Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing by Ann Angel

                                                                                                 

Janis wasn't your average teenage girl growing up in the heart of Texas during the 1960s. She was very different compared to normal girls her age. Her classmates would often say that she was "too loud, her clothes to dark, her opinions too strange" and the girls especially would ostracized her because of it (5).  Being exiled Janis made friends with five guys. At the time befriending five boys instantly labeled you as “loose”, “promiscuous”, or “easy” (18). These guys introduced Janis to the world of the Beats. This was a world that rejected conformity and embraced personal freedom.  In her spare time she would sing.  Singing made Janis want to “talk more, to become more of the naturally flowing-out sort of person she felt she was instead of a hold-it-and-be-quiet type” (9). She was influenced by folk music and how it expressed a life filled with hardwork, loss, and pain. Janis struggled with fitting in, wanting to be loved, and enhancing her creativity as a musician. On her road to fame Janis experimented with marijuana, speed, heroin, and alcohol. She sought adulation and she found it from her fans, during live shows, whenever she would use drugs and perform.  “Fame had nurtured and encouraged Janis’s wild, over-the-top behavior” and people accepted it (99). This is the Janis that the world would musically get to know, encouraged, love; the unrenowned first Queen of Rock.     

 

Ann Angel, combining pictures with text, does a good job of portraying the life of Janis Joplin.  Her intended audience for this book were teenagers, both boys and girls.  Angel takes you into the life of a girl who was a social outcast in high school. She depicts Janis’s transition from an awkward teenage student to a famous adult musician; a singer whose voice was unique and demanded attention. Although drugs and alcohol were a major influence during Joplin’s career, her music speaks volumes even today. High school kids these days are still being ostracized and try to find ways to cope with that fact whether that be sports, music, drugs, etc. I think that this book serves as a reminder to teens that the choices you make when you are young can affect you later in life.

                     To be accepted and loved is all she ever wanted...