As a college student at the time Janis Joplin died, I viewed her music as powerful and her early demise as unfortunate and sad. I read theNetGalley ARC to learn more, as I have fondness and interest in most music and artists of that era. I did learn details of nearly every gig she played, every person she slept with, and the widely varying reviews of her work at the time. But the key takeaway for me from author George-Warren’s detailed biography was that musically she was praised and admired almost unanimously by established performers of her time. Both her peers and blues legends she idolized and emulated described her as one of the most amazing voices ever. (Think Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and her role model “Big Mama” Thornton, for example.) And tellingly, the author labels Janis the first female rock and roll superstar. That was a revelation. There’s a lot to appreciate here, if the reader has interest and patience.

I received a free electronic copy of this biography from Netgalley, Holly George-Warren, and Simon Schuster. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read Janis: Her Life and Music of my own volition and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. This is a book every woman should read.

Janis was - and still is - an important factor in my lifetime. She was a wonderful musician, and she brought happiness or tears to your eyes with her songs. She was for me an example of taking the whole woman's lib thing at least one step too far - but oh, Lord, take a step or two down that road or no one else will acknowledge your independence and self-will. This book was a long, hard read. Watching the self-destruction at close range was if anything even more difficult than it was back in the day. But reading this made her legacy even more memorable, more important than before. So much of it was not shared with her public, or if it was we considered it to be sour grapes or jealousy. Through the eyes of Holly George-Warren, we not only see Janis falling into space - we also see her climbing the highest hill. She was a remarkable woman with an extraordinary talent. May her music live on into the lifetimes of our children and theirs, as well as the important lessons in prudence and self-esteem that Janis never found.

I didn't know much about Janis Joplin. Mainly just that she died too young, was a 'hippie', and mostly I knew her by her great singing on "Piece of My Heart" and "Bobby McGee". This book was obviously extensively researched with plenty of facts from her whole short life. I was surprised to learn about the rather upscale family she came from and the fact she was such a good student in her younger years.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this book was the progression of history of music from the 50's and 60's. Janis was influenced greatly by the blues and I learned about artists I'd only briefly heard of before.

Janis was a complex and sometimes confused person. She had a great gift and it's a shame she didn't live long enough to share it for many more years.

A very interesting biography.

This is the first book I've read by Holly George-Warren, a seasoned music biographer. I'm a HUGE fan of Janis Joplin and was excited to get my hands on an advanced copy of this book. Janis is such a complex, driven, restless and ultimately tormented person. I think that Holly George-Warren was the perfect person to capture Janis's spirit and energy thus giving us an incredibly intimate look at the person behind the image. What we get is so raw, real and incredible look into Janis's life. This was incredibly well researched and an amazing read that I highly recommend to any Janis Joplin fan.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Janis Joplin’s music is something that my mother and I bonded over when I was a teenager. She introduced me to her as we were moving several states away from the only home I’d ever known as a young teen, and we continued to jam out to her music throughout my teenage years on the road home from more softball games and tournaments than I can count. I still listen to it often to cheer me up and when I am traveling. That being said, I am so happy that I read this book and learned more bout the woman who made this phenomenal music. Her life was fascinating to me, and I’m so glad that I was able to learn more about her. The book was well written and paced, and I think that those that are fans of her, music, or biographies in general would enjoy it.

This was a very detailed, informative, and well researched book on the life of Janis that encompasses her short life and career.
This award winning author was given access to the Joplin family and letters, diaries, interviews with the singers friends and band mates.
It was so sad how lonely and emotionally tortured Janis was growing up, and she actually fell into singing by accident.
She LOVED Otis Redding and Bessie Smith.
The tragic thing was that as she became famous.. what she always really wanted was the ideal family life including the white picket fence.
Sad that it never happened for her.
Love the cover!

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC

I thought this was a really touching biography of Joplin that drew out her contradictions really well. On the one hand she was a polyamorous rule breaking wild child but on the other she wanted to live the American dream family life behind a white picket fence. George-Warren had great access and reading Joplin's letters gave us an unprecedented insight into her thinking.

I have always loved Janis Joplin's voice. Her earthy vocals and the way she clearly put her soul into her performances makes her music so enjoyable for me. I knew she had a rough time growing up in Texas. I knew she was a bit of a rebel who lived life by her own set of rules. And I knew how she died. But I really didn't know much about her life, her friends and family, and her personality until I read this book.

