Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin

by Alice Echols

Janis Joplin was the skyrocket chick of the sixties, the woman who broke into the boys' club of rock and out of the stifling good-girl femininity of postwar America. With her incredible wall-of-sound vocals, Joplin was the voice of a generation, and when she OD'd on heroin in October 1970, a generation's dreams crashed and burned with her. Alice Echols pushes past the legary Joplin-the red-hot mama of her own invention-as well as the familiar portrait of the screwed-up star victimized by the era she symbolized, to examine the roots of Joplin's muscianship and explore a generation's experiment with high-risk living and the terrible price it exacted.

A deeply affecting biography of one of America's most brilliant and tormented stars, Scars of Sweet Paradise is also a vivid and incisive cultural history of an era that changed the world for us all.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir, Womens, Queer

464 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Alice Echols is a cultural critic and historian. A specialist of the 1960s, Echols is a professor at the University of Southern California.


Associate Professor of English, Gender Studies and History

Reviews

[Scarlet Cameo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Janis Joplins fue una cantante como pocas, cuyos miedos e inseguridades gobernaron su vida y la hicieron la artista que hoy recordamos, a pesar de que ella nunca creyó en sí misma.

Esta biografía es del tipo que me gusta, en la que se habla de la persona en cuestión pero igualmente se habla de sus tiempos, de su entorno, de lo que hizo, más allá de su obra, y de quien fue como persona. Sin buscar reivindicar a Janis, nos presenta el retrato más humano que he visto de ella en la cual, si bien habla de la enorme inseguridad y necesidad de amor y atención que siempre estuvo presente en su vida, también nos muestra sus ambiciones y compromiso con la música, pero principalmente nos muestra quien fue para la época y porque fue en ese momento y lugar que ella triunfo.



La labor investigativa que realiza Echols es impresionante, la cantidad de testimonios y notas (1159 en total D:) no son sólo para mostrar su habilidad como historiadora, sino para dar trasfondo a Janis, mostrar a la estrella ruda igual conocida como Pearl (alter ego de Janis), pero al mismo tiempo, representar a esa mujer que era y se sabía alcohólica, que fue un misterio para propios y extraños, que modifico su vida para hacerla más interesante y que paso a la historia pop como icono de integración y, muy a su pesar, del feminismo.

El retrato que crea Echols traspasa todas las corazas de Janis pero no porque trate de romperlas, sino que las muestra desde los ojos de quienes la vivieron: termina ambientándonos en la época, en las personas, en los eventos e incluso levemente en los manejos de la industria musical de los 60's.

La vida de Janis está plagada de sufrimiento por su imposibilidad de encajar, tanto en el tradicional mundo descendiente de los 50's como en la locura sesentera del rock n' roll y el blues, y esto se reflejó en su entorno: siempre ambivalente pero nunca estático.

Janis Joplin, artista muchas veces olvidada pero siempre referencia en el rock, el blues y el soul, aún cuando no se le menciona (Robert Plant, te estoy hablando) fue rebajada por ser mujer, por ser fea, por ser demasiado sexual y por ser demasiado libre pero, en retrospectiva, a pesar de que su grande e innegable talento, si ella hubiera aparecido en la escena musical unos años después, no habría sido ni novedosa ni controversial dado que el feminismo y el "black power" se habrían tragado su posibilidad de ser la actual y ser aquella de quien todos hablaban.

La duda de su capacidad y su sensación de ser una impostora, no sólo en la música sino en la vida, la llevaron a una vida de exceso, drogas y finalmente a su muerte, que dejo un vacío no sólo musical sino también en aquellos que la querían y cuya vida de desenfreno los hizo dudar de su propia mortalidad.

Su trabajo:

Little Girl Blue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCeZz...

Cry Baby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDIaD...

A woman left lonely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klhK_...

Mercedes Benz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iQ1t...

Call on me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWeuT...

Magic of love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdMaS...

Farewell song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEZMY...

