The Drunken Buck

"Janis Joplin was a singer who paid extraordinary attention to lyrics; one could not possibly misunderstand the meaning of her words. When she sings “I got to know why”—in one version of Big Mama Thornton’s “Love Is Like a Ball and Chain”—you know that she’s going to die if she doesn’t know. Janis was an improvisational singer who worked to perfect interpretations she wanted to be able to hold to, most especially in the studio. Yet her sheer musicality allowed her an onstage immediacy of expression, so that she sang words on the spur of the moment or put them out there in such an order and in such a way that it was different from the time before. She used humor as no artist I can think of. Describing the pain of feeling lonely, she would suddenly say, “You don’t have no idea,” and then laugh in time with the music. She worked her humor into a recitative, but often in the midst of the most heartbreaking material, and there were those who actually could not take it, so exposed were her feelings. Janis seemed to channel emotions for other people, taking them to a zenith that the rest of us lacked either the capacity or courage to touch. It was as if people would pour out the emotions and she’d pick them up, then pour them out through her voice. The singer Lisa Kindred, who used to hear Janis in her North Beach coffeehouse days, remembered an experience as intense as a gospel show, transcendent in its absoluteness of conviction: “I’ve seen people talk in tongues behind that kind of passion. I have never seen it created outside the gospel arena by a white person—except by Janis Joplin.”

Friedman, Myra. Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin

105.1 time Machine Saturday night fun 😊😊

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Let’s remember the amazing Stevie Ray Vaughan today on his birthday. He was born on October 3rd, 1954.

Stevie…we miss you!!! 🎸 🎶 🎙️

SRV
(October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990)