1925 Henry Gray*
1936 Willie „Big Eyes“ Smith*
1943 Janis Joplin*
1959 Horst Niggemeier*
1999 Christone Ingram*
2006 Wilson Pickett+
Happy Birthday
Henry Gray *19.01.1925
Henry Gray (* 19. Januar 1925 in Kenner, Louisiana) ist ein US-amerikanischer Blues-Pianist.Mit 16 Jahren spielte Gray in einer Band in Alsen bei Baton Rouge, wohin seine Familie gezogen war. Während seines Militärdienstes im Zweiten Weltkrieg unterhielt er seine Einheit mit Musik.
Nach dem Krieg ging Gray nach Chicago, wo er in Clubs Piano spielte. Big Maceo Merriweather wurde auf ihn aufmerksam und wurde sein Mentor. Bald war Gray einer der gefragtesten Pianisten der Blues-Szene in Chicago. Er begleitete etliche bekannte Kollegen live und bei Aufnahmen, darunter Muddy Waters, Elmore James, B. B. King, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Rogers, Billy Boy Arnold, Morris Pejoe und viele andere.
1956 wurde Gray Pianist in der Band von Howlin' Wolf. 1968 kehrte er nach Alsen zurück, um seine Mutter nach dem Tod seines Vaters zu unterstützen. Er arbeitete als Dachdecker, blieb aber auch als Musiker aktiv. Er trat bei zahlreichen Festivals auf, etwa dem New Orleans Jazz Festival, dem Chicago Blues Festival, dem Festival International de Jazz de Montréal und etlichen anderen, auch in Europa.
1988 erschien Grays erstes Soloalbum Lucky Man. 1998 wurde Gray für einen Grammy nominiert.
Henry Gray (born January 19, 1925, Kenner, Louisiana) is an African-American blues piano player and singer. He has been playing for more than seven decades, and has played with a multitude of artists including Robert Lockwood, Jr., Billy Boy Arnold, Morris Pejoe, the Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf among many others. He has more than 58 albums to his credit, including recordings for the Chess Records label. He is credited as helping to create the distinctive sound of the Chicago blues piano.[1]
Early life and education
Shortly after he was born Gray, an only child, moved with his parents to a farm in Alsen, Louisiana, a few miles north of Baton Rouge, where he would spend his childhood years. Gray began studying piano at the age of eight with a neighborhood woman, Mrs. White. Gray also credits the radio and music records in his home for inspiring his love for music at a young age. A few years later, Gray began playing piano and organ at his local Baptist church, and his family eventually got a piano for the house. While blues playing was not encouraged within his family's home, Henry did play blues at Mrs. White's house, and by the time he was 16 he was playing blues music at a club in Alsen. His father initially disapproved of Gray's "club gig" but, after seeing how much money he was making, Gray's father became supportive. In 1943, Gray joined the United States Army and was sent to the South Pacific during World War II. While in the Army, Gray would frequently entertain his fellow soldiers with his piano playing and singing. Shortly before the war was over, Gray was given a medical discharge from the army. He returned to the U.S. in 1946 where he spent a brief time in Alsen before relocating to Chicago where he had relatives.[2]
Career
Chicago: 1946-1968
After arriving in Chicago, Gray began spending a great deal of his time in the growing postwar jazz and blues club scene. He would spend hours listening to and trying to learn from the Windy City's best piano players and would occasionally get hired for smaller gigs. One day while he was sitting in at a club, he caught the attention of Big Maceo Merriweather, an important jazz and blues piano player in Chicago (from Detroit). Merriweather befriended Gray and had an important impact on influencing Gray's "two-fisted playing" and introducing him to several notable bands and club owners. As a result, Grey was able to obtain steady gigs with groups like Little Hudson's Red Devil Trio (Hudson Showers) and guitarist Morris Pejoe before moving into extensive work as a session musician in the recording studio behind Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, Billy Boy Arnold, Pejoe, and others.[3] His first recording session was in 1952 with Jimmy Rogers. Gray also worked occasionally with Little Walter, who nicknamed the young pianist "Bird Breast."[4]
In 1956, Gray joined Howlin' Wolf's band and was Wolf's main piano player for twelve years in performance and on recordings. Also during this time, Gray became a session player for numerous artists on recordings made by Chess Records. He recorded with many icons of the blues including: Abb Lock, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Homesick James, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Billy Boy Arnold, Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Hubert Sumlin, Lazy Lester, Little Walter Jacobs, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Little Milton Campbell, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Reed, and Koko Taylor among others.[2] Gray also made some recordings on other labels including several recording with J. D. "Jay" Miller's Louisiana Excello blues band during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1963, Gray played with Elmore James on the night that James died of a heart attack.[5]
Louisiana: 1968-today
Gray left Wolf's band and Chicago in 1968 to return to Alsen, Louisiana due to the death of his father and to assist his mother with the family fish market business. Gray became an important part of Louisiana's music scene where his big, rollicking sound became part of the region's "swamp blues" style. In addition to performing, Gray worked with the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board as a roofer from 1968-1983.[5]
During the last thirty years, Gray has performed at virtually all New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals, three Chicago Blues Festivals (1987, 1989, and 2005), the Montreal Jazz Festival (1988), nearly every Baton Rouge Blues Festival since its inception, the San Francisco Blues Festival, Memphis's W.C. Handy Blues Festival, several times at Festival International (Lafayette, Louisiana), the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival (Davenport, Iowa), the King Biscuit Blues Festival (Helena, Arkansas), and many other festivals around the United States.
Gray has also traveled to Europe frequently to play in festivals and concerts and can be heard on several European releases. In 1988, Blind Pig Records released Gray's first stateside feature LP entitled Lucky Man. The album was produced by guitarist Steve Freund who also joined Gray on the album for a combination of both Windy City blues and bayou boogie. In 1990, he recorded Louisiana Swamp Blues on the Wolf Records label. In 1998, Gray received a Grammy Award nomination for his album A Tribute to Howlin' Wolf released on Telarc Records. That same year he played for Mick Jagger's 55th birthday celebration in Paris. In the summer of 1999, Gray toured Europe with Marva Wright and her band giving concerts of "Louisiana music" under the sponsorship of Blue House Records. In 2001, Gray recorded two albums: Watch Yourself on the Lucky Cat label and Henry Gray Plays Chicago Blues for Hightone Records. During 2003, Henry Gray & the Cats released a CD and DVD entitled Henry Gray & the Cats: Live in Paris. Additionally in 2003, Gray was featured along with Ray Charles, Dr. John, Pinetop Perkins and Dave Brubeck in Clint Eastwood's "Blues Piano" which was part of Martin Scorsese's seven part series, "The Blues", which was aired nationally on public television. Gray was awarded the 2006 National Heritage Fellowship Award by the National Endowment for the Arts which is the nation's top honor for folk artist.[1] In the same year, Gray was featured along with Jerry Lee Lewis, Pinetop Perkins, Marcia Ball and Little Red in a concert at Morgan Freeman's club Ground Zero in Clarksdale, Mississippi, which became the DVD Falsifyin' produced and released by SunLion Films. That same year, Gray starred in the independent film The Glass Chord as Saul Solomon, an aging musician suffering from Alzheimer's disease.[6]
Gray continues to tour as a soloist and with his band Henry Gray and the Cats.
Personal life
At one point in his life Gray suffered from alcoholism but has now obtained sobriety for many years. In 1989, his home in the Baton Rouge area was destroyed by a tornado.[4] Gray is married to Rivers Gray and they have three children and eight grandchildren together.
Early life and education
Shortly after he was born Gray, an only child, moved with his parents to a farm in Alsen, Louisiana, a few miles north of Baton Rouge, where he would spend his childhood years. Gray began studying piano at the age of eight with a neighborhood woman, Mrs. White. Gray also credits the radio and music records in his home for inspiring his love for music at a young age. A few years later, Gray began playing piano and organ at his local Baptist church, and his family eventually got a piano for the house. While blues playing was not encouraged within his family's home, Henry did play blues at Mrs. White's house, and by the time he was 16 he was playing blues music at a club in Alsen. His father initially disapproved of Gray's "club gig" but, after seeing how much money he was making, Gray's father became supportive. In 1943, Gray joined the United States Army and was sent to the South Pacific during World War II. While in the Army, Gray would frequently entertain his fellow soldiers with his piano playing and singing. Shortly before the war was over, Gray was given a medical discharge from the army. He returned to the U.S. in 1946 where he spent a brief time in Alsen before relocating to Chicago where he had relatives.[2]
Career
Chicago: 1946-1968
After arriving in Chicago, Gray began spending a great deal of his time in the growing postwar jazz and blues club scene. He would spend hours listening to and trying to learn from the Windy City's best piano players and would occasionally get hired for smaller gigs. One day while he was sitting in at a club, he caught the attention of Big Maceo Merriweather, an important jazz and blues piano player in Chicago (from Detroit). Merriweather befriended Gray and had an important impact on influencing Gray's "two-fisted playing" and introducing him to several notable bands and club owners. As a result, Grey was able to obtain steady gigs with groups like Little Hudson's Red Devil Trio (Hudson Showers) and guitarist Morris Pejoe before moving into extensive work as a session musician in the recording studio behind Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, Billy Boy Arnold, Pejoe, and others.[3] His first recording session was in 1952 with Jimmy Rogers. Gray also worked occasionally with Little Walter, who nicknamed the young pianist "Bird Breast."[4]
In 1956, Gray joined Howlin' Wolf's band and was Wolf's main piano player for twelve years in performance and on recordings. Also during this time, Gray became a session player for numerous artists on recordings made by Chess Records. He recorded with many icons of the blues including: Abb Lock, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Homesick James, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Billy Boy Arnold, Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Hubert Sumlin, Lazy Lester, Little Walter Jacobs, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Little Milton Campbell, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Reed, and Koko Taylor among others.[2] Gray also made some recordings on other labels including several recording with J. D. "Jay" Miller's Louisiana Excello blues band during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1963, Gray played with Elmore James on the night that James died of a heart attack.[5]
Louisiana: 1968-today
Gray left Wolf's band and Chicago in 1968 to return to Alsen, Louisiana due to the death of his father and to assist his mother with the family fish market business. Gray became an important part of Louisiana's music scene where his big, rollicking sound became part of the region's "swamp blues" style. In addition to performing, Gray worked with the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board as a roofer from 1968-1983.[5]
During the last thirty years, Gray has performed at virtually all New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals, three Chicago Blues Festivals (1987, 1989, and 2005), the Montreal Jazz Festival (1988), nearly every Baton Rouge Blues Festival since its inception, the San Francisco Blues Festival, Memphis's W.C. Handy Blues Festival, several times at Festival International (Lafayette, Louisiana), the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival (Davenport, Iowa), the King Biscuit Blues Festival (Helena, Arkansas), and many other festivals around the United States.
