19 Sep JANIS: HER LIFE AND MUSIC book tour hits the road
Holly George-Warren, the author of the critically acclaimed biography Janis: Her Life and Music (Available October 22 from Simon & Schuster) will host a series of reading events and live appearances across the United States starting October 14 at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. The book will be available for purchase at this special pre-sale event, as well as at each of the dates leading up to release week.
Find a full list of tour dates at www.janisjoplin.com/book.
About the book:
This blazingly intimate biography of Janis Joplin illuminates the Queen of Rock & Roll as a true rule-breaking musical trailblazer and complicated, uncompromising artistic revolutionary.
Janis Joplin’s first transgressive act was to be a white girl who embraced the power of the blues, music one could only find on obscure records and in roadhouses along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But even before that, she stood out in her conservative oil town. She was a tomboy who was intellectually curious and artistic. By the time she reached high school, she had drawn the scorn of her peers for her embrace of the Beat poets and her racially progressive views. Her parents doted on her in many ways but were ultimately put off by her repeated acts of defiance.
Janis Joplin has passed into legend as a brash, impassioned artist doomed by the pain that produced one of the most extraordinary voices in rock history. But in these pages, Holly George-Warren provides a revelatory and deeply satisfying portrait of a woman who wasn’t all about suffering. Janis was a perfectionist: a passionate, erudite musician who was born with talent but also worked exceptionally hard to develop it. She was a woman who pushed the boundaries of sexuality – and bisexuality – in a time when any deviation from the 1960’s vision of homogenous, heterosexual America was considered socially taboo. She was a sensitive soul who wanted to marry and settle down—but couldn’t or wouldn’t. She was a Texan who yearned to flee Texas but could never quite get away—even after becoming a countercultural icon in San Francisco.
Written by one of the most highly regarded chroniclers of American music history, and based on unprecedented access to Janis Joplin’s family, friends, band mates, archives, and long-lost interviews, Janis is a complex, rewarding portrait of a remarkable artist finally getting her due.
“The best books of 2019” – People Magazine
“This gripping biography charts the brilliant and troubled blues singer, from life in small-town Texas to discovering Kerouac, San Francisco, and her own musical self.” – Vanity Fair
“Next month, the first woman of rock-blues will be toasted with the most thorough book ever written about her, penned by Holly George-Warren and titled simply ‘Janis.'”- Jim Farber, Newsday
“A must-read.” – AARP Magazine