Summer 1969: In great excitement and
awe, we’ve come with thousands of other people to experience a performance by
Janis Joplin. We’re two boys in our middle teens, good friends for some years
now, dressed in long white shirts of East Indian style, with headbands about
our brows. My pal, Jeff Berg, drove us in his battered green VW Bug from Silver
Springs, Maryland, to the concert site in the lush green countryside.
From
the parking area we cross gentle slopes, past a pond, to the Merriweather Post
Pavilion for the Performing Arts.
The
facility is partly outdoors, though the central part of the audience beneath
the roof has seating and the stage is covered. We locate a position under the
sky on a sort of grassy slope well above, yet close to the stage, at a railing where
we can see look down upon the performance area from a side angle.
An
amazing group, The James Cotton Blues Band performs, yet we’re ready for Janis
herself. We’re totally buzzed with anticipation.
The
opening act finishes, and after the stage is cleared, the roadies arrange the
equipment for Janis’s set. Finally her band’s equipment is all arranged and
connected and some musicians have taken their places, including a small horn
section with Snookie Flowers on saxophone. This is the line-up known as the
Kozmic Blues Band. A few sounds tests add to our agonized impatience as the
last of the daylight fades away.
Everything
below us on the stage appears clear and jewel-bright.
When
the first loud and rich-sounding chords of music are struck, I’m electrified;
every hair on my teenaged body stands up! I’m so focused that my brain records
the experience in great detail! The entire evening remains vividly intact in my
brain now more than forty years after the event.
Janis
actually appears running from the wings of the stage to the microphone that
perches on a stand at the middle in the front. How on Earth does she actually
run in those heels? Yet she does! She wears what appears to be a purple silk
pant-suit with bell-bottom trousers, matching purple and pink and white boas
attached to her long, flowing hair. Of course, she sports a mass of necklaces
and what must be a million bracelets on the wrist of her right hand.
She
grabs the microphone and does a little hop of excitement in place—despite the
purple high-heeled pumps. She tosses her head back with a flourish of flying
hair and feathers to deliver an unearthly, gorgeous, almost terrifying wail
that speaks of not only enthusiastic greeting, but a generous dose of passionate
longing, outrage, affirmation, seduction: agony and ecstasy.
More
ecstasy than anything!
Her
fist goes up beside the mike gripped in her other hand, pushed close to her
lips. The fingers of that fist fly open with the next sounds that launch from
her mouth, and her rapid, even frantic gestures nuance, seduce, grab, stab,
caress, punctuate, rip, ripple, tickle and tease the air in synch with that
rich, raspy, and entirely unmistakable, totally astonishing voice.
Is
she singing two notes at once sometimes?
Indeed!
It
seems as if the entire world is still holding its breath.
It’s
“Raise Your Hand,” and actually, at first I do
not levitate to the same extent I will with the more familiar songs. Momentarily,
I’m stunned at the unfamiliarity, and shaken that I’m not sure I like it as
much as her albums. This is one of those songs I do not already know from
recordings, still the sheer excitement of
actually seeing and hearing Janis at that moment overrides everything else in
my existence! Nothing has ever in my life so fully grabbed my attention, as she
does…
There
she is, alive on the stage, belting it out, and as always giving more than 100%
of herself. There are no throwaway
performances with Janis, I realize.
Every
shriek and gasp and coo comes from her core.
She’s
a totally riveting whirlwind before our eyes; a genuine force of Nature!
She
gives everything she’s got.
Love
mixed with intense gratitude for this special experience pours back at her from
thousands of opened hearts.
This
is an uncanny experience of what the Hindus call “darshan,” the presence of a
holy person that in and of itself bestows grace.
Though
that first song does not actually disappoint, the next, “Piece of My Heart,” is
the one that first lifts my feet off the ground; I will not touch down again
that night.
Later,
with an exquisite rendition of “Maybe,” the powerful horn section truly shines
brilliantly, and this woman’s ability to match the power of the brass with her
voice, reveals a new mystery. At the end of this song, Janis has to extend both
hands open, one with the microphone between thumb and first finger, to request
a hush from the audience so that she can deliver the last liquid note, which
then brings down thunder and the first of many standing ovations.
Of
course, Jeff and I have been standing and dancing in place all along.
When
the time arrives for Janis to sing one of her most famous songs, like a sort of
inevitable, yet humbling and privileged ritual of the throbbing mass of excited
humans—comes a total surprise. In fact, we don’t even recognize the song at
first! The new instrumental introduction sounds classical. It’s a sort of brassy
Baroque horn fanfare, an elegant and sweetly-rambling intro that keeps us
guessing—what is this song?
What
song can this be?
There
is a certain playfulness to this deception.
A
sweet, insinuating, piercingly pure and somewhat nasal note:
“Ssssssummuh-taaaaahhhhhm . . .taaahhm, tahhhhm-tahm . . .” Her voice levitates
everyone present higher than ever with a unique clarity and purity such as
we’ve never heard yet. Of course, it’s “Summertime,” not only a show-stopper,
but a musical sacrament for the faithful. Strange, isn’t it, how the blues can
make you feel so incredibly good!
That
voice reaches out unlike anything I’ve ever heard or felt and with unparalleled
intimacy Janis opens a door to the heart.
The
sound system is incredibly loud and it continues to ring in our ears after the
concert concludes following several exuberant curtain-calls. At last after a
lengthy and unbelievably profound rendition of “Ball and Chain”… with my friend,
I’m stumbling beyond words towards the parking area…
Several
times Jeff Berg simply mutters, “Mother Mind-fuck,” and nothing more.
Some
ineffable quality now seems to connect the dots of the stars in the heavens
above and the atomic stardust within our bodies.
Before
we get back to the little green VW Bug, we sit by a pond and stare at the
reflections on the water for a time as other concert-goers continue to stream
past us. It’s as if we need a speechless spell to process what really cannot be
understood or grasped.
Janis
may have left the premises, only she’ll never leave my heart.
I’ll
never been the same person.
I know it.