Gray has also traveled to Europe frequently to play in festivals and concerts and can be heard on several European releases. In 1988, Blind Pig Records released Gray's first stateside feature LP entitled Lucky Man. The album was produced by guitarist Steve Freund who also joined Gray on the album for a combination of both Windy City blues and bayou boogie. In 1990, he recorded Louisiana Swamp Blues on the Wolf Records label. In 1998, Gray received a Grammy Award nomination for his album A Tribute to Howlin' Wolf released on Telarc Records. That same year he played for Mick Jagger's 55th birthday celebration in Paris. In the summer of 1999, Gray toured Europe with Marva Wright and her band giving concerts of "Louisiana music" under the sponsorship of Blue House Records. In 2001, Gray recorded two albums: Watch Yourself on the Lucky Cat label and Henry Gray Plays Chicago Blues for Hightone Records. During 2003, Henry Gray & the Cats released a CD and DVD entitled Henry Gray & the Cats: Live in Paris. Additionally in 2003, Gray was featured along with Ray Charles, Dr. John, Pinetop Perkins and Dave Brubeck in Clint Eastwood's "Blues Piano" which was part of Martin Scorsese's seven part series, "The Blues", which was aired nationally on public television. Gray was awarded the 2006 National Heritage Fellowship Award by the National Endowment for the Arts which is the nation's top honor for folk artist.[1] In the same year, Gray was featured along with Jerry Lee Lewis, Pinetop Perkins, Marcia Ball and Little Red in a concert at Morgan Freeman's club Ground Zero in Clarksdale, Mississippi, which became the DVD Falsifyin' produced and released by SunLion Films. That same year, Gray starred in the independent film The Glass Chord as Saul Solomon, an aging musician suffering from Alzheimer's disease.[6]
Gray continues to tour as a soloist and with his band Henry Gray and the Cats.
Personal life
At one point in his life Gray suffered from alcoholism but has now obtained sobriety for many years. In 1989, his home in the Baton Rouge area was destroyed by a tornado.[4] Gray is married to Rivers Gray and they have three children and eight grandchildren together.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd & Henry Gray with Howlin' Wolf Band - Calvin "Fuzz" Jones' final performance
Janis Joplin Geb. 19.01.1943
Janis Lyn Joplin (* 19. Januar 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas; † 4. Oktober 1970 in Los Angeles) war eineUS-amerikanische Rock-Sängerin.
Leben
Joplin wurde als Tochter von Seth Ward Joplin, einem Mitarbeiter der Ölgesellschaft Texaco, und Dorothy Joplin (geb. East), die ihrerseits eine Gesangsausbildung abgebrochen hatte und als Büroangestellte arbeitete, geboren und hatte zwei jüngere Geschwister, Michael und Laura.
In ihrer Kindheit wandte sie sich der Kunst (besonders Gedichten) zu und las viel. Obwohl sie im Kirchenchor sang, dachte niemand an eine spätere Karriere als Musikerin. Ihre Mutter Dorothy setzte auf das Talent ihrer älteren Tochter im Zeichnen und sorgte dafür, dass sie privaten Kunstunterricht bekam. Nach ausgiebiger Lektüre des Time Magazine begann Janis Joplin, Blues- und Folk-Musik für sich zu entdecken. Ihren ersten öffentlichen Auftritt hatte sie 1958 im Halfway House.
Nachdem sie 1960 ihren Highschool-Abschluss bestanden hatte, ging sie im Alter von 17 Jahren von zu Hause fort, um Sängerin zu werden. Sie versuchte sich an einigen Colleges, brach aber das Studium immer vorzeitig ab. Ein Jahr später hatte sie ein wenig Geld verdient und zog nach Los Angeles.
Janis Joplin sang, unter anderem begleitet von Jorma Kaukonen (Gitarrist von Jefferson Airplane), mit 18 Jahren in Kneipen und Folk-Clubs. Autodidaktisch geschult durch Schallplatten von Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter), Odetta Holmes und Bessie Smith, ihrem größten Vorbild, avancierte sie mit ihrem hemmungslosen, bis dahin für eine weiße Sängerin einzigartigen Gesangsstil zur „Queen des (weißen) Bluesrock“.
Nachdem Janis Joplin 1962 in Louisiana als Kellnerin gearbeitet hatte, kehrte sie bald nach Texas zurück, um in Austin ihr Appartement, das später als The Ghetto bekannt wurde, zu beziehen. Am College in Austin fiel sie wegen ihrer Kleidung als Außenseiterin auf.[1]
1965 trat sie mit der Jazzband von Dick Oxtot auf. 1966 rief Chet Helms, der Manager von Big Brother and the Holding Company, bei ihr an und teilte ihr mit, dass die Band eine Sängerin suche.
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Im Jahre 1966 begann Joplins Karriere, als sie nach San Francisco zog und sich besagter Band anschloss, mit der sie 1967 erfolgreich beim Monterey Pop Festival auftrat, dadurch einen Plattenvertrag bei Mainstream von Bob Shad erhielt und dort Big Brother & the Holding Company Featuring Janis Joplin herausbrachte.
1968 folgte für Columbia Records Cheap Thrills (Frontcover von Robert Crumb). Das zweite Album enthielt schon viele ihrer legendär gewordenen Stücke wie die Coverversion von Erma Franklins Piece of My Heart oder Ball and Chain. Nach den Studioaufnahmen reiste Janis Joplin nach Nepal, wo sie sich im Herbst 1968 für eine Weile in Kathmandu (Liedzeile in Cry Baby: „… Honey, the road'll even end in Kathmandu“) aufhielt.
Kozmic Blues Band
Ende 1968 trennte sich Joplin von der Band und stellte zusammen mit ihrer Plattenfirma eine größere Band zusammen, die lange keinen Namen trug, aber nach dem folgenden, dritten Joplin-Album Kozmic Blues Band genannt wurde. Der Grund dafür war der Ehrgeiz von Janis Joplin, mit einer professionellen Band mit Funk- und Blues-Instrumenten neue Musikrichtungen zu erschließen und nicht zuletzt professioneller zu arbeiten. Dies wurde unter anderem von der Musikzeitschrift Rolling Stone als Verrat an den Idealen der Rockmusik empfunden. Tatsächlich lief die Zusammenarbeit mit der Band nicht sehr gut, da sich die Musiker vorher nicht kannten und Janis Joplin wenig Erfahrung sowohl als Band-Leader als auch mit dem Arrangieren von Liedern hatte.
Die Band hatte ihren bekanntesten Auftritt im Jahre 1969 beim Woodstock-Festival. Janis Joplin war bei diesem Auftritt jedoch stark alkoholisiert, wirkte aufgeschwemmt, verbraucht und ihre Stimme brach oft. Ihre Plattenfirma verweigerte aus diesem Grund anfänglich die Erlaubnis, diesen Auftritt filmisch in der Dokumentation Woodstock zu zeigen. Allerdings machte sie eine Bemerkung über die Hippiebewegung, die später oft zitiert wurde: „Früher waren wir nur wenige, jetzt gibt es Massen und Massen und Massen von uns.“
Die Aufnahmen des Woodstockauftrittes wurden teilweise erst auf Box of Pearls (1999 bei Sony) bzw. vorher größtenteils 1993 auf einer posthumen CD (siehe Diskografie) durch die Firma ITM veröffentlicht.
1969 trat Janis Joplin im Fernsehen bei Ed Sullivan und Dick Cavett auf. Die Interviews mit Dick Cavett sind auf dem posthum veröffentlichten Album „Janis“ verewigt. Ebenfalls 1969 begab sich die Kozmic Blues Band auf eine zweimonatige Europa-Tournee. Ihr einziges Konzert in Deutschland fand am 12. April 1969 in der Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt-Unterliederbach statt. Auf der offiziellen Homepage ist unter dem Datum 12. April 1969 vermerkt: „Kozmic Blues: two concerts in Frankfurt“.[2] Nach Ende des von der Agentur Lippmann & Rau veranstalteten Konzerts forderte Joplin die Zuhörer auf, zu bleiben, weil nun noch eine Aufzeichnung des amerikanischen Fernsehens folgte. Mitschnitte dieses „zweiten Konzerts“, bei dem sie die Fans animierte, auf die Bühne zu kommen, sind in der Filmdokumentation Janis (1975) zu sehen. Der Titel „Raise Your Hand“ auf der posthum veröffentlichten LP Farewell Song wurde während des Frankfurter Konzerts live aufgenommen.
Zusätzlich nahm Joplin 1969 ihre zweite LP für Columbia (I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again, Mama) auf und wurde in Tampa, Florida inhaftiert, da sie einen Polizisten beleidigt hatte. Bei der nachfolgenden Gerichtsverhandlung bezeichnete ein Gericht Joplins Verhalten als freie Meinungsäußerung und ließ die Anklage fallen. Sie wurde aber nach ihrem Konzert in der Curtis Hall wegen obszöner Sprache und Fluchens auf der Bühne zu einer Geldstrafe verurteilt.
Im Januar 1970 löste sich die Band auf. Um von ihrer Sucht nach Alkohol, Heroin, Aufputschmitteln und anderen Drogen loszukommen, plante Joplin einen Urlaub in Südamerika und reiste zum Karneval nach Rio de Janeiro.
Full Tilt Boogie Band und Joplins Tod
Zurück in Kalifornien nahm Joplin ihren unsteten Lebenswandel wieder auf. Im April 1970 wurde ihre dritte Band, Full Tilt Boogie zusammengestellt. Diese stellte sich für sie als Glücksgriff heraus. Emotional und musikalisch harmonierte dieses Team. Road-Manager John Cooke: „Die Jungs suchten eine Band, die eine Heimat war. Sie wussten, dass Janis der Boss war und sie mochten sich alle auf Anhieb.“ Janis Joplin schien endgültig ihren Musikstil gefunden zu haben. Die Lieder mit der Full Tilt Boogie Band sollten ihre erfolgreichsten werden. Im Sommer 1970 trat sie im Festival Express Train auf.
