Landmark Motor Hotel: The tragic Los Angeles motel where Janis Joplin died
The liberal movement of the 1960s was both a blessing and a curse for Janis Joplin.
Growing up under the conservative rule of a traditional Texan household, the free-spirited Joplin quickly found herself in a state of disillusionment. Her deep-rooted musical talent was destined for the liberal shores of California, and so when she upped sticks and headed west, her life swiftly changed.
Joplin became one of the pioneering voices in music at that time, and embodied the liberalism that went a long way towards fuelling. Around her soul-infused music, a hippie movement swirled, where progressive attitudes towards gender, sexuality and drugs all flourished, and Joplin found herself as something of a champion for that.
Joplin burst onto the scene at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, before quickly recording two albums with the psych-rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company – the second, Cheap Thrills, came out in 1968 during the Summer of Love, where Joplin’s voice found itself in the eye of the storm.
But in being the spearhead of this free-spirited, albeit wild movement, Joplin found herself living on the edge. In the midst of this liberation, Joplin had developed something of a dependency on sex, alcohol and heroin. Together, these three pillars fuelled her hedonism to a point of unhealthiness, ultimately leading to her tragic and untimely death at the age of 27 in 1970.
When Joplin was found dead, on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke, the swirling consequences of Joplin’s dependency on those three things almost came to light.
At that time, Joplin was actually involved with two different partners, one of whom was her fiancé, Berkley student Seth Morgan, while the other was in an on-again-off-again relationship with Peggy Caserta. Caserta represented something of a divine intervention for Joplin, who, enjoying the benefits of her stardom, experienced a multitude of fleeting relationships with several sexual partners, most of them making up nameless strangers who offered something transactional in the bedroom.
Caserta was different and challenged the feelings Joplin felt about herself and her relationship with Morgan. So Joplin organised for both Caserta and Morgan to meet her at Landmark Motor Hotel to engage in a threesome, but upon their absence, Joplin spiralled into a frenzied night of alcohol and drug consumption, which eventually led to her heroin overdose.
Troubled by the entire scenario, as well as the fear of her crumbling romance with Joplin, Caserta admitted that she waited until the following night to dial the Landmark Motel switchboard, in a bid to speak to Joplin and explain herself. Upon doing so, however, she had learned that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk not to accept any incoming calls for her after midnight and thus, redirected all calls to her room without knowing the consequences of such.
It was a tragic and lonely end to a musician who, in such a short space of time, gave so much to the world, but perhaps more importantly, so many people within her close circle of trust.
