Music: Blues for Janis

People seem to have a high sense of drama about me. Maybe they can enjoy my music more if they think I'm destroying myself.

Janis Joplin knew that the aura of self-destruction was part of her appeal. She also knew that to her contemporaries she was much more than a rock singer. She was a tragic heroine whose character summed up all the contradictions, frustrations and despairs of life under 30. It was her special gift that nightly she seemed to triumph over her burdens in concerts that were a kind of cathartic theater of the young. Her exuberances, her frenzies, her...

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