by heroin, amphetamines and the bourbon she drank straight from the bottle during gigs, Joplin’s unrestrained sexual style and raw, gutsy sound mesmerized audiences—and all of this attention caused some tension between Joplin and her bandmates.After hearing Joplin at Monterey, Columbia Records President Clive Davis wanted to sign the band. Albert Grossman, who already managed Bob Dylan, the Band, and Peter, Paul & Mary, later signed on as the band’s manager, and was able to get them out of another record deal they’d signed earlier with Mainstream Records.While their recordings for Mainstream never found much of an audience, Big Brother’s first album for Columbia, Cheap Thrills (1968), was a huge hit. While the album was wildly successful—quickly becoming a certified gold record with songs like “Piece of My Heart” and “Summertime”—creating it had been a challenging process, causing even more problems between Joplin and band’s other members. (The album was produced by John Simon, who’d had the band do take after take in an attempt to create a technically perfect sound.)Cheap Thrills helped solidify Joplin’s reputation as a unique, dynamic, bluesy rock singer. Despite Big Brother’s continued success, Joplin was becoming frustrated with group, feeling that she was being held back professionally.

 

Solo Career

Joplin struggled with her decision to leave Big Brother, as her bandmates had been like a family to her, but she eventually decided to part ways with the group. She played with Big Brother for the last time in December 1968.

Following a historic performance at Woodstock (August 1969), Joplin released her first solo effort, I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, in September 1969, with Kozmic Blues Band. Some of the project’s most memorable songs were “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)” and “To Love Somebody,” a cover of a Bee Gees tune. But Kozmic Blues received mixed reviews, with some media outlets criticizing Joplin personally. Feeling uniquely pressured to prove herself as a female solo artist in a male-dominated industry, the criticism caused distress for Joplin. “That was a pretty heavy time for me,” she later said in an interview with Howard Smith of The Village Voice. “It was really important, you know, whether people were going to accept me or not.” (Joplin’s interview with Smith was her last; it took place on September 30, 1970, just four days before her death.) Outside of music, Joplin appeared to be struggling with alcohol and drugs, including an addiction to heroin.

Joplin’s next album would be her most successful, but, tragically, also her last. She recorded Pearl with the Full Tilt Boogie Band and wrote two of its songs, the powerful, rocking “Move Over” and “Mercedes Benz,” a gospel-styled send-up of consumerism.Tragic Death and Legacy

Following a long struggle with substance abuse, Joplin died from an accidental heroin overdose on October 4, 1970, at a hotel in Hollywood’s Landmark Hotel. Completed by Joplin’s producer, Pearl was released in 1971 and quickly became a hit. The single “Me and Bobby McGee,” written by Kris Kristofferson, a former love of Joplin’s, reached the top of the charts.Despite her untimely death, Janis Joplin’s songs continue to attract new fans and inspire performers. Numerous collections of her songs have been released over the years, including In Concert (1971) and Box of Pearls(1999). In recognition of her significant accomplishments, Joplin was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and honored with a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards in 2005.Dubbed the “first lady of rock ‘n’ roll,” Joplin has been the subject of several books and documentaries, including Love, Janis (1992), written by sister Laura Joplin. That book was adapted into a play of the same title.

Tony Winner Will Play Janis Joplin in Upcoming Biopic
Nina Arianda set to portray the singer, with Sean Durkin directing

BY ROLLING STONE

An upcoming Janis Joplin biopic has found its star: Tony award-winning actress Nina Arianda will appear as the singer in the Sean Durkin-directed Joplin, Deadline reports.

According to producer Peter Newman, who’s been trying to put together a Joplin flick along with his partners for the past 12 years, Arianda will sing all of Joplin’s music. That’s no easy task, especially trying to capture Joplin’s signature grit, but Newman says he’s confident in his star’s talents.

“I’ve never in my life seen an actress walk on a stage and convey the duality of vulnerability with overheated sexuality, which is what Janis was all about,” Newman told Deadline.