Im September 1970 traf sich die Band in den Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles für die Aufnahmen zu ihrer dritten Columbia-LP, Pearl. Am 3. Oktober, kurz vor dem Ende der Studioaufnahmen, war Janis Joplin das letzte Mal im Sunset Sound Studio, um Bänder mit Titeln anzuhören, die sie an den folgenden Tagen einsingen sollte. Als sie am nächsten Tag bis nachmittags nicht wie vereinbart im Studio auftauchte, fuhr John Cooke zum Landmark Motel, in dem Janis Joplin seit dem 24. August wohnte, um nach ihr zu sehen. Er sah ihren psychedelisch lackierten Porsche auf dem Parkplatz stehen und ging daraufhin auf ihr Zimmer. Hier fand Cooke sie tot auf dem Fußboden liegend. Nach offiziellen Angaben starb Janis Joplin am 4. Oktober 1970 an einer Überdosis Heroin. Bei dem Titel Buried Alive in the Blues auf dem Album Pearl fehlt die Vokal-Spur, die Janis Joplin am 5. Oktober 1970 einsingen sollte.
Hinterlassenschaft
Kurz vor ihrem Tod hatte sie am 1. Oktober 1970 in Beverly Hills ihr Testament unterzeichnet. Wunschgemäß vertranken 200 Freunde auf einer Party das hinterlassene Bargeld von 1500 Dollar. Der Verbleib ihres sonstigen Vermögens war klar geregelt, wobei im Wesentlichen Eltern und Geschwister bedacht wurden. Insbesondere für die Auszahlungen an Janis' jüngeren Bruder Michael, dem eine gute Ausbildung ermöglicht werden sollte, hatte Anwalt Bob Gordon strenge Anweisungen.
Joplins Leiche wurde verbrannt und die Asche an der kalifornischen Küste (über der Bucht von Marin County) in den Pazifik bestattet.
Das Landmark Motel wurde unmittelbar nach Janis Joplins Tod in Highland Gardens Hotel umbenannt.
Bedeutung
Neben Jimi Hendrix und Jim Morrison war Janis Joplin eine der zentralen Symbolfiguren der Hippiezeit und der Hippiekultur. Alle drei prägten einen Lebensstil, der im Nachhinein durch „Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll“ und „Live fast, love hard, die young“ gekennzeichnet wurde. Aufgrund ihres frühen Todes wird sie wie andere einflussreiche Musiker, darunter Hendrix und Morrison, zum Klub 27 gezählt.
Die vergebliche Suche nach der wahren Liebe, Zuneigung und Geborgenheit ließ sie zuweilen in depressive Phasen fallen, welche sie durch Heroin, Kokain und Alkohol zu verdrängen versuchte. Durch diese innere Zerrissenheit der Gefühle und ihre Schwierigkeiten, enge menschliche Kontakte aufzubauen, lässt sich ihre Musik verstehen, die gleichzeitig Stolz und Verzweiflung (All is loneliness) ausdrückt.
Trivia
Janis Joplin besuchte im Sommer 1970, kurz vor ihrem Tod, das Grab von Bessie Smith (1894–1937) auf dem Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania. Als sie dabei angeblich feststellte, dass die von ihr verehrte Bluessängerin anonym beigesetzt worden war, ließ Janis ihr einen Grabstein setzen, der die Inschrift trägt: „The Greatest Blues Singer In The World Will Never Stop Singing – Bessie Smith – 1894–1937“[3] („Die größte Blues-Sängerin der Welt wird niemals aufhören zu singen“). Nach anderen Quellen bezahlte eine Krankenschwester aus Philadelphia eine Hälfte des Grabsteins, und Janis Joplin trug, nachdem man sie telefonisch darum gebeten hatte, die andere Hälfte der Kosten.[4]
Auf sehr vielen Fotos sieht man Janis Joplin mit einer Flasche Southern Comfort. Janis Joplin fragte bei der Herstellerfirma an, ob sie dafür nicht ein wenig Geld bekommen könnte, da dies eine gute Werbung sei. Der Schnapsproduzent willigte ein und überwies ihr 6000 Dollar.
In San Francisco hatte Janis Joplin eine Beziehung mit Country Joe McDonald, der ihr später das Lied Janis widmete.[5] Leonard Cohen schrieb über sie das Lied Chelsea Hotel No. 2.
Posthume Auszeichnung
Im Jahr 1995 wurde Janis Joplin in die Rock and Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen.[6]
Am 4. November 2013 wurde auf dem Walk of Fame in Hollywood der 2510. Stern enthüllt, er trägt Joplins Namen. Bei der Zeremonie waren neben Angehörigen und Fans auch ihr Entdecker Clive Davis sowie Kris Kristofferson, der noch einmal „Me and Bobby McGee“ sang, anwesend.[7]
Janis Lyn Joplin (/ˈdʒɑːplɪn/; January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who first rose to fame in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her own backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band. Her first ever large scale public performance was at the Monterey Pop Festival; this led her to becoming very popular and one of the major attractions at the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Joplin charted five singles; other popular songs include: "Down on Me"; "Summertime"; "Piece of My Heart"; "Ball 'n' Chain"; "Maybe"; "To Love Somebody"; "Kozmic Blues"; "Work Me, Lord"; "Cry Baby"; "Mercedes Benz"; and her only number one hit, "Me and Bobby McGee".
Joplin was well known for her performing abilities. Her fans referred to her stage presence as "electric"; at the height of her career, she was known as "The Queen of Psychedelic Soul". Known as "Pearl" among her friends, she was also a painter, dancer and music arranger. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004,[1] and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
Early life: 1943–1961
Joplin as a senior in high school, 1960.
Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on January 19, 1943,[2] to Dorothy Bonita East (February 15, 1913 – December 13, 1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (April 19, 1910 – May 10, 1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended the Church of Christ.[3] The Joplins felt that Janis always needed more attention than their other children, with her mother stating, "She was unhappy and unsatisfied without [receiving a lot of attention]. The normal rapport wasn't adequate."[4] As a teenager, she befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Lead Belly, whom Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer.[5] She began singing in the local choir and expanded her listening to blues singers such as Odetta, Billie Holiday and Big Mama Thornton.
Primarily a painter while still in school, she first began singing blues and folk music with friends. While at Thomas Jefferson High School, she stated that she was mostly shunned.[5] Joplin was quoted as saying, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I didn't hate niggers."[4] As a teen, she became overweight and her skin broke out so badly she was left with deep scars which required dermabrasion.[4][6][7] Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig", "freak", "nigger lover" or "creep".[4] Among her classmates were G. W. Bailey and Jimmy Johnson. Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer[6] and later the University of Texas at Austin, though she did not complete her studies.[8] The campus newspaper The Daily Texan ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962, headlined "She Dares to Be Different".[8] The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levis to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her Autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song, it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin."[8]
Singing career: 1962–1965
Joplin's house at 122 Lyon Street in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, California. She lived there in the 1960s with her boyfriend Country Joe McDonald.[9]
Texas
Cultivating a rebellious manner, Joplin styled herself in part after her female blues heroines and, in part, after the Beat poets. Her first song recorded on tape, at the home of a fellow University of Texas student in December 1962, was "What Good Can Drinkin' Do".[10]
San Francisco
She left Texas for San Francisco ("just to get away from Texas", she said, "because my head was in a much different place"[11]) in January 1963, living in North Beach and later Haight-Ashbury. In 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, further accompanied by Margareta Kaukonen on typewriter (as a percussion instrument). This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" and "Long Black Train Blues", and was later released as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape. Around this time, her drug use increased, and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user.[2][5][6] She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite beverage was Southern Comfort.
In early 1965, Joplin's friends in San Francisco, noticing the physical effects of her intravenous methamphetamine habit (she was described as "skeletal"[5] and "emaciated"[2]), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur, Texas. In May 1965, Joplin's friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return home.[2]
Five years later, Joplin told Rolling Stone magazine writer David Dalton the following about her first stint in San Francisco: "I didn't have many friends and I didn't like the ones I had."[12]
For at least six months after she returned to her parents' home in Port Arthur, she regularly corresponded by mail with Peter de Blanc,[13] with whom she had been romantically involved in San Francisco.[14] De Blanc, a year and ten months her junior,[15] was a well-educated New Yorker.[16][17] Shortly after he and Joplin both moved away from San Francisco and their beatnik lifestyle, de Blanc was hired by IBM to work with computers at the company's location in East Fishkill, New York,[18][19] and Joplin's letters reached him at his New York home.[20]
Back in Texas
Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, Joplin changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to perform solo, accompanying herself on guitar. One of her performances was at a benefit by local musicians for Texas bluesman, Mance Lipscomb, who was suffering from major health problems. Another of her performances was reviewed in the Austin American-Statesman.
Joplin became engaged to Peter de Blanc in the fall of 1965.[21] Now living in New York where he worked with IBM computers,[22][23] he visited her, wearing a blue serge suit, to ask her father for her hand in marriage.[14] Joplin and her mother began planning the wedding.[7][14] De Blanc, who traveled frequently,[24] terminated plans for the marriage soon afterwards.[25][7]
Just prior to joining Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin recorded seven studio tracks in 1965. Among the songs she recorded was her original composition for her song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995 entitled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
Big Brother and the Holding Company: 1966–1968
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, a band that had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who had known her in Texas and who at the time was managing Big Brother. Helms brought her back to San Francisco and Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966.[26] Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. In June, she was photographed at an outdoor concert that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drug use for several weeks, enjoining bandmate Dave Getz to promise that using needles would not be allowed in their rehearsal space or in her apartment or in the homes of her bandmates whom she visited.[7] When a visitor injected drugs in front of Joplin and Getz, Joplin angrily reminded Getz that he had broken his promise.[7] A San Francisco concert from that summer was recorded and released in the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. They often partied with the Grateful Dead, who lived less than two miles away. She had a short relationship and longer friendship with founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.[27]
On August 23, 1966,[28] during a four-week engagement in Chicago, the group signed a deal with independent label Mainstream Records.[12] Joplin relapsed into drinking when she and her bandmates (except for bassist Peter Albin) joined some "alcoholic hipsters", as Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn described them, in Chicago. The band recorded tracks in a Chicago recording studio, but the label owner Bob Shad refused to pay their airfare back to San Francisco.[5] Shortly after four of the five musicians drove from Chicago to Northern California with very little money (Albin traveled by plane), they returned to Lagunitas. It was there that Joplin relapsed into intravenous drug use. Nancy Gurley was an enabler.[5] Three years later, Joplin, by then playing with a different band, was informed of Gurley's death from an overdose.[5] One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple.[29][30][31] In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months.[2][12] Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.[12]
Monterey and breakthrough
The band's debut studio album, Big Brother and the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival.[11] The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals. Two songs from the second of Big Brother's two sets at Monterey were filmed. "Combination of the Two" and a version of Big Mama Thornton's "Ball 'n' Chain" appear in the DVD box set of D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. The film captured Cass Elliot, of The Mamas & the Papas, seated in the audience silently mouthing "Wow! That's really heavy!" during Joplin's performance of "Ball and Chain".[5] Only "Ball and Chain" was included in the film that was released to theaters nationwide in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend Monterey Pop saw the band's performance of "Combination of the Two" for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the box set. After switching managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen in 1966, the group signed with top artist manager Albert Grossman, whom they met for the first time at Monterey Pop. For the remainder of 1967, Big Brother performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968,[32] the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater.[2][5] On April 7, 1968, the last day of their East Coast tour, Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the "Wake for Martin Luther King, Jr." concert in New York.
Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc. One month later, Owsley Stanley recorded them at the Carousel Ballroom, released as Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968 in 2012. In early 1968, Joplin and Big Brother made their nationwide television debut on The Dick Cavett Show, an ABC daytime variety show hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape. Over the next two years, she made three appearances on the primetime Cavett program, and all were preserved. By 1968, the band was being billed as "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company",[12] and the media coverage given to Joplin generated resentment within the band.[12] The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip", while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them.[12] Time magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", and Richard Goldstein wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock... she slinks like tar, scowls like war... clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."[4]
Cheap Thrills
For her first major studio recording, Janis played a major role in the arrangement and production of the recordings that would become Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. During the recording, Joplin was said to be the first person to enter the studio and the last person to leave. Footage of Joplin and the band in the studio shows Joplin in great form and taking charge during the recording for "Summertime". The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb. Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings.[2] The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a cocktail glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime". Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968,[33] the album launched Joplin's successful, albeit short, musical career.[34] Cheap Thrills reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, remaining for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks.[34] The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release.[7][12] The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart", reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.[35]
The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. On September 14, 1968, culminating a three-night final gig together at Fillmore West, fans thronged to a concert that Bill Graham (promoter) publicized as the last official concert of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The opening acts on this night were Chicago (then still called Chicago Transit Authority) and Santana. But the band toured the United States that fall. Two performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, at a time when the Washington, D.C. area's hard rock scene was in its infancy, were reviewed by John Segraves of the Evening Star.[36] An opera buff at the time,[37] he wrote, "Miss Joplin, in her early 20s, has been for the last year or two the vocalist with Big Brother and the Holding Company, a rock quintet of superior electric expertise. Shortly she will be merely Janis Joplin, a vocalist singing folk rock on her first album as a single. Whatever she does and whatever she sings she'll do it well because her vocal talents are boundless. This is the way she came across in a huge, high-ceilinged roller skating rink without any acoustics but, thankfully a good enough sound system behind her. In a proper room, I would imagine there would be no adjectives to describe her."[36] Later that month, October 1968, Big Brother performed at University of Massachusetts Amherst[38] and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.[38] During a November concert at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, bassist Peter Albin made fun of Joplin in front of their audience, joking that when she panted after finishing a song she sounded like Lassie.[5] Joplin's last performance with Big Brother, not counting two reunions in 1970, was at a Family Dog benefit on December 1, 1968.[2][5]
Solo career: 1969–1970
Kozmic Blues Band
After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians as well as Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays.[2][5][7] The Stax-Volt R&B sound was typified by the use of horns and had a more bluesy, funky, soul, pop-oriented sound than most of the hard-rock psychedelic bands of the period. By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day, ($2500 in 2014 dollars)[6] although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced the Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.[7] Joplin's appearances with the Kozmic Blues Band in Europe were released in cinemas in the documentary Janis, which was reviewed by the Washington Post on March 21, 1975.[39] The film shows Joplin arriving in Frankfurt by plane and waiting inside a bus next to the Frankfurt venue while an American fan who is visiting Germany expresses enthusiasm to the camera.
No security was used in Frankfurt so by the end of the concert the stage was so packed with people that the band members could not see each other. Another film was made of the band's performance in Stockholm featuring Joplin's interpretation of "Summertime". The Janis documentary also includes interviews with her in Stockholm and from her visit to London for her gig at Royal Albert Hall. After appearing on German television, the Kozmic Blues Band performed on several American television shows with Joplin. On the Tom Jones television show, they performed "Little Girl Blue" and "Raise Your Hand", the latter with Jones singing a duet with Joplin. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" as well as "To Love Somebody", As Dick Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't get down. She also revealed that she was a big fan of Tina Turner, saying that she was an incredible singer, dancer and show woman. Joplin and Turner also performed together on at least one occasion at Madison Square Garden.
I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!
The Kozmic Blues album, released in September 1969, was certified gold later that year, but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills.[34] Reviews of the new group were mixed. However, the recording quality and engineering of the record as well as the musicianship were considered superior to her previous releases, and some music critics argued that the band was working in a much more constructive way to support Joplin's sensational vocal talents. Joplin wanted a horn section similar to that featured in the Chicago Transit Authority; her voice had the dynamic qualities and range not to be overpowered by the brighter horn sound.[citation needed]
Some music critics, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother...(if they'll have her)."[2]
Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, generally ignored the band's flaws and devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. In general the press concentrated more on her leaving Big Brother rather than the qualities of the new recording.[citation needed]
Columbia Records released "Kozmic Blues" as a single, which peaked at #41 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a live rendition of "Raise Your Hand" was released in Germany and became a top ten hit there. Containing other hits like "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)", "To Love Somebody", and "Little Girl Blue", I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 soon after its release.[citation needed]
Woodstock
Joplin appeared at Woodstock in the late hours of Saturday, August 16, 1969. She performed until the early morning hours of Sunday, August 17. Despite her reportedly not even knowing of the festival's existence, the Woodstock promoters were advertising her as a headliner. She thus became one of the main attractions of the historic concert. Her friend Peggy Caserta claims in her book Going Down With Janis (1973) that she had encouraged a reluctant Joplin to perform at Woodstock.
Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. When she and the band were flown in by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and her mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became incredibly nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions. She deferred them to Caserta as she was too excited to speak. Initially Joplin was eager to get on the stage and perform, but she kept getting delayed as bands were contractually obliged to perform before her. Faced with a ten-hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, she shot heroin[5][6] with Caserta and was drinking alcohol, so by the time she hit the stage, she was "three sheets to the wind".[2] Joplin took the stage following Creedence Clearwater Revival. On stage her voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy and she found it hard to dance.
Throughout her performance she frequently spoke to the crowd, asking them if they had everything they needed and if they were staying stoned. She pulled through, however, and the audience was so pleased they cheered her on for an encore, to which she replied and sang "Ball and Chain". Her performances of "Kozmic Blues" and "Work Me, Lord" at Woodstock are notable, though her voice breaks while she sings.
Pete Townshend, who performed with The Who later in the same morning after Joplin finished, witnessed her performance and said the following in his 2012 memoir: "She had been amazing at Monterey, but tonight she wasn't at her best, due, probably, to the long delay, and probably, too, to the amount of booze and heroin she'd consumed while she waited. But even Janis on an off-night was incredible.".[40]
Janis remained at Woodstock for the remainder of the festival. She is said[by whom?] to have really enjoyed Sly and The Family Stone's performance, who came on immediately after her. Joan Baez also revealed in her autobiography that she and Joplin witnessed Hendrix's close-of-show performance from Joe Cocker's van.[citation needed]
Still photographs in color show Joplin backstage with Grace Slick the day after Joplin's performance, wherein Joplin appears to be very happy. However, Joplin was ultimately unhappy with her performance and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included (by her own insistence) in the documentary film or the soundtrack, Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of "Work Me, Lord". The documentary film of the festival that was released to theaters in 1970 includes, on the left side of a split screen, 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward her dressing room tent.[41] Laura Joplin said in an interview that her older sister went straight home to Port Arthur following Woodstock. She was incredibly vibrant and happy after coming home and really loved the festival. She told her family how great it was, but her mother and father remained distant on the subject as they did not really understand the hippie movement.
Madison Square Garden
In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems at Madison Square Garden in 1969. Biographer Myra Friedman claimed to have witnessed a duet Joplin sang with Tina Turner during a concert by The Rolling Stones at the Garden on Thanksgiving Day. Friedman described Joplin during this performance as "so drunk, so stoned, so out of control, that she could have been an institutionalized psychotic rent by mania."[7] During a Garden concert where she got solo billing on December 19, some observers believed she tried to incite the audience to riot.[7] For part of this concert she was joined onstage by special guests Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield.
Joplin told rock journalist David Dalton that Garden audiences watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes."[12] In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture. At the time of this June 1970 interview, she already had performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time. Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother without her. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was the one at Madison Square Garden with Winter and Butterfield.[2][12]
Full Tilt Boogie Band
In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites, who had designed the singer's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969. Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off."[14] Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro.[12] Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time."[5] Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her: "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks."[5] Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about George was that he wasn't into drugs."[5]
"I'm not really thinking much, just sort of, trying to feel" – Joplin, having been asked by Dick Cavett what she thought about when she sang.
Joplin began using heroin again when she returned to the United States. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because of him witnessing her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California, her romantic relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and her refusal to take some time off work and travel the world with him.[5][42] Around this time she formed her new band, the Full Tilt Boogie Band.[2][5][7] The band was composed mostly of young Canadian musicians and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie Band than she did with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!"[2]
The Full Tilt Boogie Band began touring in May 1970. Joplin remained quite happy with her new group, which received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics.[2] Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West in San Francisco on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form.[5] It was around this time that Joplin began wearing multi-coloured feather boas in her hair. By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.[5]
Festival Express
Janis Joplin sculpture (copper, sheet, 62cm) in Budapest's Ferenc Erkel Grade School, Hungary, sculptor: László Szlávics, Jr.
