Scars of Sweet Paradise

The trajectory of Janis Joplin's life led her from the smelly cultural wasteland of Port Arthur, a town that had grown up around the Texas oil industry, towards the sweeter-smelling, artistically fertile environs of mid-1960s San Francisco. Fuelled by a burning desire to transcend her origins, as well as a healthy dose of ambition, she became one of a handful of musicians whose mere first names--Jim, Jimi, Janis--conjure the promise and tragedy of the Sixties. Alice Echols' sensitively written biography deconstructs the Joplin legend with revealing reminiscences from the singer's contemporaries, and particularly evocative descriptions of both the repressive atmosphere of'60s small-town Texas and the liberating, yet often sordid world of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Presenting Joplin's freewheeling and ultimately self-destructive career in all its messy detail--including her tangled love life, her triumphs at the Fillmore and at Monterey, and her frustration at the musical limitations of her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company--SCARS OF SWEET PARADISE is a refreshing reassessment of the'60s icon that shows the human being behind the myth. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.