Staff Pick
Locked down? Life on hold? Read a biography of someone who really lived their life!
Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren shows her wild side as well as her
tender side. I loved this excellent biography on Janis Joplin. Oh, Janis, I'm so sorry you died so young. I only knew a handful of your songs. Didn't know how smart you were, always reading books, since childhood. That you were a talented artist, who could have gone far with drawing and painting.
Designing record albums. So impressed the way you really researched the old blues tunes, searching in record stores. Listening. How talented you were in the studio helping to produce your music. Love how you were so free and independent. Favorite new song: The Stones's "Living in a Ghost Town"
("Life was so beautiful / then we all got locked down"). Recommended By Adrienne C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
This blazingly intimate biography of Janis Joplin establishes the Queen of Rock & Roll as the rule-breaking musical trailblazer and complicated, gender-bending rebel she was.
Janis Joplin's first transgressive act was to be a white girl who gained an early sense of the power of the blues, music you could only find on obscure records and in roadhouses along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But even before that, she stood out in her conservative oil town. She was a tomboy who was also intellectually curious and artistic. By the time she reached high school, she had drawn the scorn of her peers for her embrace of the Beats and her racially progressive views. Her parents doted on her in many ways, but were ultimately put off by her repeated acts of defiance.
Janis Joplin has passed into legend as a brash, impassioned soul doomed by the pain that produced one of the most extraordinary voices in rock history. But in these pages, Holly George-Warren provides a revelatory and deeply satisfying portrait of a woman who wasn't all about suffering. Janis was a perfectionist: a passionate, erudite musician who was born with talent but also worked exceptionally hard to develop it. She was a woman who pushed the boundaries of gender and sexuality long before it was socially acceptable. She was a sensitive seeker who wanted to marry and settle down — but couldn't, or wouldn't. She was a Texan who yearned to flee Texas but could never quite get away — even after becoming a countercultural icon in San Francisco.
Written by one of the most highly regarded chroniclers of American music history, and based on unprecedented access to Janis Joplin's family, friends, band mates, archives, and long-lost interviews, Janis is a complex, rewarding portrait of a remarkable artist finally getting her due.
Review
"I've been waiting for the right person to write the definitive biography of Janis Joplin! All fans should be grateful it's finally here. Janis lives and breathes freedom and soul, and Holly George-Warren captures that spirit perfectly." Rosanne Cash, four-time Grammy Award winner
Review
"Joplin was called America's first female rock star, and George-Warren has written a biography as big, bold, and brash as its subject." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"George-Warren beautifully tells a moving story of a woman whose life and music inspired a generation." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Illuminating... A top-notch biography of one of the greatest performers to emerge from a brilliant era." Kirkus (Starred Review)
About the Author
Holly George-Warren is a two-time Grammy nominee and the award-winning author of sixteen books, including the New York Times bestseller The Road to Woodstock (with Michael Lang) and the biographies Janis: Her Life and Music, A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, and Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry. She has written for a variety of publications, including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Village Voice, and Entertainment Weekly. George-Warren teaches at the State University of New York in New Paltz.