From June 28 to July 4, 1970, Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie joined the all-star Festival Express train tour through Canada, performing alongside Buddy Guy, The Band, Ten Years After, Grateful Dead, Delaney and Bonnie, Eric Andersen, and Ian & Sylvia.[5] They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary.[5][12] Janis jammed with the other performers on the train and her performances on this tour are considered to be among her greatest.
Joplin persuaded The Band, who originally did not want to perform, to do so telling them it was going to be a great party.
Joplin headlined the festival on all three nights. At the last stop in Calgary, Janis took to the stage with Jerry Garcia while her band was tuning up. She told the audience how great the tour was and presented the organisers with a case of tequila. She then burst into a two-hour set, starting with "Tell Mama". Throughout this performance, Janis went into several banters where she spoke about her failed love life. She finished the night with long versions of "Get It While You Can" and "Ball and Chain".
Footage of her performance of the song "Tell Mama" in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s and the sound was included on the 1982 Farewell Song album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on that 1972 Joplin In Concert album. Video of the performances was included on the Festival Express DVD. Some of her full performances of Festival Express exist, although all the footage has yet to be released. In the "Tell Mama" video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in the May 1968 issue of Vogue), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.[2][5]
During the Festival Express tour, Joplin was accompanied by Rolling Stone writer David Dalton, who later wrote several articles and two books on Joplin. She told Dalton:
I'm a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything ... It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned to make that feeling work for me. I'm full of emotion and I want a release, and if you're on stage and if it's really working and you've got the audience with you, it's a oneness you feel.[12]
Pearl
Among her last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In a June 25, 1970 appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high-school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state."[43] (Joplin had been voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" by frat boys during her university years.[44]) In a subsequent Cavett broadcast on August 3, 1970, Joplin discussed her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, three days later.
Joplin's last public performance, with the Full Tilt Boogie Band, took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston. The Harvard Crimson gave the performance a positive, front-page review, despite the fact that Full Tilt Boogie had performed with makeshift sound amplifiers after their regular equipment was stolen in Boston.[7]
Joplin attended her high-school reunion on August 14, accompanied by fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and her sister Laura, but it was reportedly an unhappy experience for her.[45] Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. Rolling Stone journalist Chet Flippo reported that she wore enough jewelry for a "Babylonian whore".[5] When asked by a reporter if she ever entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles."[2][2][4] Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the classmates who had humiliated her a decade earlier.[2]
During late August, September and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, who had produced recordings for The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was still enough usable material to compile a long-playing record.
The result of the sessions was the posthumously released Pearl (1971). It became the biggest selling album of her career[34] and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee". Kristofferson had been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970.[46] The opening track, "Move Over", was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women in relationships. Also included was the social commentary of the a cappella "Mercedes Benz", written by Joplin, Bob Neuwirth and Beat poet Michael McClure. The track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. The track "Buried Alive in the Blues", to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead, was included as an instrumental. In 2003, Pearl was ranked No. 122 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood on August 24, 1970,[47] near Sunset Sound Recorders,[5] where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer and novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur in July and August.[2][5][6] She and Morgan were engaged to be married in early September[4] even though he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of Joplin's many rehearsals and sessions.[5] Morgan later told biographer Myra Friedman that, as a non-musician, he had felt excluded while in the studio.[7] Instead, he stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home while she stayed alone at the Landmark,[7] although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house. She told her construction crew to design a carport to be shaped like a flying saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died.[5]
Peggy Caserta claimed in her 1973 book Going Down With Janis that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use.[6] Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess[6] and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury,[6] said that by September 1970, she was smuggling marijuana throughout California[6] and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users.[6] For approximately the first two weeks of Joplin's stay at the Landmark, she did not know Caserta was in Los Angeles.[6] Joplin learned of Caserta's presence at the Landmark from a heroin dealer who made deliveries there.[6] Joplin begged Caserta for heroin[6] and when she refused, Joplin reportedly admonished her by saying "Don't think if you can get it, I can't get it."[6] Within a few days Joplin became a regular customer of the same heroin dealer.[6]
Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant/publicist Myra Friedman had staged an intervention with Joplin the previous winter while Joplin was in New York.[7] In September 1970, Grossman and Friedman, who worked out of a New York office, knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel, but they were unaware that it was a haven for drug users and dealers.[7] Grossman and Friedman knew during Joplin's lifetime that her friend Caserta, whom Friedman met during the New York sessions for Cheap Thrills,[6] and on later occasions, used heroin.[7] During the many long-distance telephone conversations that Joplin and Friedman had in September 1970 and on October 1, Joplin never mentioned Caserta, and Friedman assumed Caserta had been out of Joplin's life for a while.[7] Friedman, who had more time than Grossman to monitor the situation, never visited California.[7] She thought Joplin sounded on the phone like she was less depressed than she had been over the summer.[7]
When Joplin was not at Sunset Sound Recorders, she liked to drive her Porsche over the speed limit "on the winding part of Sunset Blvd.," according to a statement made by her attorney Robert Gordon in 1995 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.[48] Friedman wrote that the only Full Tilt Boogie member who rode as her passenger, Ken Pearson, often hesitated to join her,[7] though he did on the night she died.[7] He was not interested in experimenting with hard drugs.[7]
On September 26, 1970, Joplin recorded vocals for "Half Moon" and "Cry Baby".[49] Then Full Tilt Boogie recorded the instrumental track for "Buried Alive in the Blues".[49] The session ended with Joplin, organist Ken Pearson and drummer Clark Pierson making a special one-minute recording as a birthday gift to John Lennon.[49] Joplin was among several singers who had been contacted by Yoko Ono with a request for a taped greeting for Lennon's 30th birthday[50] on October 9. Joplin, Pearson and Pierson chose the Dale Evans composition "Happy Trails" as part of the greeting. Lennon told Dick Cavett on-camera the following year that Joplin's recorded birthday wishes arrived at his home after her death.[50]
The last recording Joplin completed was on October 1, 1970 – "Mercedes Benz". On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders[5] to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites' song "Buried Alive in the Blues", which the band had recorded one week earlier.[49] She and Paul Rothchild agreed she would record the vocal the following day.[12][14] At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone that Seth Morgan was staying at her Larkspur home and using her pool table with other women he had met that day.[7] Others in the studio overheard Joplin expressing anger about the state of her relationship with Morgan,[7] as well as joy about the progress of the sessions.[7] She and band member Ken Pearson later left the studio and went to Barney's Beanery[51] for drinks. After midnight, Joplin drove him and a fan back to the Landmark Motor Hotel.[7]
Death
On Sunday, October 4, 1970, producer Paul Rothchild became concerned when Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders for a recording session. Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood where Joplin was staying. He saw Joplin's psychedelically painted Porsche 356C Cabriolet in the parking lot. Upon entering Joplin's room (#105), he found her dead on the floor beside her bed. The official cause of death was an overdose of heroin, possibly compounded by alcohol.[7][52] Cooke believes that Joplin had accidentally been given heroin that was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week.[53]
Peggy Caserta and Seth Morgan had both failed to meet Joplin the Friday immediately prior to her death, October 2. She had been expecting both of them to keep her company that night.[6] According to the book Going Down With Janis, Joplin was saddened that neither of her friends visited her at the Landmark Motor Hotel as they had promised.[5][6] During the 24 hours Joplin lived after this disappointment, Caserta did not phone her to explain why she had failed to show up.[6] (Caserta admitted to waiting until late Saturday night to dial the Landmark switchboard, only to learn that Joplin had instructed the desk clerk to get rid of all her incoming phone callers after midnight.)[6] Morgan did speak to Joplin on the telephone within 24 hours of her death, but it is not known whether he admitted to her that he had broken his promise.[5]
Joplin's will funded $2,500 to throw a wake party in the event of her demise. The party, which took place October 26, 1970, at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo, California, was attended by Joplin's sister Laura, fiancé Seth Morgan, and close friends, including tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, Bob Gordon, Jack Penty, and road manager Cooke.
Legacy
Joplin's death in October 1970 at the age of 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just sixteen days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice". Music columnist Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable". Author Megan Terry claimed that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.[54]
In 1973, a book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Going Down With Janis by Peggy Caserta attracted a lot of attention with its opening line, which referred to her performing a sex act with Joplin while they were high on heroin in September 1970. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew would later describe Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend".[5] According to an early 1990s statement by a close friend of Caserta and Joplin, Caserta's book angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer she described (including the make and model of his car) in detail to her readers. According to Ellis Amburn, in 1973 a "carful of dope dealers" visited a Los Angeles lesbian bar Caserta had been frequenting since Joplin was alive.[5] Amburn quoted Caserta's friend Kim Chappell, who was in the alley behind the bar: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me."[5] Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.[5]
According to biographers, Peggy Caserta was one of many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after the singer's death, while others died from overdoses.[2][7] Big Brother guitarist James Gurley "finally got clean and sober in 1984," wrote Ellis Amburn.[5] Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995", wrote Alice Echols.[2] In 2000, Caserta appeared on-camera for a segment about Joplin on 20/20.[55]
Joplin, along with Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane, opened opportunities in the rock music business for future female singers.[54]
Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast, by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, was an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art.[56] Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, often including colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin, often in the company of actor Michael J. Pollard, frequented Limbo on St. Mark's Place. The performer, well known to the store's employees, made a practice of putting aside vintage and other one-of-a-kind garments she favored on stage and off.
The Mamas & the Papas 1971 song "Pearl" from their People Like Us album was a tribute. Leonard Cohen's 1974 song "Chelsea Hotel #2" is about Joplin.[57] Likewise, lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia (1972), is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death.[58][59] Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her 1972 Come from the Shadows album, was a tribute to Joplin.[60] Another song by Baez, "Children of the Eighties", mentioned Joplin. A 1978 Serge Gainsbourg-penned song in French by English singer Jane Birkin, "Ex fan des sixties" references Joplin alongside other disappeared "idols" such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones or Marc Bolan. Country Joe McDonald wrote a song called "Janis" from the album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die (1967).
At the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival, Nina Simone, whom Joplin admired greatly, commented on Joplin and referred to the 1975 documentary Janis (film) that evidently was screened at the festival:
You know I made thirty-five albums, they bootlegged seventy. Oh, everybody took a chunk of me. And yesterday I went to see Janis Joplin's film here. And what distressed me the most, and I started to write a song about it, but I decided you weren't worthy. Because I figured that most of you are here for the festival. Anyway the point is it pained me to see how hard she worked. Because she got hooked into a thing, and it wasn't on drugs. She got hooked into a feeling and she played to corpses.
