Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin (Paperback)

by Alice Echols (Author) "What's happening never happens there" was how Janis summed up life in her hometown..." (more)
Key Phrases: kozmic blues, sweet paradise, weekly draw, Big Brother, San Francisco, Port Arthur (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
To call Janis Joplin the Judy Garland of the Woodstock set is in some sense a fair characterization. The brassy, carnal, extravagant, and ultimately pitiable queen of psychedelic rock is indeed a cultural icon. And while Joplin reveled in her own ballsy, boozy legend, its needy, inebriated, real-life equivalent was a shadow that darkened her short life and, in the decades since her 1970 drug-induced death, has come to eclipse the party-girl persona.

To her great credit, author Alice Echols reconciles the two faces of Joplin in this ambitious, thoroughly readable biography. She does so by tracing Joplin from her youth as a natural-born libertine in dreary Port Arthur, Texas, to her emergence as the sole female rock superstar of her era--a period when beneath-the-surface sexism hampered Joplin's progress even while women's liberation was being widely touted. The author does not shy away from sordid sex-and-drugs episodes, and there's plenty of raw material---the singer was promiscuous, bisexual, and, at various times, an alcoholic, a speed freak, and a junkie. Echols, however, elevates this biography above run-of-the-mill rock profiles by painting her subject against an elaborate and ever-changing cultural backdrop. Here is Joplin the aspiring folksinger, the white-picket-fence wannabe, the wayward daughter, the hit-and-miss recording artist, and, finally, the ill-starred spirit with nothing left to lose. --Steven Stolder --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
In the introduction to this richly textured biography of the trailblazing blues-rock superstar who succumbed to a heroin overdose in 1970, Echols (Daring to Be Bad) informs us that she is not going to give us "a blow-by-blow account of Janis's every fuck and fix." That is not to say that Echols sidesteps the sordidness of Joplin's short life. There's certainly enough drug use ("She even shot up watermelon juice one day") and sex (with both women and men) to keep the reader titillated. But by tracing Joplin's place in the psychedelic movement?vibrantly reconstructed here through more than 150 interviews?Echols presents the singer not just as a rock casualty but as a contradictory icon of female power, "neither just the ballsy chick who helped throw open the doors of rock 'n' roll nor the little girl lost who longed for the white picket fence." Joplin's outrageousness?her sexual conquests, inhuman consumption of Southern Comfort and eventual heroin addiction?is presented as an expression of her insecurities. Stifled in her hometown of Port Arthur, Tex., by rigid gender roles and the cruel taunts of fellow teenagers who thought she was ugly and weird, she turned her teenage rebellion into a successful career as rock's first down 'n' dirty bad girl. Outside of Port Arthur, however, she found that even the hip Haight couldn't handle a woman who was neither a folkie nor the girlfriend of some guy in the band. Rock critics may have loved her, but as Echols reveals, even they seemed more concerned with her raw sexuality than with her talent: following the Monterey Pop Festival, which launched Joplin's career, the L.A. Free Press ran an article titled "Big Brother's Boobs" while Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice wrote, "To hear Janis sing 'Ball and Chain' just once is to have been laid, lovingly and well." 140 b&w photos.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; 1st edition (February 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805053948
• ISBN-13: 978-0805053944
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #151,738 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant biography and counterculture history, December 16, 2004

By	Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This brilliant book is both a biography of Janis Joplin and a cultural history of the 1960s. Scars Of Sweet Paradise is a very thorough and in-depth look at Joplin's life and times and at the same time an exploration of the quiet suburban life versus the lure of the counterculture. The bohemian underground, unlike some idyllic portrayals of it, had its share of cynicism and destructiveness.

Much of this book deals with this evolving underground as it relates to the music, gender relationships and the merger of art and commerce. It is the story of a generation's restless and reckless life on the edge, from which Janis and many others never returned. The author conducted over 150 interviews and spent 5 years on research to produce this comprehensive work on Joplin and her era.

