Powerful, fabulous and warm. It pains me to know Janis was in pain while making this music, and I hope she wasn't sacrificed for the sound. From all she's said, she was over makin' this sad, sad music by the time of her death. So it's a bittersweet to know this. She's a great singer, great lyricist, and creative as hell.
after reading about Janis, i'm left with questions about how she became so hurt or stuck. and with the impression that it does take so much to be clean from heroin, and she did this for stretches of time: so admirable, and apparently without any real social support. i don't recommend most of her lyrics for analyzing: they're a great example of thinking that will lead down a dark road. but the sheer talent! everyone writes about it. there's not much more to say.
The perfect storm creates an awe-inspiring rainbow. In the Summer of Love, that star-crossed solstice of the psychotropic year of 1967, all third eyes pointed toward San Francisco at the nexus of Haight and Ashbury, a sound-and-vision track of mind-genre expansion. Set and setting, like the happenstance of tripping itself, enhanced the soupcon of musical expression that shot the Bay Area to the forefront of popular consciousness. The counter-cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s had… more »