While this isn’t Arianda’s first foray into film – she’s held supporting roles in Midnight -n Paris, Tower Heist and others – it will be her first major starring role. The actress won acclaim and a Tony for best actress in a play for her turn in the Broadway show Venus in Fur. Meanwhile, director Durkin broke out last year with his film Martha Marcy May Marlene, which garnered plenty of praise at festivals and landed him the Best Director honor at Sundance.

Joplin will focus on the last six months of the Texas-born musician’s career, though it will also include flashbacks to her early career. The film has exclusive rights to use 21 of Joplin’s best known tracks.

While there have been other attempts to produce a Joplin biopic, especially as Newman’s sat on the back-burner, the producer had scored Joplin’s crucial song and life rights as well as the arrangements by backing band Big Brother and the Holding Company. Newman also holds the rights to the collection of letters Love, Janis and Piece of My Heart, the book written by Rolling Stone reporter David Dalton, who traveled with Joplin during the six months before the heroin overdose that killed her in 1970.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tony-winner-will-play-janis-joplin-in-upcoming-biopic-20120710#ixzz3K6cF1LwT
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Nina Arianda set to portray the singer, with Sean Durkin directing

D Dipasupil/Getty Images; GAB Archive/Redferns

Nina Arianda to star as Janis Joplin in upcoming biopic

BY ROLLING STONE | July 10, 2012

An upcoming Janis Joplin biopic has found its star: Tony award-winning actress Nina Arianda will appear as the singer in the Sean Durkin-directed Joplin, Deadline reports.

According to producer Peter Newman, who’s been trying to put together a Joplin flick along with his partners for the past 12 years, Arianda will sing all of Joplin’s music. That’s no easy task, especially trying to capture Joplin’s signature grit, but Newman says he’s confident in his star’s talents.

“I’ve never in my life seen an actress walk on a stage and convey the duality of vulnerability with overheated sexuality, which is what Janis was all about,” Newman told Deadline.

While this isn’t Arianda’s first foray into film – she’s held supporting roles in Midnight -n Paris, Tower Heist and others – it will be her first major starring role. The actress won acclaim and a Tony for best actress in a play for her turn in the Broadway show Venus in Fur. Meanwhile, director Durkin broke out last year with his film Martha Marcy May Marlene, which garnered plenty of praise at festivals and landed him the Best Director honor at Sundance.

Joplin will focus on the last six months of the Texas-born musician’s career, though it will also include flashbacks to her early career. The film has exclusive rights to use 21 of Joplin’s best known tracks.

While there have been other attempts to produce a Joplin biopic, especially as Newman’s sat on the back-burner, the producer had scored Joplin’s crucial song and life rights as well as the arrangements by backing band Big Brother and the Holding Company. Newman also holds the rights to the collection of letters Love, Janis and Piece of My Heart, the book written by Rolling Stone reporter David Dalton, who traveled with Joplin during the six months before the heroin overdose that killed her in 1970.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tony-winner-will-play-janis-joplin-in-upcoming-biopic-20120710#ixzz3K6cF1LwT
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

The counterculture of the 1960s was marked by a growing distrust of government

 

 

The American Counterculture refers to the period between 1964-1972 when the norms of the 1950s were rejected by youth.
Key Points

◾Counterculture youth rejected the cultural standards of their parents, especially with respect to racial segregation, the Vietnam War, sexual mores, women’s rights, and materialism.

◾Hippies were the largest countercultural classification comprising mostly white members of the middle class.

The counterculture movement divided the country.

◾The movement died in the early 1970s because most of their goals had become mainstream, and because of rising economic troubles.
Terms

◾quash

To defeat forcibly.

◾stagflation

Inflation accompanied by stagnant growth, unemployment or recession.

◾counterculture

Any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to western culture.

A counterculture developed in the United States in late 1960s. This movement lasted from approximately 1964 to 1972, and it coincided with America’s involvement in Vietnam. A counterculture is the rejection of conventional social norms – in this case the norms of the 1950s . The counterculture youth rejected the cultural standards of their parents, specifically racial segregation and initial widespread support for the Vietnam War.

