{"id":192,"date":"2018-12-06T18:04:13","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T18:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/?page_id=192"},"modified":"2024-03-17T14:40:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-17T14:40:04","slug":"janis-joplin-janis-joplin-plays-the-fraternity-brothers-the-armory-cornell-may-3-1969","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/janis-joplin-janis-joplin-plays-the-fraternity-brothers-the-armory-cornell-may-3-1969\/","title":{"rendered":"Janis Joplin: &#8220;Janis Joplin Plays the Fraternity Brothers (The Armory, Cornell, May 3, 1969)&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-192-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tahunt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Janis-Joplin-Plays-no-title.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tahunt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Janis-Joplin-Plays-no-title.mp3\">http:\/\/www.tahunt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Janis-Joplin-Plays-no-title.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<h3>(from WGLT <em>Sound Ideas<\/em> interview, 9\/25\/2018)<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mainstreetragbookstore.com\/product\/ticket-stubs-liner-notes-tim-hunt\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"262\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/my-ding-a-ling-chuck-berry-at-the-roadhouse-ithaca-ny-november-1970\/top_banner_flat\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?fit=1020%2C80&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1020,80\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?fit=1020%2C80&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-262\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?resize=940%2C74\" alt=\"Available now from Main Street Rag\" width=\"940\" height=\"74\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?w=1020&amp;ssl=1 1020w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?resize=300%2C24&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?resize=768%2C60&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"194\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/janis-joplin-janis-joplin-plays-the-fraternity-brothers-the-armory-cornell-may-3-1969\/cbcac59cfc1bdf8051cabb4b32c04e00\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/cbcac59cfc1bdf8051cabb4b32c04e00.jpg?fit=456%2C389&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"456,389\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"cbcac59cfc1bdf8051cabb4b32c04e00\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/cbcac59cfc1bdf8051cabb4b32c04e00.jpg?fit=456%2C389&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-194\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/cbcac59cfc1bdf8051cabb4b32c04e00.jpg?resize=300%2C256\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/cbcac59cfc1bdf8051cabb4b32c04e00.jpg?resize=300%2C256&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/cbcac59cfc1bdf8051cabb4b32c04e00.jpg?w=456&amp;ssl=1 456w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>In June 1966 when Janis Joplin began rehearsing with Big Brother and the Holding Company, women didn\u2019t front rock bands.\u00a0 In the world of AM radio for the teen scene (underground FM radio was still a year or so in the future), they were young, pretty women, with long straight hair singing pretty songs backed by artful session musicians\u2014Marianne Faithful, with her pure tone singing \u201cAs Tears Go By\u201d or Merilee Rush singing \u201cAngel of the Morning.\u201d\u00a0 Or they were folk singers\u2014Joan Baez or Judy Collins trilling Child Ballads to a strummed guitar.\u00a0 Or they were a voice in a folk group\u2014Mary Travers in Peter, Paul, and Mary harmonizing \u201cBlowing in the Wind.\u201d\u00a0 And if they belted a blues-inflected song, their artful, carefully strategized belting owed as much to Judy Garland and cabaret as to Bessie Smith or Etta James or the gospel inflections of Aretha Franklin who had yet to roar up the charts with any of her classic Atlantic singles.\u00a0 Check out this 1963 youTube clip of Judy Henske singing her best-known number <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RxC4HZNxjYU\">\u201cHigh Flying Bird.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0And Jefferson Airplane\u2019s recording of this song (either the initial studio recording with Signe Anderson) or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=E9CVLVevm4E\">this performance<\/a> from the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967, which illustrates both folk rock\u2019s continuity with the pop folk from the earlier 1960s and how folk rock groups were beginning to move beyond those roots into what we\u2019d now term \u201cpsychedelic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Where performers like Judy Henske and Grace Slick enacted artful personas as they sang, Janis Joplin, it might be said, sang only as herself\u2014raw, intense, unmasked\u2014with joy, even exhilaration, and pain, recasting blues and rhythm &amp; blues (Bessie Smith to Irma Franklin and Etta James) into confessions that seemed actual and of the moment rather than enacted or performed.