The immortal words Janis Joplin said to Bob Dylan when they first met
Janis Joplin didn’t have the most straightforward upbringing. She lived in an oil town in Texas, one very conservative and with a strong Ku Klux Klan presence. It didn’t align with her views, which became apparent early on as she would talk about black rights in school, go to hippie nightclubs in nearby towns and dress differently. She stood out enough that she was bullied persistently and eventually took solace in the hot sun of California.
Despite her parents working in the oil industry that kept her local town thriving, they were very in tune with art, so they were keen on ensuring they understood the power of music and art when expressing emotion. Their father would sit the family down to listen to his favourite records while their mother would have them sing show tunes and say, “Support those notes. Enunciate those words. Your audience needs to hear you!”
Joplin was taught from an early age that art wasn’t a hobby and instead was something to be taken seriously. As such, when she wound up being an outcast in school, she turned to art as a means of support and a way to express her discontent towards those who bullied her. In an interview at a high school reunion, she was asked if she went to her school’s prom. “No, I wasn’t asked,” said Joplin, “And I still haven’t recovered. It’s enough to make you want to sing the blues!”
The blues that Joplin would end up singing came from a compassionate and tormented soul, the result of which was some of the best rock music ever to hit the airwaves. But before she skyrocketed to fame, she had to hitchhike to California and get by on scraps.
Joplin took off to California without telling any of her family. Without a support mechanism in place, she didn’t have much money to get by. She moved in with a folk-singing couple who let her live in their basement for free. Every week, she would go upstairs and sing a song, which served as rent. From early on in her career, her remarkable voice stood out, leading to her developing a great sense of belief and a true passion for the road in life she was going down.
It meant that eventually when she was in a nightclub in California and bumped into Bob Dylan, she had a clear enough image of herself and her future that the words that came out now rang immortal. Amongst the haze, she pulled The Bard to the side and said to him, “Bob, I just love you. I’m gonna be famous someday.” After taking in her words, Dylan responded in the only way he ever could, “Yeah, we’re all gonna be famous.”
Her troubled upbringing, being perceived as an outcast, drove Joplin towards a life of music. She could reach into that pain and pull something beautiful out of it. It meant that when she went to California and started singing, all people could do was listen. And now, after five decades, we’re still listening.
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