Woodstock Youth

This photo was taken near the Woodstock Music Festival in August, 1969. The counterculture in the 1960s was characterized by young people breaking away from the traditional culture of the 1950s.

As the 1960s progressed, widespread tensions developed in American society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the war in Vietnam , race relations, sexual mores, women’s rights, traditional modes of authority, and a materialist interpretation of the American Dream. White, middle class youth, who made up the bulk of the counterculture, had sufficient leisure time to turn their attention to social issues, thanks to widespread economic prosperity.

Vietnam War Protest

The counterculture of the 1960s was marked by a growing distrust of government
, which included anti-war protests like this.
Unconventional appearance, music, drugs, communitarian experiments, and sexual liberation were hallmarks of the sixties counterculture, most of whose members were white, middle-class young Americans. Hippies became the largest countercultural group in the United States . The counterculture reached its peak in the 1967 “Summer of Love,” when thousands of young people flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. The counterculture lifestyle integrated many of the ideals and indulgences of the time: peace, love, harmony, music, and mysticism. Meditation, yoga, and psychedelic drugs were embraced as routes to expanding one’s consciousness.

The Peace Sign

The peace sign became a major symbol of the counterculture of the 1960s.

Rejection of mainstream culture was best embodied in the new genres of psychedelic rock music, pop-art, and new explorations in spirituality. Musicians who exemplified this era include The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Pink Floyd.

New forms of musical presentation also played a key role in spreading the counterculture, mainly large outdoor rock festivals. The climactic live statement of this occurred from August 15–18, 1969, with the Woodstock Music Festival held in Bethel, New York. During this festival, 32 of rock and psychedelic rock’s most popular acts performing live outdoors over the course of a weekend to an audience of half a million people.

Countercultural sentiments were expressed in song lyrics and popular sayings of the period, such as “do your own thing,” “turn on, tune in, drop out,” “whatever turns you on,” “eight miles high,” “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll,” and “light my fire. ” Spiritually, the counterculture included interest in astrology, the term “Age of Aquarius,” and knowing people’s signs.

The counterculture movement divided the country. To some Americans, these attributes reflected American ideals of free speech, equality, world peace, and the pursuit of happiness. To others, the counterculture movement reflected a self-indulgent, pointlessly rebellious, unpatriotic, and destructive assault on America’s traditional moral order.

In an effort to quash the movement, authorities banned the psychedelic drug LSD, restricted political gatherings, and tried to enforce bans on what they considered obscenity in books, music, theater, and other media. In the end, the counterculture collapsed on its own around 1973.

Two main reasons are cited for the collapse. First, the most popular of the movement’s political goals—civil rights, civil liberties, gender equality, environmentalism, and the end of the Vietnam War—were accomplished (to at least a significant degree), and its most popular social attributes, particularly a “live and let live” mentality in personal lifestyles (the “sexual revolution”)—were co-opted by mainstream society. Second, a decline of idealism and hedonism occured as many notable counterculture figures died and the rest settled into mainstream society and started their own families.

The “magic economy” of the 1960s gave way to the stagflation of the 1970s, the latter costing many middle-class Americans the luxury of being able to live outside conventional social institutions. The counterculture, however, continues to influence social movements, art, music, and society in general, and the post-1973 mainstream society has been in many ways a hybrid of the 1960s establishment and counterculture—seen as the best (or the worst) of both worlds.

Express Your Inner Hippie;

Counterculture of the 1960’s

 

Express Your Inner Hippie;

the Art, Fashion and Music of the 1960’s

The counterculture of the United States brought on a new sense and philosophy of life and along with this, different and new ways of expression. The counterculture youth of the nation utilized their first Amendment rights to their full advantage in terms of protest, music, literature and art. The freedom of expression was the main attribute to the carefree, hippie lifestyle. The youth expressed their beliefs through freedom of expression by dawning eccentric clothing, creating new artwork and literature, and expressing themselves through song.

