Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Port Arthur is an oil refinery town in the southeastern corner of Texas where the Sabine Lake blocks it from melting into Louisiana and where..." (more)
Key Phrases: Big Brother, Port Arthur, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the best books about a rock figure thus far...Buried Alive is unquestionably an accomplishment and it may well be the best portrait we'll have of Janis -- and past even that, it seems a study of the motivations of stardom as true as one is likely to achieve....I'd take Buried Alive over Norman Mailer's metaphysical Marilyn any day!" -- Rolling Stone

"Brilliant, marvelous, emotionally devastating...I don't think there's anything about Janis the book leaves untouched....I can almost hear her speak and, more relevantly, hear her laugh." -- New York Daily News

"Written with a sympathetic intelligence, at times fiercely lyrical, Buried Alive is an honest book about Joplin the idol....This is the best book yet about rock...." -- Review

Review

"One of the best books about a rock figure thus far...Buried Alive is unquestionably an accomplishment and it may well be the best portrait we'll have of Janis -- and past even that, it seems a study of the motivations of stardom as true as one is likely to achieve....I'd take Buried Alive over Norman Mailer's metaphysical Marilyn any day!" -- Rolling Stone

"Brilliant, marvelous, emotionally devastating...I don't think there's anything about Janis the book leaves untouched....I can almost hear her speak and, more relevantly, hear her laugh." -- New York Daily News

"Written with a sympathetic intelligence, at times fiercely lyrical, Buried Alive is an honest book about Joplin the idol....This is the best book yet about rock...."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harmony; Updated edition (September 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517586509
• ISBN-13: 978-0517586501
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #67,085 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Historically Important But Shrill, August 4, 1999

By	David Kleist - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

That Myra Friedman was able to publish a biography of Joplin which is so poetic, so intense, and so engaging a mere three years after Joplin's tragic death is nothing short of miraculous. However, in the context of two other superlative Joplin biographies--LOVE, JANIS by Laura Joplin (Janis's younger sister)(1992) and SCARS OF SWEET PARADISE by Alice Echols (1999)--I find Friedman's compulsive rationalizing and anxious tone here (especially in the book's concluding section) to be less illuminating of the REAL Janis Joplin than the other two books. If you read only one Joplin bio, read LOVE, JANIS; if only two, add SCARS...; but if you are a die-hard Joplin fan (as I am), read all three. Taken together, it is a tribute to Janis herself that three stunningly intelligent, articulate writers could be moved to so obsess over Joplin's work and life that they produced biographies of such high caliber within thirty years of her death.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Annoying moralizing on the part of the author, September 17, 2003

By A Customer

This book was AWFUL. It starts out like a regular biography, but about a quarter of the way through, the author, Ms. Myra Friedman, begins to inject too much of her own personal opinions, and before you know it, the whole thing turns into a rant about the evils of the Sixties. This book can't really be called a biography because it is filled with too many opinions and diagnosises and not enough objective facts.

I found the author's psychoanalytic approach to be overbearing, preachy, and frankly, passe. In portraying her subject, she mixes some smug sneers at rock culture with a shallow, psyche textbook description of Janis's supposed affection/rejection complex, free of any insight into the complicated consciousness of the '60s. The author writes that Joplin referred to her (Friedman) as a "Jewish mother." We can be assured the quote is accurate, given the tone throughout.

Nothing escapes her contempt, especially poor Janis, who is really hung out to dry in the book's latter sections by the author's overly righteous harangues, all very mean-spirited. She was her publicity girl for a couple of years starting in 1968, but maybe she should have put in for a transfer to another department if she hated the rock scene so much.

The author conveys an almost sadistic pleasure in pointing out her subject's weaknesses. In her version of events, Janis Joplin apparently had not one shred of redeemable qualities and was a weak, wretched human being on all counts. She writes that Janis was "no musician," an "amateur" during her entire time with Big Brother, not at all spontaneous with her phrasing, "contrived," emotionally "astigmatized," "infantile," "deplorably self centered," copied other people's fashion styles and had no original fashion style of her own,(!!?) and chose to sing the blues strictly because it was more "marketable." She describes the album Cheap Thrills as "abominable." (Quote: "And I personally thought Cheap Thrills abominable.") and that Big Brother and the Holding Company were "absurd, ludicrous, daffy, impossible, a violation of every musical standard I held dear, a minstrel show." She also believes that the many famous photos that were taken of Janis were products of her own "narcissism and self-hatred,"(?!) and that the Woodstock festival was simply an overrated, glorified celebration of drugs as the holy grail, (no mention of the musicians, just the drugs). She also asserts that Janis's bisexuality (and bisexuality in general), is the result of an unstable, "diffused" psyche as opposed to if Janis were strictly gay or straight, which would require her to be more "tidy" in her personality. And this bit of absurdity is Miss Friedman's psychiatric diagnosis on the Kozmic Blues band: "The unsettled, internal argument, the conflict for the primitive yearning and the desire for control, were reflected in the arrangements, the songs, the character of the sets. The tone was sluggish, imposing, massive and dismal." Her explanation for why Janis was so popular with her audiences? Because they were too stoned to know the difference!!