[Nancy Bevilaqua · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll do the obvious here and say that a little piece of my heart broke on just about every page of Alice Echols' biography of Janis Joplin. Echols, refreshingly, refrains for the most part from the armchair psychoanalysis and sordid, shock-value "journalism" that so many biographers (especially, it seems, biographers of musicians) employ to drum up enthusiasm for their books. Instead, she provides an in-depth look at the real '60's from historical and cultural perspectives, explaining how the "hippie" phenomenon began as a truly creative impulse to flee the staid conventionality of the '50's and find what was "authentic" in art, music, and life itself, and was inevitably co-opted by the media and those seeking to profit from it so that it became little more than a fashion statement (it burst a lot of my hippie-wannabe bubbles). Janis, of course, embodied that authenticity and near-frantic drive to find meaning on the edges of things. And she had that voice, and that larger-than-life personality, and the audacity to be a badass woman at a time when even among the people on the fringes, a woman was still expected to be little more than a man's "old lady"--a gentle, quiet earth-mama (the book is peppered with references to the fact that Janis was loud, and considered by many to be physically unattractive--even "fat"). Janis' relationships with women (about which she seemed to remain conflicted in some ways) put her that much farther left of the left at that time, when heterosexuality was still considered the norm even in Haight-Ashbury).

There are parts of the book that seem to get a little repetitive and/or contradictory, but I think that that's just a function of Echols' trying to juggle the many, often contradictory and probably hazily-remembered accounts of various aspects of Janis' life by those who knew her.

I'll sum up the book with a line from a song by another '60's phenomenon--The Doors (Janis and Jim Morrison apparently disliked each other intensely): "Never saw a woman/So alone..." Of all the people, men and women, who blew through her life as friends and/or lovers, it seems that no one was ever able to give her the one thing she really craved--the feeling that someone loved her just for who she was. Well, I do.

[Nat K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful voice to match a huge talent. It was interesting to read about Janis' early years, and the fact that she simply didn't fit into the straight laced ideas of the time, about what she should do with her life.

As with so many talented people, Janis had many demons that she battled with. Her voice definitely exemplified as amazing era in both society and music.

[Clark Hallman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scars of Sweet Paradise is an excellent biography of Janis Joplin. It is extremely well researched and written. It presents very interesting details about Janis, her family and friends. The author covers Janis's parents and their relationship with her and Janis's childhood and troubled teenage years in unenlightened Port Arthur, TX. Janis is described as very popular during her childhood, but beginning at age 14 she lost her popularity. She was very insecure and angry during high school and joined other outcasts (beats) in outrageous dress and behavior. After high school her parents persuaded her to begin Lamar College where she also banded together with other rebel kids, but she only lasted a semester or so. She then moved back with her parents but moved to Los Angeles to live with an Aunt in 1961. That only lasted a short time until she moved to an apartment in Venice where she continued her outreagious behavior. She returned to her parents for a short time before moving to Austin, where she took some classes for a semester or so. While there she became part of a group of folk music enthusiasts (folkies). She began singing folk songs in Austin, especially at Threadgils. From there she moved to San Franscisco where she continued her drinking and her drug use got out of control. She returned to her parents for about a year to clean herself up. However, she was asked to return to San Francisco to become part of Big Brother and the Holding Company. Big Brother was very popular in the bay area and this move was very good for her singing career. However, other members of Big Brother were heavily into drugs and Janis did not remain clean very long. This book not only reveals Janis's troubled life in detail, but it put her life in perspective with the times and the places she was living in. It also reveals much about the music business. Janis used her Pearl persona to shelter inferiority and sensitivity that was within her, but the persona was not good for her because she could not control it. She was courageous in her behavior and on stage she gave everything. She had no role model or mentors to help her and she could not control her addictions. She used sex to make her feel good about herself. It was a sad book, but very revealing.