The Janis that emerges is a complex, multi-faceted personality that inspires admiration and sadness. The story begins in Port Arthur where Joplin's early life is described, including her first exposures to rock and folk music. It follows her to college and her first taste of the bohemian life then on to her first visit to San Francisco and eventual return to Port Arthur.

She went back to SF and her career began to take off. It is fascinating to read about the colourful personalities that she mixed with in San Francisco: the friends, the lovers and the musicians. Echols is a skilful narrator, seamlessly blending Joplin's moves and her relationships with the rise of her career. There are plenty of quotes from contemporary musicians that really illuminate this mythologized period in history.

My only minor complaint is that the author does not seem to share in the excitement as Joplin finally makes it big with Big Brother an the Cheap Thrills album - this story is just given clinically as part of the larger narrative. The various bands, Big Brother, Kozmic Blues and Full Tilt Boogie, are discussed in detail, as well as the recording process of each of the major albums: Cheap Thrills, I Got Dem Old Kozmic Blues and Pearl. The personalities behind her success, like Abert Grossman and Linda Gravenites, are sympathetically portrayed.

Echols explores Joplin's influence on various performers and notes that the heavy metal crowd picked up on her style but that she didn't directly inspire any clones. Ultimately, Janis appears as a brave, wild and very vulnerable human being who was quite likable, if somewhat volatile. There are 35 black and white photographs and the book concludes with a discography, copious notes and an index. Almost scholarly in its depth, Scars Of Sweet Paradise is yet a gripping read that will please her fans and all who are interested in the 1960s counterculture and the evolution of rock music.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "Forgotten", December 22, 2001

By	Garry HUBBLE (Gold Coast, Australia) - See all my reviews

In a very real way Janis Lyn Joplin is very much a "forgotten". You hardly ever hear her stuff on radio- with the possible exception of "Me and Bobby McGee". And for my money, her one and only (and unforunately, posthumous) Number 1 is quite thoroughly unrepresentative of her as an artist or person. Forgotten Janis Joplin, like another Forgotten Janis- Janis Martin- the "female Elvis".

Some colleges apparently now include Janis as a feminist icon, or at least woman of note, and at least some interest is now being restored in her as a major figure in popular cultural history.

Echols' work is a very well written chronology of the first major female rock star's short life. There is no sensationalism, no unsubstantiated rumour that isn't stated as being so, and no attempt by the author to over-psychoanalysis her subject.

You come away from this book with an understanding as to the enormous talent that Janis possessed, and how dealing with it with her insecure mindset ultimately led to her very untimely demise.

It is also clearly the most credible, and creditable biography of Janis currently available: Amburn's book is clearly sensationalist; Myra Freidman's (including the revised edition) comes from someone who didn't know Janis first hand that well; Dalton does not cover enough ground, and is more of a personal account; and sister Laura's "Love, Janis" is antithetical to Amburn- a glossing over of the sex and drugs in favour of just how nice, but misunderstood, Janis was.

Echols also frames her subject within the context of the times in which she lived. Again, no judgement, no sensationalism. Another prick for the bubble of the illusion of the Woodstock myth that the "hippies" were all innocent flower people. The Sixties were a tough time for many who flocked to Haight-Ashbury.

The book is also eminently readable; in short, a first-class primer of the "skyrocket chick" who died at the age of 27 trying to live up to her own projected self image- an image that was virtually the total opposite to the real, white picket fence wannabe from Port Arthur, Texas that was Janis Lyn Joplin.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rereading the 60s, January 26, 2000

By	Edward V Knoll (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin (Hardcover)

Janis Joplin is an exquisite focal point around which the life and times of the era she lived in are profoundly illuminated. It's been said that if you can remember the 60s, you probably weren't there. I can now vouch for accuracy of that statement. So much of what Ms. Echols writes about is material that would have completely disappeared, considering the mind bend of the participants. It's a hard book to take, especially if you, or one you love, is an offspring of this generation. I know this happened to me. The book should be read at least twice. It's really not about Janis Joplin; it's about a ridiculously impaired time of fun, laughter, sadness, and tears. It's also a time of many blanks, which Ms. Echols has caused to surface. I recommend this book.