Simone also included Joplin in her song "Stars", and opened her act with a rendition of "Little Girl Blue".
The 1979 film The Rose was loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl—Joplin's nickname, and the title of her last album—the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story.[61][62] Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.
In 1987, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated in Port Arthur, Texas.[63]
In 1992, the first major biography of Janis in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister, Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Janis enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show and that Janis while growing up in Texas had difficulties with some people at school, but not the entire school. Laura stated that Janis was really enthusiastic after performing at Woodstock in 1969.[64]
Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. In November 2009, the Hall of Fame and museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series.[65] Among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum Exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet with psychedelically designed painting, and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover.[66] She was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series for 2009.[67]
In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created with input from Janis's younger sister Laura plus Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim and packed houses and was held over several times, the demanding role of the singing Janis attracting rock vocalists from relative unknowns to pop stars Laura Branigan and Beth Hart. A national tour followed.
In 2006, Marty Angelo, band manager for Raven, wrote about an experience he had with Janis in his book, Once Life Matters: A New Beginning.[68] It seems Joplin loved the sound of Angelo's band after hearing them perform on numerous nights at Steve Paul's popular NYC nightclub, the Scene. When the band played at Ungano's Night Club in Manhattan in 1968, Joplin arrived with an entourage which included three professional tape recorders. She wanted to capture Raven's sound. That did not go over well with the members of the band, and they insisted Joplin not be allowed to record their show. The band's manager, Marty Angelo, asked club owner Nick Ungano to step in. Ungano did not want to mess with Joplin but reluctantly agreed. Ungano blamed the entire fiasco on Angelo telling Joplin that Raven's manager demanded she not be allowed to record. Ungano also told Joplin that Angelo was refusing to allow the band to go on stage until all recorders were removed from the club. "Manager?" Joplin screamed. She then exploded with a barrage of profanity, insisting that Ungano tell Angelo to "go fuck himself" and stormed out of the club along with her tape recorders. Angelo later became friends with Joplin and helped her acquire organist Richard Kermode for her "Kozmic Blues Band."
There have been many attempts at making a film about Joplin. On June 13, 2010, producer Wyck Godfrey said Amy Adams would play the starring role in director Fernando Meirelles' biographical drama[69] titled Janis Joplin: Get It While You Can.[61] Previous attempts have included Piece of my Heart, which was to star Renée Zellweger or Brittany Murphy; The Gospel According to Janis, with director Penelope Spheeris and starring either Zooey Deschanel or Pink; and an untitled film thought to be an adaptation of Laura Joplin's Off-Broadway play about her sister, with the show's star, Laura Theodore, attached.[61]
In 2013, Washington's Arena Stage featured a production of A Night with Janis Joplin, starring Mary Bridget Davies. In it, Joplin puts on a concert for the audience, while telling stories of her past inspirations including Odetta, Aretha Franklin, and others. It is expected to move to Broadway's Lyceum Theater in the fall.[70]
Joplin was awarded with the 2,510th star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame on November 4, 2013. Her star is located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Musicians Institute.[71]
Influence
Painting of Janis Joplin
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers. Pink, aka Alecia Moore, says Janis Joplin was her ultimate influence. Pink has performed a live version of a Janis Joplin medley, which can be seen on her 'Live in Europe' DVD. She talks about how Janis represented 'Freedom'. Pink is often described as possessing similar characteristics as Janis, such as: a hoarse, husky sounding voice and even the same laugh. Pink has once stated: "I would love to play her (Janis) in a movie". Florence Welch of Florence and The Machine spoke of Joplin's impact on her own musical prowess in an interview for Why Music Matters in a commercial against piracy:
I learnt about Janis from an anthology of female blues singers. Janis was a fascinating character who bridged the gap between psychedelic blues and soul scenes. She was so vulnerable, self-conscious and full of suffering. She tore herself apart yet on stage she was totally different. She was so unrestrained, so free, so raw and she wasn't afraid to wail. Her connection with the audience was really important. It seems to me the suffering and intensity of her performance go hand in hand. There was always a sense of longing, of searching for something. I think she really sums up the idea that soul is about putting your pain into something beautiful.[72]
Stevie Nicks considers Joplin one of her idols, saying:
You could say that being yelled at by Janis Joplin was one of the great honors of my life. Early in my career, Lindsey Buckingham and I were in a band called Fritz. There were two gigs we played in San Francisco that changed everything for me - One was opening up for Jimi Hendrix, who was completely magical. The other was the time that we opened up for Janis at the San Jose Fairgrounds, around 1970.
It was a hot summer day, and things didn't start off well because the entire show was running late. That meant our set was running over. We were onstage and going over pretty well, when I turned and saw a furious Janis Joplin on the side of the stage, yelling at us. She was screaming something like, "What the fuck are you assholes doing? Get the hell off of my stage." Actually, she might have even been a little cruder than that — it was hard to hear.
But then Janis got up on that stage with her band, and this woman who was screaming at me only moments before suddenly became my new hero. Janis Joplin was not what anyone would call a great beauty, but she became beautiful because she made such a powerful and deep emotional connection with the audience. I didn't mind the feathers and the bell-bottom pants either. Janis didn't dress like anyone else, and she definitely didn't sing like anyone else.
Janis put herself out there completely, and her voice was not only strong and soulful, it was painfully and beautifully real. She sang in the great tradition of the rhythm & blues singers that were her heroes, but she brought her own dangerous, sexy rock & roll edge to every single song. She really gave you a piece of her heart. And that inspired me to find my own voice and my own style.
Willie „Big Eyes“ Smith *19.01.1936
Willie „Big Eyes“ Smith (* 19. Januar 1936 in Helena, Arkansas; † 16. September 2011) war ein US-amerikanischer Blues-Musiker. Bekannt wurde er als langjähriger Schlagzeuger in der Band von Muddy Waters.
Karriere
Smith wuchs bei seinen Großeltern auf. Zu deren Nachbarn gehörten Robert Nighthawk und Pinetop Perkins. Mit 17 Jahren besuchte Smith seine Mutter in Chicago und blieb in der Stadt. Er brachte sich das Spielen auf der Mundharmonika und dem Schlagzeug bei und bildete mit Clifton James (Schlagzeug, Mundharmonika) und Bobby Lee Burns (Gitarre) ein Blues-Trio.
1955 heiratete er und gab die Musik für kurze Zeit auf. Bereits 1956 trat er mit Arthur „Big Boy“ Spires und 1957 mit dem „Red Devil Trio“ von Little Hudson Shower auf. 1961 kam Smith zur Band von Muddy Waters, nachdem er vorher schon in der „Muddy Waters Junior Band“ Schlagzeug gespielt hatte. 1980 gehörte er gemeinsam mit Pinetop Perkins, Louis Myers, Calvin Jones und Jerry Portnoy zu den Gründungsmitgliedern der „Legendary Blues Band“. Die Band wurde einige Male für den Grammy nominiert und nahm sieben von den Kritikern begeistert aufgenommene Alben auf. Sie spielten als Begleitgruppe mit Buddy Guy, Howlin’ Wolf und Junior Wells, auf Tourneen waren sie mit Bob Dylan, den Rolling Stones und Eric Clapton. Im Film The Last Waltz waren sie die Band hinter Muddy Waters, und in Blues Brothers spielten sie Straßenmusikanten, die John Lee Hooker begleiteten.
Erst 1995 nahm Smith mit Bag Full of Blues sein erstes Soloalbum auf, dem weitere folgten. Daneben trat er weiter mit der „Muddy Waters Reunion Band“ und der „Legendary Blues Band“ auf. Von 1996 bis 1998 und von 2002 bis 2007 wurde er jeweils mehrere Jahre hintereinander mit dem Blues Music Award als Blues-Drummer des Jahres ausgezeichnet. 2008 erhielt er den Living Blues Award als bester Schlagzeuger. Im Jahr 2011 wurden Smith und Pinetop Perkins für das Album Joined At The Hip mit dem Grammy Award in der Kategorie „Best Traditional Blues Album“ ausgezeichnet. Noch im selben Jahr am 16. September starb „Big Eyes“ an einem Schlaganfall.
Willie "Big Eyes" Smith (January 19, 1936 – September 16, 2011)[1] was a Grammy Award-winning American electric blues vocalist, harmonica player, and multi-award winning drummer.[2] He was best known for several stints with the Muddy Waters band beginning in the early 1960s.
Biography
Born in Helena, Arkansas, Smith learned to play harmonica at age seventeen after moving to Chicago. Smith's influences included listening to 78's and the KFFA King Biscuit radio show, some of which were broadcast from Helena's Miller Theater, where he saw guitar player Joe Willie Wilkins, and harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II. On a Chicago visit in 1953 his mother took him to hear Muddy Waters at the Zanzibar club, where Henry Strong's harp playing inspired him to learn that instrument. In 1956, at the age of eighteen he formed a trio. He led the band on harp, Bobby Lee Burns played guitar and Clifton James was the drummer. As "Little Willie" Smith he played in the Rocket Four, led by blues guitarist Arthur "Big Boy" Spires, and made recordings that were later reissued on the Delmark label. In 1955 Smith played harmonica on Bo Diddley's recording of the Willie Dixon song "Diddy Wah Diddy" for the Checker label.[citation needed] Drummers were in more demand than harp players so Smith switched to drums and starting playing with Muddy Waters band. Smith recorded with Muddy on the 1960 album Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill Broonzy, a tribute to Big Bill Broonzy.[3]
In 1961, Smith became a regular member of Muddy Waters' band, which then consisted of George "Mojo" Buford, Luther Tucker, Pat Hare and Otis Spann. By the mid '60s, he'd left the band for more steady work as a cab driver. In the late '60s he rejoined Muddy's band and remained a permanent member until 1980. All of Muddy's Grammy Award winning albums (Hard Again, I'm Ready, They Call Me Muddy Waters, Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live, The London Muddy Waters Session, and The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album[4]) were released between 1971 and 1979 during Smith's tenure with the band. Though he did not play on all of these albums, Smith is estimated to have participated in twelve sessions yielding eighty-four tracks.[5]
In June 1980, Smith and other members of Muddy's band Pinetop Perkins (piano), Calvin Jones (bass) and Jerry Portnoy (harmonica) struck out on their own, also recruiting veteran Chicago blues man Louis Myers (harmonica/guitar) to form The Legendary Blues Band, with the vocals shared by all. Later that year, Smith and the Legendary Blues Band appeared backing John Lee Hooker in the movie The Blues Brothers (1980). Smith was the only band member, besides Hooker, to appear onscreen in close-up.[6] With varying personnel over the years, the Legendary Blues Band recorded seven albums, Life of Ease, Red Hot 'n' Blue, Woke Up with the Blues (nominated for a W. C. Handy Award), U B Da Judge, Prime Time Blues, and Money Talks, were recorded between 1981 to 1993. By the time Money Talks came out in 1993, Smith had become a very credible singer. The Legendary Blues Band toured with Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton.