[Jena Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this was too much "the times" and not enough "the life". WHile the auther's knowledge of the scene and era ar eimpressive, there are times when they seemed to be mentioned for the sake of mentioning them...they don't really give any extra insight into Janis Joplin. I also think that after researching so extensively you should be able to make some suppositions, some educated insight into the person...instead, just pages of quotes, many of which conflict, leaving Janis just as much a mystery as ever. Sigh.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The "life" sits awkwardly with the "times" in this book, but the overall effect, one of messy and chaotic excess, fits its subject. Echols is far too detached to be a good biographer, but she is a decent enough historian, and the glimpse we get of 1960's culture in all its squalor and glory is fascinating. I really wish the biographical portion of this book had been more intimate and interesting, because Joplin's story is sad and wild and would have made a great archetypal study of her era had it been told by a more capable writer.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a Janis-head by any means, so I can't speak to this biography in relation to other works on Joplin. I like her music; I knew a bit about her rise to fame & her tragic fall (& also recently saw some 'supernatural' special on the History Channel where psychics tried to access JJ's ghost in the hotel room where she died...har har). The biography, however, is not a tragedy in any conventional sense. Echols doesn't shy away from the drugs, the booze, the sex, or even what seems to be the profound loneliness (masked by bravado) that permeated Joplin's life. But what never seems to be foretold is the tragedy; Echols isn't invested in any sort of suicidal readings of JJ's death. She recognizes the self-destructive trajectory of the Haight-Ashbury & the 60s music scenes, but doesn't make an attempt to act as if JJ was, like an incredibly bright star, always doomed to implode. The figure that comes across in this story is sometimes frustrating, sometimes pitiable, always electric.

Perhaps even more to the credit of the biography is Echols' astonishing knowledge of the cultural-historical contexts in which Janis lived--Janis comes to represent here an icon of transition between a number of musical and social shifts (from Joan Baez-folk to 'authentic' rock&roll to Dylan's-going-electric, to the increasing abyss between 'black' and 'white' music as the 70s dawned). Echols knows her music history & she certainly knows the 60s, which was wonderfully illuminating & made the biography feel more 'thick' in many ways. It detracts from the temptation to sensationalize or melodrama-tize (can I use that word?) Joplin's life & locates her within a particular moment, which gives her, I think, far greater complexity.

Echols came to speak to a graduate seminar I'm in at the moment--and god, you couldn't pick a better personality to write this biography. She was, as I said of Joplin here, just electric. She held the room with a perfect sort of visceral intensity, & was incredibly gracious & wonderfully informative about the process of writing this book. I think it's quite an accomplishment, & the bio comes highly recommended, if my opinion holds water...

[John Branney · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Joplin's songs, Turtle Blues, seems to describe her to a T. She had a very hard, abrasive shell on the outside, but she was soft and vulnerable on the inside.

This was a very entertaining book that was well written and organized.The author not only paints a picture of Janis Joplin's tragic life through her various sources, but puts it in the context of the bigger picture - what was happening culturally at the time in Haight - Ashbury, San Francisco, Europe, LA, NYC, Texas, etc.

It was great fun to read the book while listening on the iPod to the respective CD that was being written about. The book reinforced the highs and lows of musical quality from Joplin. From the low musical quality of Big Brother and the Holding Company to the much higher musical quality of Janis and the Full Tilt Boogie Band.

Janis Joplin has been painted over the years as a "tragic figure." It has become a cliché when describing her. The book goes into the details of her relationships with family and friends, her music, and of course her substance abuse problems. My only complaint about the book is the author spent so much time on Joplin's screwed up, unhealthy relationships and her substance abuse problems, there was little time to write about the actual music itself. However, there was not a lot of music to talk about in Joplin's career, since she died so young.

Janis Joplin may have become a great artist, who knows? Quality recordings are very limited. Who knows what would have happened to her if she had been emotionally strong enough to handle life without the crutch of alcohol and drugs. She was extremely insecure and was too concerned about what others in high school, her town, fellow musicians, music critics, and the countless men and women she slept with. This led to her premature demise and downfall.

Good book - very informative and well written.

