Album Club: Janis Joplin

**note the time change to 8pm**

Last November, I met an author in San Francisco and decided to read her book. To tell you the truth, I didn't really know much about Janis Joplin before then, and I even thought I remembered thinking I didn't enjoy her music very much (kinda like Bob Dylan, but that's another story for a different day;p). Well, frankly, I was floored, and I couldn't stop reading.

"Janis: Her Life and Music" is a riveting, sometimes gut-wrenching, raw and well-researched biography about Janis Joplin's life, her upbringing, and discovery as an artist, progressing from fledgling artist and underground blues rocker to hippie and countercultural rock icon.

And I was suddenly immersed in -- no, transfixed by -- Ms. Joplin's music.

We'll dig into Janis's bluesy, sloppier and far out "Cheap Thrills" by her first band, "Big Brother & the Holding Company" Additionally, her legendary "Pearl" record, made with her 3rd venture called the "Full Tilt Boogie Band", is a more mature, textured and wider-ranging album. Throughout both, you can hear her passionate deference to heroes Bessie Smith, Otis Redding and The Grateful Dead (among others). Janis is immortalized throughout the annals of pop culture and music history. To be sure, just take a look at a few clips of her breakthrough performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. You'll no doubt be transfixed, too.