I'm so glad I read this book! It gives intimate details about Janis' childhood and teenage years in Texas, her love of art, her discovery of music, bands she played with.....everything up to her death in 1970.

I get a bit emotional when I think about Janis' treatment by her high school classmates. She was different, outspoken and misunderstood. And she was bullied terribly for being herself. I had similar experiences in school. Kids can be cruel to anyone who stands out as different. As I read about her experiences growing up, I kept hearing her voice from a television interview in 1970 with Dick Cavet. She said "They laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state. So I'm going home.'' She traveled home to Port Arthur, TX for her 10th high school reunion. Just a few months later she was dead of a heroin overdose. What a waste of such an awesome talent. I hope in the end she found peace and some pride in herself, her talent and her music.

This biography of Janis Joplin is well-written and obviously thoroughly researched. I had an amazing time reading! I'm listening to her music as I write this review. An amazing talent! The picture on the front cover is so hauntingly beautiful. What an amazing person she was -- you can see her fire, creativity and boldness reflected in her gaze. Just lovely!

I highly recommend this book to any Janis Joplin fan or those who enjoy 60s/70s music!

**I voluntarily read an advance review copy of this book from Simon & Schuster. All opinions expressed are entirely my own. Thanks so much for sharing your music with the world, Janis. RIP**

I'm not usually a biography reader, but I could not pass up the opportunity to learn about the ever iconic, Janis Joplin. This was a beautiful look at an artist I adore. As a performer, Janis is pure raw energy; a talent and stage presence that has not quite been matched or equalled since her passing. When you listen to Janis, your body vibrates with emotion. You can viscerally feel every single note and if you close your eyes it feels like you're there, in a dingy dive bar where only the strong survive. She was a remarkable artist, I always knew this, but it's her story that really captured me this time. Her willingness to put it all on the line and (outwardly) give zero f's is beyond commendable. Her internal struggle is heartbreaking to read about and it makes sense that her vocals are full of real emotion. She was a magnet. Audiences, fellow musicians and critics alike could not get enough of her, yet she felt terribly alone. This dichotomy is painful for the reader to comes to term with, but only adds to the allure and mysticism that was Janis Joplin.

Janis will forever be a steadfast fixture in rock and roll, blues, folk and r&b music. She has influenced countless musicians and will always be among the brightest and darkest stars in music history. This was a remarkably intimate look at a brilliant artist with the darkest of demons to contend with. Highly recommend this biography for Joplin fans, music fans and any one who loves a truly captivating story.

A few years ago, there was a Broadway musical about Janis Joplin. I was lucky enough to see it and I spent most of the show in a puddle of tears because Janis, even portrayed by an actor, was such a powerful and mesmerizing person. Janis by Holly George-Warren did the same thing to me. I cried, I ached, I hurt.

The world will never have another Janis. We were lucky enough to have her for as long as we did.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book.

The "beatnik from Port Arthur, Texas" set a new high bar for uninhibited powerful, blues-driven songs. Unleashing raw talent on a still poodle-skirted US exploring rock and roll, Joplin went "Full Tilt Boogie" with a full repertoire of blues, folk, and R&B following her rocky start in San Francisco in the hippie neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Joplin was a fiercely conflicted young woman, dying at the age of twenty-seven of a heroin overdose.

School was not kind to Janis, deeply wounding her and sealing that mutinous daughter apart from her peers and parents. She was always different, more one of the boys than friends and it was easy for her to discover an escape into music...and booze...and drugs...and sex.

It was after the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, that she would become a national star. The author did an amazing job with researching, interviewing and tracing letters home that provide the rocky road on which Janis traveled. The extreme highs and lows. George-Warren relates the anguish with which she desperately clung to threads of approval and drowned disappointment.

She was indeed rude, crude, and (for the most part) socially unacceptable, but no one could set a fire in her audience like that plaintive, pleading, raspy wail. No silver linings here--we all know the story and it doesn't end well. Janis's last album, "Pearl" was released three months after her passing in January 1971.

If you've ever wondered about the woman behind the voice, you must read this biography. It is a well laid out chronology of the tragic path and legacy left for aging hippies and the younger generations hooked by those bluesy ballads.

I received this digital download from the publisher and NetGalley and totally appreciated the opportunity to read and review. Recommended to anyone who enjoys celebrity biographies and well-written histories. Get to know Janis--the person and the singer. That was, at times, two different people.