\u00a0 This clip from a TV studio performance sometime in early 1967, before the group was a commercial success, opens with \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=j7VNmAWI3t8\">Down on Me<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 And here Joplin becomes the &#8220;me,&#8221; is the &#8220;me,&#8221; isn&#8217;t staging the &#8220;me,&#8221; but instead authenticates it in a kind of vocal equivalent to method acting.\u00a0 And it&#8217;s no accident that when <em>Cheap Thrills<\/em> was finally released well over a year later in August of 1968, some of the most compelling tracks are live, concert recordings.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually <em>Pearl<\/em> would be Janis Joplin&#8217;s best-selling album, a studio affair with more disciplined and versatile musicians than the members of Big Brother, but the Janis Joplin who refashioned the paradigm for women as rock singers is the voice catalyzing Big Brother, inhabiting that soundscape, and not simply singing as if without a mask but as if masks were no longer possible.\u00a0 Something of this can be glimpsed in her two sets at the Monterey Pop Festival, when she and the group were not stars, hadn&#8217;t yet signed to Columbia records, and were relegated to a slot on the opening afternoon rather than a featured slot in the evening.\u00a0 That set was unfilmed, but recorded, and made such an impact that a second, evening slot was added\u2014and filmed.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=__-qen6nSZw\">The first (unfilmed) set<\/a> opens with &#8220;Down on Me,&#8221; followed by &#8220;Combination of the Two,&#8221; and builds to a climactic and cathartic &#8220;Ball and Chain.&#8221;\u00a0 What seems the added excitement of their success is, I&#8217;d suggest, evident in their performance of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yxdTnLL2fec\">&#8220;Combination of the Two&#8221;<\/a> from the second (filmed) set.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>In spring 1969, Janis Joplin would not have been the girl a self-respecting fraternity brother would take to a party or a dance.\u00a0 She was the girl he\u2019d screw, then head off in his tailored blazer, corsage in hand, to pick up his date\u2014a nice sorority deb in her pricey party dress, her make up impeccable, her saloned hair to be admired and not touched but maybe a decorous kiss at the end of the night.\u00a0 So why would the Greek Council of Cornell University book Big Brother &amp; The Holding Company for its 1969 Spring Concert?\u00a0 Why not something tasteful like The Fifth Dimension or The Association or Dionne Warwick.\u00a0 Or the slick choreography of The Temptations.\u00a0 Or even Tommy James &amp; The Shondells (you know, \u201cCrimson &amp; Clover\u201d but not \u201cHanky Panky\u201d)?<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"204\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/janis-joplin-janis-joplin-plays-the-fraternity-brothers-the-armory-cornell-may-3-1969\/13-janis-joplin-childhood\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/13-Janis-Joplin-childhood.jpg?fit=817%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"817,1024\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"13-Janis-Joplin-childhood\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/13-Janis-Joplin-childhood.jpg?fit=817%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-204\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/13-Janis-Joplin-childhood.jpg?resize=200%2C251\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/13-Janis-Joplin-childhood.jpg?resize=239%2C300&amp;ssl=1 239w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/13-Janis-Joplin-childhood.jpg?resize=768%2C963&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/13-Janis-Joplin-childhood.jpg?w=817&amp;ssl=1 817w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>A digression (that\u2019s not): Cornell, fall 1967 and the new freshmen are filing into the field house for registration.\u00a0 First stop, an ID photo, and in a few weeks all the pictures of the eager and anxious, the lads and lasses, to be published as a book to help people get acquainted\u2014the book known locally as \u201cthe pig book\u201d so the lads could better parse, as Joplin once termed it (but speaking of the \u201cgentlemen\u201d), the \u201ctalent.\u201d\u00a0 And that fall several shrewd upperclass men (jackets and ties, and seeming so mature to the young ladies filing in they must be at least graduate students and maybe even professors) are at the door handing out questionnaires asking for names and answers to questions about intimate \u201cexperience\u201d and preferences\u2014all billed as a university psychology study, so that the answers to be correlated in coming weeks with those pig book pix and guide campaigns of conquest.