With new ideas about life came new designs for clothing and trends in the 1960’s. Designers fashioned new clothing for the expanding hippie culture whom were attracted to the bright, psychedelic colors and patterns. The drug culture and massive quantities of LSD being consumed fed the appeal of such bizarre fashion. “‘With acid, there was an emergence of young people dressed to die for’ –Christopher Gibbs,” (Miles 255). Designers purposefully created patterns and colors that imitated an “acid trip”.

“The patterns, suitably enough, were created by the burning of acetate colored slides with acid…Colors and materials floated, crossed over into one another and seemed to expand and blur as the wearer danced,” (Miles 255).

People made statements with their outlandish attire and attitudes. The clothing was a way in which the youth could express themselves to the public as free individuals who had no regard for what people had to say about them or how they dressed. Some hippies did not feel the need for such expensive, outrageous clothing. Some were content with less expensive or home-made clothing.

“The 1960’s describes hippies wearing flowers in their hair, dressing in second-hand clothes from thrift and army surplus stores. They wore ponchos, bell-bottoms decorated with patches and embroidered tie-dye shirts, leather sandals, bright colors, and intricate patterns…Women wore men’s clothes and ‘granny dresses’ without bras because they found them too restricting,” (Hoy 1).

Some hippies did not feel the need to spend so much money on the highest and fashionable trends of the era. Instead, they kept their attire simple and used what money they made for essential living and most times drugs.

The fundamental origin of the 1960’s hippie culture was derived from the “Beat Generation” of the late 1950’s. Generally known as “Beatniks”, these people started to really experiment in the field of art, namely poetry.

“Beatniks frequently rejected middle-class American values, customs, and tastes in favor of radical politics and exotic jazz, art and literature,” (‘Beatnick’ 1).

The “New Beats” developed into the Hippie Generation in the 1960’s as the culture in popularity and exposure increased dramatically. Beatniks were struggling artists, trying to find new ways to express themselves and quickly found an outlet in poetry. Aside from new literature which fed the public alternate ways of life and philosophies, the psychedelic poster business took form and exploded onto the scene. Bold, fluorescent colors and intricate patterns were also reflected in the art of poster making. The fascination with such bizarre patterns and colors was apparent through both the clothing and the posters.

“1966 was the year that psychedelic posters really took off…The letters were often so distorted that they were very difficult to decipher-unless you were stoned. This made the posters and the events they were advertising more appealing,” (Miles 100).

People would design these posters such as fashion designers created clothes and outfits for the hippie generation to wear. People of the generation were highly attracted to them, just as much as they were attracted to the drug culture that was thriving in the nation. Andy Warhol, a famous artist of the era, designed album covers for bands as well as works of art. He is known for many works, among them the psychedelic four-frame portrait of Marylyn Monroe and the can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup. Busses that transported hippies to the West Coast, such as San Francisco, were painted with similar designs and plenty of bright colors. Bright colors and intricate patterns, as well as deep thought were methods of effective expression during the counterculture era.

Throughout the decades of the 20th century, each has had their own label in terms of musical revolution. For example, swing was popular in the 1920’s, jazz and blues through the next two and a half decades, and rock ‘n’ roll in the conservative 1950’s. The 1960’s era is known for the emergence of psychedelic rock, a genre which hippies listened to when high on drugs, believing they could reach a higher place. The “British Invasion” of bands from England contributed to the explosion of this new rock genre in the United States. “Then came the Beatles, followed rapidly by the Stones and a whole explosion of beat groups that transformed rock ‘n’ roll, if not overnight, then in a year or so,” (Miles 76). The Beatles were a crazed sensation in the United States; they gained a solid fan base in the country amongst the youth. Amongst the most popular groups were the individuals who spoke out against issues with their music. People such as Bob Dylan expressed his protest point of view through acoustic singing and song-writing. He soon became “an electrified spokesperson for a generation in 1965.” (Miles 50). Artists such as Dylan were able to express their views on current issues of the country because they had a right to do so, and because they wanted to be heard. Janis Joplin, a female artistic activist, both for anti-war protest and feminisms in this era because she was able to express herself through music, much like the rest of the counterculture in the United States. The new-wave genre of psychedelic rock took firm hold on the nation and grew more defined as its popularity expanded and the hippie generation found another effective way to freely express themselves.