[Fiona Hargis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. It told about a lot of Janis’s past that otherwise would be hidden, such as her rough past and what she had to go through to be the legendary woman she was.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog http://asoutherngirlsbookshelf.blogsp...

For those of you who don’t know me I’m a HUGE music fan. I think of myself as an old soul though. I love and adore music from the 60’s and 70’s. Awhile back I was obsessed with music bios; I read anything I could get my hands on. Like I said before I couldn’t get enough of anything from that time period so I went out and got a ton of stuff from the musicians at that time.

I’ve loved Janis Joplin instantly. I loved her attitude, her voice, her love of old soul and jazz plus she’s from Texas!! Yet as much as she was awesomely gifted too so many people, there was no denying she was a tortured soul. While there are a ton of books on Janis I’m glad I picked this one. I liked how this one was a balanced book. Some bios tend to be one-sided, they are mainly gossipy or they don’t really give you an insight on the person not just the musician. I like how I got both. They were a ton of things I didn’t know about her personal life and some things I thought were true were revealed to be false. I felt I got a sense of the stripped down Janis and not just a glamorized version of what people want her to be remembered by.

Although no one can honestly say why Janis felt the way she did we do get bits and pieces on why she felt so alone and her sense of not belonging and not feeling good enough. I’ve read enough music bios to know that it’s not the fame that brings these artists down but the pain and rejection they suffered long before that caused them to have problems. Most of them think money, fame and drugs can make up for it but we all know it never does.

Alice Echols in my opinion has written the most balanced bio I’ve read out there. Not just on Janis but generally speaking. It’s straight to the point and pulls no punches. It doesn’t give a fairy tale illusion on Janis’s life but a real account of it, good and bad. If you want to read a good to honest book on one of music’s iconic gods then this one is for you.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I ever wrote about music was for a term paper on Janis Joplin in college. This book wouldn't be written until 20 years later, but I think it would have made my paper better. Echols does a great job of laying out the facts of Janis' life, and she interviews many of the people who were important in it at various times. I am an unabashed lover of Joplin's music, especially with Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Echols shows just how hard she worked at making that music effective. Far from an improviser, Joplin arranged every scream, slur, and dynamic change - the guys in Big Brother, while not necessarily big on rehearsal, were also careful arrangers of their parts, which is, for me, what makes Cheap Thrills such a magnificent record. Joplin was a combination of vulnerability, pain, brashness, and power, all of which contributed to making her music so good.. But, it didn't help her life much. While Echols takes pain to show us good times, the inevitable downslides of a junkie make for depressing tales, especially in the last third of the book. Echols is also very good at describing the milieu of beatnik wannabes (Joplin and her friends in Texas) and the hippy culture which gave her a place to truly belong. As with Joplin's own life, the world of hippies was a combination of upside - freedom - and downside - conventional sexual roles, and especially drugs. Echols isn't a music critic, so she only hints at insights into the records themselves, but she provides tremendous context to make me appreciate them even more.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a biography of singer Janis Joplin. I was transported back to the wild, wacky, wonderful 1960s of my adolescence. Well it wasn't all so wonderful, lots of drug overdoses, naive utopian philosophies, youthful idealism, failed good intentions. It was a rebellious, experimental time of exploring alternative possibilities & reaching beyond conventional norms of behavior. There was also a lot of great music being made as well. Janis abused alcohol & illegal drugs, she overdosed on heroin. She was a gifted singer, but had a major problem with self esteem & acceptance. She rebelled against "the establishment" of the day, especially with respect to how convention dictated the behavior of women. And this was all before the advent of "women's lib". Her sexual preferences were definitely outside the norms of her day. For this, she was made to suffer, but a good deal of her suffering was self inflicted. She didn't seem to be able to believe that she was as good a singer as she really was. To me she was a star that burned too brightly for too short a time, a beautiful singer with a fatal flaw: an inability to love & accept herself & her talents. I'm a fan & have quite a bit of her material in my collection. I love the blues & still listen to her. Thanks Janis, love ya!