I didn't finish this book. It looked boring but it seemed like the author really did her homework which of course I applaud. So I rated it a nice four stars, just doesn't appeal to me. Would be a nice gift for even Janis fan, music fan, music historian, or rock and roll fan.

That's to the publihser and Netgalley.

I really enjoyed reading “Janis”. I haven’t read any other books about her, or even watched any documentaries about her, so this was my first deep look into the background behind this amazingly talented singer. I had heard several things about her over the years in passing, but there was so much presented in this book that I did not know, and I gobbled it all up. Though a biography of sorts, I found a lot of it to be an easier read than most, maybe because the content was based on Janis’ colorful and eccentric lifestyle and actions. I loved reading about her life, what happened to mold her into her who she was, and who she became. I was fascinated while reading, and am thankful for the personal insight into this rock star’s life!

Janis Joplin was an icon who lived her life through music. Her life was filled with ups and downs. A roller coaster of highs and lows. She made strong and lasting friendships but was always searching for an elusive forever love, at times leaving her betrayed and always lonely.

Holly George-Warren takes the reader on the odyssey of Janis's life. A life of non-comfority, rejection, strength, determination, depression, success, addiction, recovery and relapse. She would sing to hundreds and thousands of people and go home alone. The hardest thing for Janis was the loneliness.

Depression was omnipresent in Janis's life causing her to turn to alcohol and drugs to cope. Maybe her father, Seth Joplin, was somewhat to blame for her outlook on life, Ever the defeatist, he would relay to her that life is filled with disappointment and unhappiness. He would advise her to accept this depressing fact and endure it.
He called this the Saturday Night Swindle, leaving Janis with a dismal perspective.

There was no female singer like Janis Joplin. Her bluesy style and range of voice was new and mesmerizing, something fresh and uniquely Janis. She was a shining star. If only that had been enough.

Well written, captivating, sad and joyous, this book takes us from the beginning to the end of the life of
Janis Joplin. It is a story you will definitely want to read..

*This book was graciously provided by the author, the publisher; Simon and Schuster and NetGalley
in exchange for an honest review.

I was not a fan of Janis Joplin's music when she was popular but I watched a biography about her on TV and became interested in her. This was an excellent book about Janis from the time she was born until her tragic death at the age of 27. in 1970. It was well researched and well written and I had a hard time putting it down. I was surprised to find out what a talented artist she was as well as being a very talented musician. Even if you are not a fan of her type of music, I highly recommend this very interesting book. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this fantastic book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an EARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Janis Joplin is THEE queen of classic rock and roll, and George-Warren does a great job collecting the pieces of her all too short career. Janis was a phenomenon during a time period where women didn't sing the blues, let alone a white woman from a well-off family. Despite the squeaky image Janis had growing up, she never fit the status quo- always a tomboy, also marching to the beat of her own drum. As she entered high school, two years younger than those in her class (she skipped two grades in elementary), she shed the expectations of a typical 1950's woman and stepped into the beatnik scene. Here, she fell into a fast paced crowd that not only accepted Janis for her quirks, but also encouraged her talents in art and music.

As Janis learned how to party with the crowd in Port Author, TX, she developed her singing style around blues and mountain folk artists from previous decades- huge influences being Bessie Smith and Big Mama Thornton. She worked her range from her church soprano to influx with grit, growls, energy, and emotion. Forming a band with a few of her friends, she started playing gigs and getting noticed. Soon San Fransisco and the Beat scene were calling her name.

From here, Janis hops on the rollercoaster that would bring her the highest highs and lowest lows of her life. Bouncing between San Fransisco and Port Author, Janis would party with some of the biggest names in the 1960s, including Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and the Beatles. She would also find her Achilles heel- cheap wine and speed. George-Warren touches on it all, making the reader feel like a part of the party and simultaniously dreading the demise of one amazingly talented musician.

Additional, Janis not only about the musician and her life, but it's a transportation back to a turbulent time in history where segregation, rock and roll, and feminism were huge topics of debate. Janis' identity was shaped not only by nature and nurture in her home life, but also by the current events in her home town of Port Arthur, TX. As George-Warren points out, when Janis was 15, she was the only student in her class to speak out against segregation- which in turn made her a pariah in her high school, with many picking on and using racial slurs against her.