One wonders, what was such a conservative and humorless individual, negative about most aspects of rock n' roll, doing in the center of it? In interviewing two girls from the Haight, the one with a husband and children rates her approval while the one who discussed the creative potential of drug use in the early Sixties meets with her disapproval. She also is horrified and offended that Janis would ask her if she'd read "The Sensuous Woman," and takes issue with the tattoo party Janis threw, portraying the event as the height of debauchery even though she admits she didn't attend. Peggy Caserta, Joplin's lover and shooting partner, is dismissed as an insignificant acquaintance despite evidence to the contrary. The author also belittles Joplin for not following her request to promote a peace concert during an appearance on the Dick Cavett show. You can hardly picture Janis Joplin, a self-described, apolitical cynic from the Beatnik era, promoting a peace concert in deference to her publicist, or tearfully apologizing for not doing so afterward, as the author claims.

Another thing I noticed was that she misspells the obvious, such as: "Bobby McGee" is spelled "McGhee." She also insists on hyphenating Full Tilt Boogie Band, even though that was not the official spelling. For a biographer, she should know basic facts, such as that at the Monterey Pop festival, Janis wore the famous gold outfit at the Sunday performance, NOT Saturday. She should dot her I's and cross her T's if she wants to be definitive. And instead of analyzing Janis, she should psychoanalyze herself as to why she needed to write such a book and expose personal information from Janis's doctors and psychologists, not to mention betraying the anguished confidences that Janis allegedly made to her when she was having bad days. And after all this, she claims she did her job by protecting Janis against the "nastiness" of the press, a total joke given the contents of this book, especially in light of her statement that she thought the negative press was "valid"!!! Also, she claims that Janis asked her to write her biography and tell the truth about the drugs and "everything," yet she writes that Janis never, ever confided into her about her lesbian relationships, much less talked to her very much at all about her drug use. There is one good thing about this book that I will admit: Its exhaustive listing of bars and pubs frequented by Janis. So if ever you wanted to re-create your own Janis pub "crawl" in NY or L.A., this book is a good reference source.

Turning Janis Joplin into the poster child for everything that went wrong with the '60s does not really address the life and work of this artist. I frankly think the book's title more accurately describes what the author does to her subject, rather than what the subject did to herself.

To Myra Friedman: Next time, try just a little bit harder, to be nice.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Little Girl Blue., July 29, 2002

By	F. Gentile (Lake Worth, Florida, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found this book to be the most intelligent ever written about the legendary Janis. I bought this book upon its publication, and , to me, it remains the definitive biography on the greatest woman rock star ever. While this book angered many (and apparently still does), I feel Friedmans perspective is very valid. This book is amazingly honest and insightful, considering it was written so shortly after Joplins death, without the benefit of time, which changes the patina of a life. While it would have been easy for any author taking on such an intimidating subject so soon after their demise to be tempted to either canonize them or vilify them, Friedman does neither. She very eloquently tells of the Janis she knew for the maybe 2 year period that she was her public relations person, and her opinions are not always popular. We like our icons deified, and it's not always easy hearing about their faults, superficialties, and demons. What can make the difference between an honest telling of a life, and an unfair portrayal, is the balance in which it is written. Though Friedman is sometimes brutal in the honesty of her observations of Janis, and sometimes perceived as judgmental, I never doubted for a second that she loved Janis, and her grief at the wretched tragedy of her ending is apparent, to me, through-out, though never maudlin. She even admits that she was not a particular fan of Joplins at the beginning of her involvement with her, having more of a classical backround. Her chapters on Janis' early years, when she was an outcast, and all but banished from school for being different, un-pretty, and un-popular, are especially filled with empathy. And her re-counting of the young Janis, the seemingly hopeless no-body , accidentally discovering she had a voice, as she sits with a friend on a train trestle.."Guess what...I think I can sing", sends a little shiver down the spine. Her love for Janis, and the immense respect that Friedman developed for the intangible magic that she created, transcended her personal likes and dislikes, as far as musical style was concerned, though she never became a "yes" person to Joplin (there were enough of those buzzing around the hive of her fame... unfortunatley.) There is not a hint of the patronizing, self-serving viewpoints seen in many other biographies of the famous. Several which came out after her death were so despicable as to not being worthy of a mention. But, compared to "Pearl", which was mildly interesting, and "Scars Of Sweet Paradise", which I found to be just re-heated opinions, this book , along with "Love, Janis", by Joplins sister Laura, is the most telling, compassionate, honest book you're going to find about the incredibly intelligent, self-destructive, very brave, once un-popular ugly duckling, whose fame became a burden at once her savior and her executioner, but had a humanity and genius that can still be heard in the un-fathomable and irreplacable power of her voice. That is what we are left with. And...that's alot.