{"id":537383,"date":"2026-03-21T21:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T21:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/537383\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T21:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T21:16:14","slug":"i-got-dem-ol-kozmic-blues-again-mama-by-janis-joplin-the-story-behind-the-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/537383\/","title":{"rendered":"I Got Dem Ol\u2019 Kozmic Blues Again Mama! by Janis Joplin: the story behind the album"},"content":{"rendered":"

In October 1968, Janis Joplin<\/a> had a No.1 album, a Top 10 single and a string of sold-out tour dates. One critic raved about her \u201curgent, blazing white blues\u201d voice. Another said she sounded like \u201cshe was calling out from the second-story window of a bordello, inviting you up\u201d. In her first blush of superstardom, the 25-year-old singer of Big Brother & The Holding Company should\u2019ve been riding high. But she was miserable.<\/p>\n

Weeks into her group\u2019s tour, supporting their second record Cheap Thrills, with the hit Piece Of My Heart blasting out of radios everywhere, Janis was bored with the increasingly formulaic approach to their live shows. She felt her bandmates were getting lazy. They were all downing different drink and drug cocktails of choice \u2013 speed, Seconal, Southern Comfort \u2013 which made them edgy with each other offstage. Midway through a European tour, Janis announced that she would leave Big Brother once their dates were fulfilled.<\/p>\n

Her restlessness dovetailed with her ambition. The rapturous reception she was getting in the UK and Germany that autumn fed her dreams of international stardom. And whispering encouragement in her ear from the sidelines was manager Albert Grossman, who\u2019d come up through the New York City folk scene, managing Bob Dylan<\/a> and Peter, Paul & Mary.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

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\"Janis\n<\/p>\n

Janis Joplin in 1969 (Image credit: Universal Pictures \/ Collection Sunset Boulevard \/ Gettyimages)<\/p>\n

Once described by a musician as a \u201cpudgy barracuda\u201d, Grossman promised Janis he would land her a deal for two million dollars \u2013 if she agreed to go solo. At the same time, Columbia Records president Clive Davis was wooing Janis with visions of her as a blend of Aretha and Streisand. He wanted brass, strings, Vegas, TV specials, the works. Flattered with the attention, Janis saw it all as a way out of her stagnant situation, and began assembling a new group of musicians.<\/p>\n

Too many of the musicians were buying balloons of heroin rather than concentrating on the music.<\/p>\n

Sam Andrew<\/p>\n

Once the Columbia deal was inked, Davis was anxious to get her in the studio. Recording began on June 16, 1969 in Columbia Records Studio in New York. Grossman chose Gabriel Mekler to produce. Best-known for helming Steppenwolf biker-themed hits Born To Be Wild<\/a> and Magic Carpet Ride, the classically-trained Mekler was opinionated and strong-willed. He didn\u2019t like Janis\u2019s choice of musicians for her band. They fought back and forth to a compromise, but Mekler sulked through the sessions and would ignore the suggestions of the players he didn\u2019t choose.<\/p>\n

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\"Janis\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Sam Faba\/Fantality Corporation\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Davis\u2019s haste to get her solo debut out in time to capitalise on the success of Cheap Thrills also meant the new band didn\u2019t have enough time to gel as a unit. While the large cast nodded to the way records were made at Stax and Motown, the flip side was that the band never transcended the feeling of being hired hands.<\/p>\n

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Once again, drugs and egos reared their ugly heads. And 1969 was the year of heroin. Guitarist Sam Andrew, a holdover from Big Brother, said, \u201cToo many of the musicians were buying balloons [of heroin] rather than concentrating on the music.\u201d Saxophonist Snooky Flowers added: \u201cWe were musicians and we knew how to play. We weren\u2019t just a bunch of hippies running around playing three chords.\u201d He thought Janis was intimidated because she realized the band was \u201cmusically beyond her\u201d.<\/p>\n

In this chaos, Janis got a bit lost on her own album, personally and musically. Her father Seth later said: \u201cThe brass in the group didn\u2019t suit her. Her voice was an orchestra in itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janis Joplin – One Good Man (Official Audio) – YouTube
\n\"Janis<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

And yet, testament to her otherworldly talent, there are sublime moments on Dem Kozmic Blues. The best of them have spare arrangements that bring her vocals to the forefront. There\u2019s Maybe, a creative reimagining of an old girl group hit, and One Good Man, where she spars with Michael Bloomfield\u2019s lean, fiery guitar licks, making the track sound like a blueprint for the first two Led Zeppelin albums.<\/p>\n

I have to have the umph. I\u2019ve got to feel it, because if it\u2019s not getting through to me, the audience sure as hell aren\u2019t going to feel it either.<\/p>\n

Janis Joplin<\/p>\n

But the standout is a cover of Rodgers & Hart\u2019s Little Girl Blue, from the 1935 Broadway show Jumbo. Though she tweaks Lorenz Hart\u2019s lyrics, there is a deep empathy in the track. Hart, like Janis, was an outsider, uncomfortable in his own skin, perpetually insecure, given to jags of depression and drinking. Though she may not have known that, Janis found a cross-generational kindred spirit and it brought out all the colours in her voice. No other performance better illustrates her extraordinary openheartedness, empathy, and ability to cry for herself while crying for us as listeners.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Released in September 1969, the album went gold, but yielded no Top 10 singles and a mixed reaction from the press. A typical review, in Rolling Stone, raved about Janis\u2019s singing but faulted the accompaniment as \u201clumpier than a beer hall accordion band\u201d.<\/p>\n

She hit the road with many of the same musicians and had uneven gigs. \u201cThey didn\u2019t get me off,\u201d she said. \u201cI have to have the umph. I\u2019ve got to feel it, because if it\u2019s not getting through to me, the audience sure as hell aren\u2019t going to feel it either.\u201d<\/p>\n

By summer 1970, she\u2019d hired a new band, The Full Tilt Boogie, that she called \u201cso heavy you can lean on it\u201d. But before her creative evolution could continue, Janis was gone. A year after her death at 27, Columbia released Pearl, the last piece of a puzzle that will remain forever unfinished.<\/p>\n

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 259 (February 2019) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In October 1968, Janis Joplin had a No.1 album, a Top 10 single and a string of sold-out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-537383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}