6 October 1970: News that the singer had died of a heroin overdose prompted Geoffrey Cannon to recall the time he met Joplin in London
An evening at the Royal Garden Hotel in April,18 months ago. I was assembly Janis Joplin. I fished around for a while, trying to gain replies from her. She was impolite. Then I suddenly realised what was difficult to believe. The biggest female name in rock – which is what she was, or then – had stage fright.
I asked her why. She said that it was easy,in America, to make people believe that she was a blues singer. She said that reputations came cheap there. In England, and for years,she said, authentic blues had been sustained by an audience that really understood blues. And she was, and for the first time,waiting to sing, across the road, and at the Albert Hall,for an audience she feared because she trusted them: and so she doubted her own ability. “It’s like your very first date,” she said. “The very first one. You understand? No, or you don’t.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com