[Sam Motes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Digs much more into the pre-fame days of Janis than ‘On the Road with Janis’ book by Janis’ former band manager John Cooke. Echols weaves a story of Janis’ odd ball life growing up in Port Author trying to find her place in the world that lead to the true Rock and Roll outrageous life style living the drug excess consumed wild diverse sex life always on the verge of spiraling out of control striving to be way out there and not fit into a cookie cutter life pre-destined for her by her small-town Texas roots. She started her music blossoming on the beer soaked outskirts of Austin and then was pulled on her acid trip to the Haight district of the San Francisco Bay area by the hippie vibe to grow in her craft and explode on the world stage at the Monterey Pop Festival as the bluesy Rock Goddess that shattered the stereotype of who a front(WO)man can be. On her brief blinding burn out on the public stage she took the music to all new levels and laid down the tracks that for ever changed the direction of rock with key entries in the song book of our lives. Tragically gone way before her time she sadly joined the 27 club and left this world behind. Echols gives a front row seat to the beautifully tragic life of Janis as it wound through the turbulant 60s.

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read if you're interested in the development of the music industry during the late 1960's-70's. This book is about the life and death of Janis Joplin, but it's also a brilliant educational tool too. I found it hard to get into at first as there were too many names and details, but I quickly enlisted the help of my ipad for research and tunes to listen to whilst reading...and it really worked! Instead of just reading this book I submerged myself in a little culture, adding to my feelings for it and my understanding of Janis.

This book didn't make me like Janis Joplin, or get to know her better, but it did help me to realise the world in which she lived in and why she might have lived the way she did. I don't think Janis was a feminist. In fact, she seemed to be angry that she couldn't be pretty, or conform, and almost wished she could have. Janis did strive for happiness though, in whatever messed-up form that came, and when she couldn't get it from people, she got it from drink and drugs. Not a woman to teach you much about morals, but definitely a woman who'll teach me that she was normal, and normal woman cry too :)

[Suzanne Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from my aunt. For some reason, I've always wanted to know more about Janis Joplin and my aunt said it was an excellent read. I found it difficult to put down. It is an account of a very tortured soul in a very volatile, confusing time. Not only do you learn a lot about Janis Joplin and who she was, who she wasn't and why she did and lived the way she did, but you learned a lot about the 60's, from everything to how tie-dyed t-shirts entered the culture, to how Haight-Ashbury became a haven for hippies, to how the separate between "white and black music" came about. Perhaps it's because I love history or because I have a love of music history or because I love her music...I loved this book. It was published in 1999 so I would love to read a more recent publication about her. I think the author did an excellent job of compiling all of the information together and in the order that she did right down to the last sentence in the Epilogue.

[Shelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a big Janis Joplin fan. I loved reading about her life before she became a big star; growing up in Texas and her entre into music in Austin. The book is also a cultural history of San Francisco in the 60s. It is impossible to separate Janis from what was happening in San Francisco during those years. The cast of characters is fascinating..... everyone from Bill Graham to Kris Kristoferson. The book also looks at Janis as a "trsilblazer." Rock n roll was a man's world. As successful as she was, she was alone, and life on the road was tough. We all know how her story ended.

[Riley Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

At it's heart, this is a sad story of a tortured soul. What makes this book great are the extensive interviews that the author has woven into a balanced and complex look at a dynamic woman whose flame burned out too soon. The author also gives us a good feel for what it must have been like to be young and adventurous in San Francisco before, during, and after the Summer of Love in '67. The life that Janis Joplin lived during the 60's is exciting but tragic, and this book is an excellent review of her times.

[Letitia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Janis, both the woman and the music, and I have read several of her biographies.
Scars of sweet paradise stood out, in that it wasn't concerned solely with Janis, but also the times and environments that grew and nurtured her.

Looking back with nostalgia, we see the sixties as such a wonderful era, but underneath all the peace, love and acid, there lay a much darker side.
I like that this book didn't try to sugarcoat the hippie life.
I didn't like that it kinda soured my hippie dreams.