With a completely worry and carefree lifestyle, the people of the Hippie generation and counterculture used their rights as citizens of the United States to their advantage. They could outright ridicule America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and make statements against the restrictive society that possessed the previous decade. Counterculture youth made statements with their fashion sense, their creative and appealing artwork and through their own voice, either through poetry and literature or song. It was never uncommon to see people of this generation dressing bizarrely, or even simply, painting the flowers and peace signs on the side of an old bus in neon colors, and never without a guitar or flute. Through each of these means, the hippie generation effectively defines their views and purpose, and in turn, positively share it with the rest of society.

Works Cited

“Beatnik.” RetroGalaxy.Com. 2007. Online. Internet. 06.06.07. Available:

http://www.retrogalaxy.com/culture/beatniks.asp

Hoy, Rosemary. “Flower Children Chose Alternative Lifestyle.” Borderlands.

Internet. 06.03.07.Available:

http://www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/14_flower_children.htm.

Miles, Barry. Hippy. New York. Sterling Publishing Co., Inc, 2003.

R.CRUMB INTERVIEW AND ABOUT

INTERVIEW WITH R. CRUMB

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1vhoaG/:M!q7pNWZ:SEyKV8VJ/www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm3Cgj61rRs/

ABOUT R. CRUMB

A Controversial American cartoonist Robert Crumb is widely considered to be the “father of underground comics.” His work has a distinctive style and satirical tone and often features strongly stereotyped portrayals of minorities and overly sexualized women. He is best known for creating the cartoon characters Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural and Devil Girl.

CONTENTS

• Synopsis
• Early Life
• 1960s Cartoonist
• Controversy
• Later Work

Early Life

Cartoonist Robert Crumb was born on August 30, 1943, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Talented and perverse, Crumb first entered the public eye as an underground cartoonist during the late 1960s as the creator of Zap Comix. He created such characters as Fritz the Cat, Angelfood McSpade and Mr. Natural.

One of five children, Crumb had a difficult time growing up. His father, a member of the U.S. marines, was physically and verbally abusive, and his mother had psychological problems. Crumb was closest to his older brother Charles who was fascinated by comics and Walt Disney. The two brothers spent much of their time together creating their own comics.

For years, the Crumb family moved around for his father’s military career. Wherever he went, Robert Crumb had a hard time fitting in. “I was passive, mushy and vague when I was a kid,” Crumb explained in The R. Crumb Handbook. After his father retired from the service in 1956, the Crumb family moved to Delaware. Throughout their childhoods, the Crumb children attended Catholic school. Robert was devoted to his faith until around the age of 16. In high school, he was treated like a social outcast.

1960s Cartoonist

In 1962, Crumb moved to Cleveland where he found a job at the American Greetings Corporation. He first worked as a color separator before getting promoted to an illustrator position. According to his website, Crumb’s boss often told him that his drawings were “too grotesque.”

Crumb married Dana Morgan in 1964. By the next June, Crumb started experimenting with the drug LSD, which had a dramatic impact on his art. Some of his most famous characters, including Mr. Natural, The Snoid, Shuman the Human and the Truckin’ guys, surfaced his drawings from this period. Crumb soon started contributing to a number of underground newspapers.

He moved to San Francisco in 1967, which had a growing underground hippie music and art scene. The first issue of Zap Comix came out in 1968—the same year he and his wife welcomed a son named Jesse. Around this time, Crumb created his famous cover art for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills, which featured several drawings of lead singer Janis Joplin.

Some of Crumb’s work involved social satire. He took on the establishment with such characters as Whiteman, an uptight businessman. Mr. Natural was a so-called mystic who was really a con man. With Fritz the Cat, a character he had invented as a child, Crumb poked fun at bohemian types. The adventures of slick, female-chasing feline appeared in several magazines and comic books and in book form in 1969.

Controversy

Sex was another important part of his work.

• Next Page

ROLLING STONE COVER JANIS JOPLIN AND JANIS SINGING “ME AND BOBBY MCGEE

San Francisco: Straight Arrow Publishers.On loan from Mike Furlough.