His first solo recording started in 1995 with Bag Full of Blues, with Pinetop Perkins, harpist Kim Wilson, plus guitarists James Wheeler, Nick Moss and Gareth Best. In 1999, Smith recorded with Muddy Waters' son Big Bill Morganfield on his album Rising Son. Smith's album Way Back (2006), contained 11 songs, half of which he wrote. He was backed by Bob Margolin and Frank Krakowski on guitar, Pinetop Perkins on piano, and guest shots by James Cotton and others.
Smith's 2008 album Born in Arkansas utilized bassman Bob Stroger, pianist Barrelhouse Chuck, guitarist Billy Flynn, guitarist Little Frank Krakowski (who has worked with Smith for years) and his son and drummer, Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith. In June 2010, Smith released Joined at the Hip with Pinetop Perkins. Joining these two in the studio were Stroger, and Kenny Smith on drums. John Primer, who was another Muddy Waters band alumnus, joined on lead guitar along with Frank Krakowski.
On February 13, 2011, Smith won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album for Joined at the Hip, an album he recorded with Pinetop Perkins. He remained active in his final year of life, encouraging Liz Mandeville to start her own record label (Blue Kitty Music) and he was featured on two tracts of her album, Clarksdale that was released in 2012.[7] [8]
Death
Smith died following a stroke on September 16, 2011.
Biography
Born in Helena, Arkansas, Smith learned to play harmonica at age seventeen after moving to Chicago. Smith's influences included listening to 78's and the KFFA King Biscuit radio show, some of which were broadcast from Helena's Miller Theater, where he saw guitar player Joe Willie Wilkins, and harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II. On a Chicago visit in 1953 his mother took him to hear Muddy Waters at the Zanzibar club, where Henry Strong's harp playing inspired him to learn that instrument. In 1956, at the age of eighteen he formed a trio. He led the band on harp, Bobby Lee Burns played guitar and Clifton James was the drummer. As "Little Willie" Smith he played in the Rocket Four, led by blues guitarist Arthur "Big Boy" Spires, and made recordings that were later reissued on the Delmark label. In 1955 Smith played harmonica on Bo Diddley's recording of the Willie Dixon song "Diddy Wah Diddy" for the Checker label.[citation needed] Drummers were in more demand than harp players so Smith switched to drums and starting playing with Muddy Waters band. Smith recorded with Muddy on the 1960 album Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill Broonzy, a tribute to Big Bill Broonzy.[3]
In 1961, Smith became a regular member of Muddy Waters' band, which then consisted of George "Mojo" Buford, Luther Tucker, Pat Hare and Otis Spann. By the mid '60s, he'd left the band for more steady work as a cab driver. In the late '60s he rejoined Muddy's band and remained a permanent member until 1980. All of Muddy's Grammy Award winning albums (Hard Again, I'm Ready, They Call Me Muddy Waters, Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live, The London Muddy Waters Session, and The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album[4]) were released between 1971 and 1979 during Smith's tenure with the band. Though he did not play on all of these albums, Smith is estimated to have participated in twelve sessions yielding eighty-four tracks.[5]
In June 1980, Smith and other members of Muddy's band Pinetop Perkins (piano), Calvin Jones (bass) and Jerry Portnoy (harmonica) struck out on their own, also recruiting veteran Chicago blues man Louis Myers (harmonica/guitar) to form The Legendary Blues Band, with the vocals shared by all. Later that year, Smith and the Legendary Blues Band appeared backing John Lee Hooker in the movie The Blues Brothers (1980). Smith was the only band member, besides Hooker, to appear onscreen in close-up.[6] With varying personnel over the years, the Legendary Blues Band recorded seven albums, Life of Ease, Red Hot 'n' Blue, Woke Up with the Blues (nominated for a W. C. Handy Award), U B Da Judge, Prime Time Blues, and Money Talks, were recorded between 1981 to 1993. By the time Money Talks came out in 1993, Smith had become a very credible singer. The Legendary Blues Band toured with Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton.
His first solo recording started in 1995 with Bag Full of Blues, with Pinetop Perkins, harpist Kim Wilson, plus guitarists James Wheeler, Nick Moss and Gareth Best. In 1999, Smith recorded with Muddy Waters' son Big Bill Morganfield on his album Rising Son. Smith's album Way Back (2006), contained 11 songs, half of which he wrote. He was backed by Bob Margolin and Frank Krakowski on guitar, Pinetop Perkins on piano, and guest shots by James Cotton and others.
Smith's 2008 album Born in Arkansas utilized bassman Bob Stroger, pianist Barrelhouse Chuck, guitarist Billy Flynn, guitarist Little Frank Krakowski (who has worked with Smith for years) and his son and drummer, Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith. In June 2010, Smith released Joined at the Hip with Pinetop Perkins. Joining these two in the studio were Stroger, and Kenny Smith on drums. John Primer, who was another Muddy Waters band alumnus, joined on lead guitar along with Frank Krakowski.
On February 13, 2011, Smith won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album for Joined at the Hip, an album he recorded with Pinetop Perkins. He remained active in his final year of life, encouraging Liz Mandeville to start her own record label (Blue Kitty Music) and he was featured on two tracts of her album, Clarksdale that was released in 2012.[7] [8]
Death
Smith died following a stroke on September 16, 2011.
Horst Niggemeier *19.01.1959
Blues ist eine ganz besondere Musik. Sie hat sich aus einer Welt der Unterdrückung, der Welt der versklavten Plantagenarbeiter im Süden der Vereinigten Staaten Amerikas, ihren Weg in die ganze Welt gebahnt. Sie hat Stück für Stück Rassenschranken überwunden und aus dem ursprünglichen Blues sind neue Stilrichtungen und auch ganz neue Musikrichtungen entstanden. Der Blues steht daher nach meinem Empfinden in ganz besonderem Maße für ein tolerantes und friedvolles Miteinander auf dieser Welt (auch, wenn wir dies leider noch nicht gänzlich erreicht haben).
Ich selbst liebe und spiele den Blues in seiner eher rudimentären Form. Es ist faszinierend, wie sich aus acht- zwölf oder 16-taktigen Formen und Mischungen daraus immer wieder neue Stücke zusammenfügen lassen, wie live Interpretation, Dynamik und unterschiedliche Besetzungen alte Bluessongs und eigene Kompositionen immer wieder frisch entstehen lässt.
Auf YouTube gibt es eine Menge Live-Mitschnitte (Link siehe rechts), die einerseits meine eigene persönliche Entwicklung im Laufe der letzten Jahre dokumentieren und andererseits dieselben Songs in verschiedenen Spielsituationen und Variationen zeigen.
An dieser Stelle möchte ich ein großes Danke loswerden an alle meine musikalischen Begleiter in Deutschland und England, die mich auf der Bühne oder als Zuhörer unterstützt haben. Ihr ehrliches Feedback hat mir erst die Möglichkeit gegeben, zu lernen und einen persönlichen Stil, eine eigene musikalische Identität zu entwickeln.
Ich liebe den Blues und er bedeutet mir sehr viel. Blues ist Leben: Emotion, das Auf und Ab, Kommunikation, Einsicht und Verständnis, Toleranz, Beziehungen, Hingabe, Freundschaft ...
Blues is a very special genre of music; it has resisted a world of oppression and slavery from the plantations in the Deep South of the USA and then advanced throughout the world. Blues music has progressively overcome segregation, the genuine Blues has given birth to many babies over the years, new Blues styles have emerged creating various other new musical styles - all created out of the Blues!
This is why I feel that the Blues notably stands for a tolerant and peaceful worldwide communion (although sadly, we haven`t achieved this goal…yet).
I myself love to play the Blues in its more basic form, it’s fascinating in the way songs can be put together out of 8, 12 and 16-bar forms or mixtures of these. It’s also fascinating how interpretations, dynamics and different line-ups re-invent standard blues songs that give inspiration to one’s own compositions.
There´s quite a bit of material on YouTube (link on the right) which shows on one hand my own personal development as a Blues musician over the last few years and on the other hand some same songs in various live situations.
Here I´d like to say “Thank You!!!” to all those people in Germany and the UK who have supported me on stage or as part of the audience. Their honest feedback has given me the chance to learn and develop my own style and musical identity.
I love the Blues, it means a lot to me. Blues is life, emotions, ups and downs, communication, understanding, tolerance, relations, compassion, friendship ....
11-06-25 Guitar in my hand, Zeche Ewald, Herten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUunGv6AH0M#t=13
https://www.facebook.com/BigChris5
Wilson Pickett (* 18. März 1941 in Prattville, Alabama; † 19. Januar 2006[1] in Reston, Virginia) war ein US-amerikanischer Sänger. Er war einer der populärsten Soul-Sänger der 1960er Jahre.
Leben
1955 zog Pickett nach Detroit, wo er in verschiedensten Kirchenchören sang; auch gehörte er zur Gospelgruppe The Violinaires. 1961 schloss er sich der Rhythm and Blues-Formation The Falcons an, die einen neuen Leadsänger suchten, nachdem Eddie Floyd ihnen den Rücken gekehrt hatte. 1962 schrieb er für sie den Mini-Hit I Found a Love, als Folge dessen der Falcons-Produzent Robert Bateman Pickett zu einer Solo-Karriere anstachelte. Pickett trennte sich dann von den Falcons und verpflichtete sich 1963 bei Lloyd Price’ Label Double L Records. Mit der Single If You Need Me tauchte Pickett erstmals in den US-amerikanischen Pop-Charts auf. Der Song wurde später viel gecovert, unter anderem von Solomon Burke und den Rolling Stones.