Definitely one of the best Janis / 60's biographies of there.

[Pamela Montano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just when you think you've heard all the stories about Janis Joplin, you find this book. The author did her research and this book contains many interviews from family, friends, band mates and former lovers of Joplin. She did things that only boys were supposed to do and she acted in ways that only boys were supposed to act. She was an original and while there have been many imitators, there will never be another Janis. A truly interesting and in-depth account of the life and times of the ballsy, blues singer, Janis Joplin.

[A.G. Pasquella · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading about The Grateful Dead I continued my "60s Musical Countercultural Voyage" with this book about Janis Joplin. It was exactly what I wanted: less of a Tabloid Tell-All (although there are plenty of salacious details) and more of a Cultural History. Echols gives Joplin a very even-handed non-judgmental treatment-- even then, I ended up feeling sorry for Joplin. She lived hard but I was left with the impression that she never found what she was looking for.

[Vera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the ride through Janis' life and identity search. The author took her time to put a coherent and informative depiction of events together but didn't really appreciate the extreme over-emphasis on her low self-esteem, it was too much, up to one point I was already saying "We got it..." out loud. I enjoyed the book overall, would recommend to all enthusiast of Folk/Rock and history of music in the 60's and 70's.

[Azzia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great historical piece and a look inside Janis. She was so lonely, even while achieving her dreams. A good reminder to all of us to surround ourselves with healthy, supportive people. Whether you're a cashier or a rock star, your network and family matter.

[Merry Fortune · Rating 5 out of 5]

currently reading

[Nancy Pitre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would have liked more about Janis & less about the music industry.

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

wowza

[Krista Danis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alice Echols weaves the story of Janis Joplin into her exploration of a time and place, which offers an effective look at a life that is often misunderstood. The introduction to Scars of Sweet Paradise is perhaps the strongest element of the book, which is not to disparage the biography but to emphasize the excellence of her bigger-picture analysis. Echols points out how the 60's and Janis Joplin are similarly treated in modern pop culture storytelling, "Even after almost forty years the sixties remain mired in myth, reduced to a set of cliches that seem to function as a defense against true remembering."

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this biography so much. Janis forever

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

[Elyse · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more biographies I read the more I realize it’s an art to be able to tell a person’s story without the author’s opinions getting in the way. This author, Alice Echols, has it figured out. Echols was “lucky” to have many living witnesses to Janice Joplin’s self destruction. But then the witnesses’ accounts would contradict each other and Echols had a lot of untangling to do. My hat is off to her. She interpreted events logically and in my opinion came up with an accurate conclusion: Janis was a vulnerable and lonely person.

[Samantha Sipper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll start by saying that I love this book. I've read it twice and learned something new each time. Not only does Scars of Sweet Paradise provide a window into Janis Joplin's life, but readers also get a treatment of the times in which she lived. Janis Joplin was definitely a product of her time. Born in 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas, Janis came of age in the 1960s, a turbulent time in which middle class values were being questioned by the baby boomer generation. Beginning in her teen years, Janis is portrayed by author Alice Echols as a rebel. Raised by parents with solid middle class values, Janis' parents were horrified by her behavior. After high school, Janis migrated to San Francisco which broadened her access to musicians who were playing the kind of music that would eventually make her famous. San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district would become Janis' new home, and the place where her musical career really took off. Unfortunately, it is also where Janis began to dabble in the drugs that would eventually take her life at the age of 27. It is interesting to note that despite Janis' rebellious behavior, she made repeated attempts to be the daughter she thought her parents wanted by trying to attend college or work a job, and even talked about marrying and settling down--all of this part of the complex person that was Janis Joplin. Given the time of her rise to fame, it is hard to say if Janis Joplin would have had the same impact if she had lived in another time. Whether you like her brand of music or not, this is a biography worth reading by anyone who loves music or the decade in which the music changed as much as the generation that inspired it. Janis Joplin, in my opinion, was the first real female rock and roll singer. She sang rock and roll, and she lived it.