Jann Wenner was a student in San Francisco when he founded Rolling Stone Magazine in 1967. Rolling Stonewas at first a one page broadsheet that Wenner hawked from the back of his car, but it quickly grew into the biggest, most influential of all the rock magazines. Though Rolling Stone started out no differently than dozens of other city rock magazines, Wenner saw that the magazine could be a success on a national scale. His aggressive hustling brought him the coveted interviews with many of the biggest stars in Rock and Roll music.Rolling Stone is still widely read by younger rock fans of today. Shown is an issue from October 29, 1970, reporting on the then-recent death of Janis Joplin.

“ME AND BOBBY MCGEE”

Kristofferson and Foster wrote the song, first sung by Roger Miller. Kristofferson states that the film La Strada was an inspiration for the song.

THE COUNTERCULTURE

The Counterculture Janis Joplin and Big Brother and The Holding Company, Lagunitas, California, 1967. Joplin’s gritty, full-throttle blues-rock style offered a new, liberating image for women in the world of rock music. Unconventional appearance, music, drugs, communitarian experiments, and sexual liberation were hallmarks of the sixties counterculture, most of whose members were white, middle-class young Americans. To some Americans, these attributes reflected American ideals of free speech, equality, and pursuit of happiness. Other people saw the counterculture as self-indulgent, pointlessly rebellious, unpatriotic, and destructive of America’s moral order. Authorities banned the psychedelic drug LSD, restricted political gatherings, and tried to enforce bans on what they considered obscenity in books, music, theater, and other media. Parents argued with their children and worried about their safety. Some adults accepted elements of the counterculture, while others became estranged from sons and daughters. In 1967 Lisa and Tom Law moved to San Francisco, joining thousands of young people flocking to the Haight-Ashbury district. The counterculture lifestyle integrated many of the ideals and indulgences of the time: peace, love, harmony, music, mysticism, and religions outside the Judeo-Christian tradition. Meditation, yoga, and psychedelic drugs were embraced as routes to expanding one’s consciousness. The “Freak-Out” show, Los Angeles, 1965. Rock music, colorful light shows, performance artists, and mind-altering drugs characterized the psychedelic dance parties of the sixties held in large halls in Los Angeles and San Francisco. A concert in the Panhandle, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 1967 The Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco, 1967. Students, hippies, musicians, and artists gravitated toward the community’s inexpensive housing and festive atmosphere. Hell’s Angels motorcycle club members, the Panhandle in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 1967. While some people admired the Hell’s Angels’ audacious style, its members had an uneven and sometimes violent relationship with people in the counterculture. Musician in the Panhandle, San Francisco, 1967 “Summer of Love,” the Panhandle, San Francisco, 1967 San Francisco, 1967 Easter Sunday Love-In, Malibu Canyon, California, 1968. This was a celebration of the counterculture movement. Suzuki-Roshi, a Buddhist teacher, at the Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, January 14, 1967. Also known as “A Gathering of the Tribes,” the Human Be-In was an effort to promote positive interactions among different groups in society. Poet Allen Ginsberg, Human Be-In festival, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 1967. Ginsberg, known for his poem Howl, lived and symbolized the bohemian ideals of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and embraced the counterculture of the sixties. It [the counterculture] was an attempt to rebel against the values our parents had pushed on us. We were trying to get back to touching and relating and living. -Lisa Law, 1985 Monterey International Pop Festival, Monterey, California, 1967. Monterey Pop was one of the first large outdoor rock festivals in the 1960s. Lisa and Tom Law sheltered people who were having difficult psychedelic drug experiences in their “Trip Tent.” Timothy Leary, the Harvard-trained psychologist who coined the phrase “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out,” at the Human Be-In, San Francisco, 1967

JANIS JOPLIN-PIECE OF MY HEART

 

 

 

 

 

GERMANY 1968. JANIS JOPLIN THE GREATEST FEMALE ROCK SINGER OF THE SIXTIES

 

check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/7uG2gYE5KOs