\u00a0 Apocryphal?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 But we believed the story as it made its rounds by what then passed for social media (aka word of mouth).\u00a0 And whether folkloric fantasy or predatory prank, the episode reflected the dynamics of the place and time.<\/p>\n<p>A digression (that\u2019s not): Cornell in the late 1960s.\u00a0 You\u2019re either Greek (living in a fraternity or sorority) or Independent (living in a slummy apartment).\u00a0 In the early 1960s, Greek meant assuming you were simply on some sort of cruise before claiming your rightful place in daddy\u2019s corporate world (or trying to pass as if this was one\u2019s class and what one had a right to expect), while Independent meant intellectually serious or scholarship poor (and those often the same thing).\u00a0 In the later 1960s, Greek still meant \u201caspiring\u201d to that law firm partnership or a teak desk in an executive suite, but it also meant Republican and pro Vietnam War (because ain\u2019t no way you were going to get sent to the jungle), while Independent was coming to mean anti-war and leftist politics increasingly mixed with counterculture experimentation.<\/p>\n<p>So when Janis Joplin &amp; Big Brother and The Holding Company took the stage that night, the Greek Weekend audience was a sea of navy blue blazers and colorful prom dresses eddied with jeans and work shirts. \u00a0As the saying went, \u201cDifferent strokes for different folks.\u201d\u00a0 For the Freaks, a possible moment of belonging; for the Greeks a chance to smugly gawk, knowing Ms. Joplin, in spite of the hippy garb and being a star, was the homely girl whose family didn\u2019t count.\u00a0 The girl you\u2019d screw, not the one you\u2019d date.<\/p>\n<p>And, so, yes when the fraternity officer (the social chairman or some such) stepped onto the stage, interrupting the show, he was clean shaven, crew-cutted, and navy blued in that regulation blazer.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t, I confess, actually see his expression, but I imagine a smirk at what he took to be the witty joke of the gift he would so formally present as a token of the (mock) esteem of the Greek brothers she was being paid to entertain. But as he crossed toward Janis, each step was more tentative, as she eyed him up and down, instead of waiting demurely.\u00a0 And when she undid the bow and unwrapped the box to dangle out the mink bra he and the brothers were offering in faux homage (aka a put down), it was only right that she delivered her line, turning away from him and toward us in the crowd: \u201cHoney,\u201d she drawled (and maybe even took a sip of Southern Comfort), \u201cthe fur\u2019s on the wrong side\u201d\u2014letting us know that what mattered was her pleasure, not his. \u00a0And even though she might be willing to \u201cscrew,\u201d he wouldn\u2019t be the \u201ctalent\u201d she\u2019d choose, and she was (mostly) past being the girl who didn\u2019t count.\u00a0 And whatever the scars from Port Arthur, and whatever the pain still to come, she was, for sure, done with being used.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Contextual Material<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.allmusic.com\/artist\/janis-joplin-mn0000177060\/biography\">Richie Unterberger&#8217;s <em>All Music Guide<\/em> entry for Janis Joplin<\/a><\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/mainstreetragbookstore.com\/product\/ticket-stubs-liner-notes-tim-hunt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Ticket Stubs &amp; Liner Notes<\/em> is available from Main Street Rag Publishing<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(from WGLT Sound Ideas interview, 9\/25\/2018) In June 1966 when Janis Joplin began rehearsing with Big Brother and the Holding Company, women didn\u2019t front rock bands.\u00a0 In the world of AM radio for the teen scene (underground FM radio was still a year or so in the future), they were young, pretty women, with long &#8230; <a title=\"Janis Joplin: &#8220;Janis Joplin Plays the Fraternity Brothers (The Armory, Cornell, May 3, 1969)&#8221;\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/janis-joplin-janis-joplin-plays-the-fraternity-brothers-the-armory-cornell-may-3-1969\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Janis Joplin: &#8220;Janis Joplin Plays the Fraternity Brothers (The Armory, Cornell, May 3, 1969)&#8221;\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-192","page","type-page","status-publish"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PapaTS-36","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/192\/revisions\/611"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}