Janis encapsulates a wild period in American cultural history, and aptly nostalgic and heartbreaking. The only thing I wish George-Warren had done was make her narrative a little more streamlined and cohesive. There were sections of the novel in which I lost track of what time frame, age, or location Janis was in, which made for difficulties in comprehension. Yet, maybe this was also a stylistic choice- a way to simulate the whirlwind of Janis's life. Either way, I'd still encourage fans of the artist, decade, and music memoirs to give Janis a read. Also, I highly suggest you give her music a listen- especially the lesser-heard ones like Ball & Chain.

Expected Publication Date: October 22, 2019
Review to be posted on www.thelexingtonbookie.com on 10/14/2019.

This is a definitive type of biography, which starts with Janis' childhood in Texas and ends with her accidental suicide in LA motel at the age of 27. Janis was a singer at a young age, singing along with her sisters and father. She was a shy and plain girl who was always an outsider. By the time she was in High School everyone knew her to be a girl who was 'a little off'. She spent time over the border in Louisiana where she would drink to excess and end up in myriad of dangerous and illegal situations.

She heads out to join the Hippie movement in San Francisco in 1962 at the age of 19, hitchhiking along with a girlfriend. Her time in SF was at the true time of 'peace and love' before it began to plasticize into a totally different place. In just a few years it became a hotbed of sex and drugs, but no longer of love. Janis stayed close to the musicians she first met in SF and they led her to join 'Big Brother and the Holding Company'. Her breakthrough was in June 1967 at the Monterey Pops. Her performance at Newport Folk Festival in 1968 and at Woodstock in 1969 solidified her place in the pantheon of great woman blues singers.

With Bessie Smith as her idol and belting out the songs of Big Mama Thornton, she became the celebrity she always dreamed of being. But Janis always suffered from 'Them Old Cosmic Blues' which was probably an undiagnosed mental health problem. She would use alcohol and heroine addiction to help her get through those periods of life when it seemed everything was falling apart.

She was just one of those creative people, like Van Gogh, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison who's demons would always be just around the corner. These people lived their lives, like Janis, trying to find a comfortable place to hide.

If you are a lover of all things Janis Joplin this is the only book you need. Intricate and so much detail you feel like her best friend that was right there by her side through everything. If you are a memoir reader this is one you should not pass up!

4 Strong Revealing Stars
As a child of the times, reading this bio about Janis was amazing.
This was a woman who broke all the rules and left us with the beauty of her music. She was tragic and it started early in her life, feeling alone and never accepted.

She will always be remembered.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and am voluntarily providing a review.

In Janis: Her Life and Music, Holly George-Warren has clearly done immense amounts of research on the iconic singer. In 400 pages, we learn about every aspect of Janis Joplin’s life, from her ancestors, her upbringing, her rise to fame, and her tragic death at 27.

Janis Joplin has remained a powerful and relevant figure in music, even now. She is well known for the persona that she put forth; a brash, wild, fun-loving, heavy drinking queen of rock and roll. This book gives us a peek into the Janis that people didn’t get to see; the intelligent, caring, insecure, scared, lonely woman who was desperate for approval and affection. It showed a woman who was stifled by the conservative values of the time and place where she was raised. Her bisexuality and favorable outlook towards integration weren’t taken well by the people in small-town Texas in the 1950s, but Janis wasn’t the kind of girl who was willing to compromise her beliefs to fit in. This led to ostracism by her peers throughout her youth, and I think it played a big role in her lifelong quest for a sense of acceptance.

The book had a ton of details, and I felt that it was an overwhelming amount. I often got lost in the amount of information, much of which seemed unnecessary and irrelevant to the story. The background was the vast majority of the story, and the pace was extremely slow. I felt as though it took forever to wade through endless chapters of quotes, names, and minutiae. Once Janis started to actually make a name for herself in the music scene, it seemed like the chapters flew by. I struggled to keep up with the rotating cast of characters that made up her bands, lovers, drug dealers, managers, and friends.

While I did appreciate getting to know more about this iconic musician, I felt as though there were too many direct quotes in the text. I realize that this must have been an incredibly labor-intensive task, but I personally would have liked to see the quotes synthesized into a more cohesive experience. Overall, I did get a better perspective on the many sides of Janis Joplin, who was a complicated person, but a brilliant and shining talent that was gone way before her time. I often found myself wondering if her story would have ended differently if one event had worked out differently. While I read, I experienced a strong urge to listen to her music, and did play her songs throughout my reading to get a better connection to what I was reading about. She certainly had a gift and the musical world is better for having experienced her talents, even for a short time.