1964 bekam Pickett von Jerry Wexler einen Vertrag bei Atlantic Records angeboten, den er annahm. Nach In The Midnight Hour von 1965 folgte bis 1971 Hit auf Hit, darunter das bekannte Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, das ebenfalls auch von den Rolling Stones interpretiert wurde und später ein großer Hit für die Blues Brothers werden sollte. Viele seiner Hits schrieb Pickett selbst, wobei ihm Steve Cropper als Co-Autor zur Seite stand. Im März 1971 tourte Pickett zusammen mit vielen anderen Musikern aus den USA und aus Afrika durch Ghana. In Deutschland hatte Pickett keinen nennenswerten kommerziellen Erfolg; nur zwei seiner Titel erreichten die Verkaufs-Hitlisten. Seine höchste Platzierung dort war 1968 eine Nummer 32 mit dem Titel Stagg-O-Lee.
1973 verließ Pickett Atlantic auf dem Zenit seiner Karriere und wechselte zu RCA Records, was er später sehr bereute. Mit seiner Debüt-Single Take a Closer Look at the Woman You’re With auf dem neuen Label tauchte er ein vorerst letztes Mal in den US-amerikanischen Pop-Charts auf, dann ließen die Erfolge stark nach. Pickett trat zwar weiterhin auf und veröffentlichte auch neues Material, doch konnte er sich damit weder in den US-amerikanischen Single- noch in den Albumcharts platzieren.
Ab den frühen 1980er Jahren kam Pickett häufiger mit dem Gesetz in Konflikt. Er verprügelte Promoter, Manager und Musiker, landete, nachdem er eine Person mit einer Schusswaffe bedroht hatte, im Gefängnis und musste 1987 ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert werden, da er sich mit Mitgliedern seiner Band geschlagen hatte. Im selben Jahr gelangte Picket mit einer Neuveröffentlichung von In The Midnight Hour (Motown) bis auf Position 62 in den britischen Singlecharts – es war seine erste nennenswerte Platzierung seit den frühen 1970ern.
1991 wurde Pickett in die Rock and Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen.[2] Er verfiel mehr und mehr dem Alkohol. Im Januar 1992 musste er sein Haus in Englewood aufgrund von Mietrückständen verlassen. Im darauffolgenden April fuhr er in betrunkenem Zustand einen 86-jährigen Fußgänger an und verletzte diesen lebensgefährlich. Im Mai wurde er zu einer Geldstrafe sowie einer Entziehungskur verurteilt, nachdem er seine Freundin geschlagen hatte. 1993 landete er aufgrund des Verkehrsunfalls vom vorhergehenden Jahr für ein Jahr im Gefängnis mit fünfjähriger Bewährungszeit. Bereits im April 1996 wurde Pickett wegen des Besitzes von zwei Gramm Kokain erneut inhaftiert.
Einige Jahre nach seiner Entlassung kehrte er ins Studio zurück und erhielt für sein 1999er Album It’s Harder Now eine Grammy-Nominierung.
Eine Neuaufnahme seines Titel 634-5789 ist mit ihm und anderen Sängern im Film Blues Brothers 2000 zu hören.
Wilson Pickett starb in einem Krankenhaus in Reston, US-Bundesstaat Virginia, infolge eines Herzinfarkts.
Christone Ingram *19.01.1999
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram was born to Princess Pride Ingram and Christopher Ingram in 1999. Exposed to the rich Gospel music emanating from his family’s church, combined with the Blues he heard being played by musicians in his Delta neighborhood, also learning at the Delta Blues Museum under the tutelage of Daddy Rich and Bill Howl - N - Madd Perry and being a cousin to the great and legendary Country music singer, Charlie Pride, Kingfish became a natural sponge of musical talent.
At the tender age of 6, Kingfish began playing the drums. Three years later at the age of 9, he took up the bass guitar. At the age of 11, he began playing lead guitar. By the age of 14, he had mastered all three instruments and has added vocals to his ever growing list of talents. Kingfish's guitar influences run the gamut of the Blues from the Delta Blues of Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Lightnin' Hopkins to the electric Blues of B.B. King, Albert King, Big Jack Johnson, Albert Collins, Freddie King, Lefty Dizz, Lucky Peterson, Little Jimmy King and Buddy Guy to the Blues Rock of Lance Lopez, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Gales, Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Allman Brothers, Jonny Lang, Steve Marriott, Prince, Michael Burks and so many others. Surprisingly at such a young age, he can play just like his idols and mentors and possesses the additional ability to create a Blues sound entirely his own. It is refreshing to see a young person return to his musical roots and master a genre of music that was created and was popular even before his grandparents’ generation and renew its popularity by breathing new life into the music.
Kingfish has shared the stage with household names such as Bob Margolin and Guitar Shorty and has played festivals and venues all over the southern region. He's even opened for Buddy Guy! Even though he’s from the Delta, surrounded by all of its plantations and and he travels Highway 49 and Highway 61 on a regular basis, unlike many of his musical predecessors from Mississippi, Kingfish never had to pick cotton or sell his soul to the devil at the infamous Crossroads. Yet, this child prodigy’s soul is possessed with the feeling, passion and fire of the much older men who created the most important genre of American music, the Blues.
Kingfish is a living phenomenon, soon destined to be a living legend!!!
At the tender age of 6, Kingfish began playing the drums. Three years later at the age of 9, he took up the bass guitar. At the age of 11, he began playing lead guitar. By the age of 14, he had mastered all three instruments and has added vocals to his ever growing list of talents. Kingfish's guitar influences run the gamut of the Blues from the Delta Blues of Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Lightnin' Hopkins to the electric Blues of B.B. King, Albert King, Big Jack Johnson, Albert Collins, Freddie King, Lefty Dizz, Lucky Peterson, Little Jimmy King and Buddy Guy to the Blues Rock of Lance Lopez, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Gales, Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Allman Brothers, Jonny Lang, Steve Marriott, Prince, Michael Burks and so many others. Surprisingly at such a young age, he can play just like his idols and mentors and possesses the additional ability to create a Blues sound entirely his own. It is refreshing to see a young person return to his musical roots and master a genre of music that was created and was popular even before his grandparents’ generation and renew its popularity by breathing new life into the music.
Kingfish has shared the stage with household names such as Bob Margolin and Guitar Shorty and has played festivals and venues all over the southern region. He's even opened for Buddy Guy! Even though he’s from the Delta, surrounded by all of its plantations and and he travels Highway 49 and Highway 61 on a regular basis, unlike many of his musical predecessors from Mississippi, Kingfish never had to pick cotton or sell his soul to the devil at the infamous Crossroads. Yet, this child prodigy’s soul is possessed with the feeling, passion and fire of the much older men who created the most important genre of American music, the Blues.
Kingfish is a living phenomenon, soon destined to be a living legend!!!
Christone "KINGFISH" Ingram - Live @ 2015 Waterfront Blues Festival
Wilson Pickett +19.01.2006
Wilson Pickett (* 18. März 1941 in Prattville, Alabama; † 19. Januar 2006[1] in Reston, Virginia) war ein US-amerikanischer Sänger. Er war einer der populärsten Soul-Sänger der 1960er Jahre.
Leben
1955 zog Pickett nach Detroit, wo er in verschiedensten Kirchenchören sang; auch gehörte er zur Gospelgruppe The Violinaires. 1961 schloss er sich der Rhythm and Blues-Formation The Falcons an, die einen neuen Leadsänger suchten, nachdem Eddie Floyd ihnen den Rücken gekehrt hatte. 1962 schrieb er für sie den Mini-Hit I Found a Love, als Folge dessen der Falcons-Produzent Robert Bateman Pickett zu einer Solo-Karriere anstachelte. Pickett trennte sich dann von den Falcons und verpflichtete sich 1963 bei Lloyd Price’ Label Double L Records. Mit der Single If You Need Me tauchte Pickett erstmals in den US-amerikanischen Pop-Charts auf. Der Song wurde später viel gecovert, unter anderem von Solomon Burke und den Rolling Stones.
1964 bekam Pickett von Jerry Wexler einen Vertrag bei Atlantic Records angeboten, den er annahm. Nach In The Midnight Hour von 1965 folgte bis 1971 Hit auf Hit, darunter das bekannte Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, das ebenfalls auch von den Rolling Stones interpretiert wurde und später ein großer Hit für die Blues Brothers werden sollte. Viele seiner Hits schrieb Pickett selbst, wobei ihm Steve Cropper als Co-Autor zur Seite stand. Im März 1971 tourte Pickett zusammen mit vielen anderen Musikern aus den USA und aus Afrika durch Ghana. In Deutschland hatte Pickett keinen nennenswerten kommerziellen Erfolg; nur zwei seiner Titel erreichten die Verkaufs-Hitlisten. Seine höchste Platzierung dort war 1968 eine Nummer 32 mit dem Titel Stagg-O-Lee.
1973 verließ Pickett Atlantic auf dem Zenit seiner Karriere und wechselte zu RCA Records, was er später sehr bereute. Mit seiner Debüt-Single Take a Closer Look at the Woman You’re With auf dem neuen Label tauchte er ein vorerst letztes Mal in den US-amerikanischen Pop-Charts auf, dann ließen die Erfolge stark nach. Pickett trat zwar weiterhin auf und veröffentlichte auch neues Material, doch konnte er sich damit weder in den US-amerikanischen Single- noch in den Albumcharts platzieren.
Ab den frühen 1980er Jahren kam Pickett häufiger mit dem Gesetz in Konflikt. Er verprügelte Promoter, Manager und Musiker, landete, nachdem er eine Person mit einer Schusswaffe bedroht hatte, im Gefängnis und musste 1987 ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert werden, da er sich mit Mitgliedern seiner Band geschlagen hatte. Im selben Jahr gelangte Picket mit einer Neuveröffentlichung von In The Midnight Hour (Motown) bis auf Position 62 in den britischen Singlecharts – es war seine erste nennenswerte Platzierung seit den frühen 1970ern.
1991 wurde Pickett in die Rock and Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen.[2] Er verfiel mehr und mehr dem Alkohol. Im Januar 1992 musste er sein Haus in Englewood aufgrund von Mietrückständen verlassen. Im darauffolgenden April fuhr er in betrunkenem Zustand einen 86-jährigen Fußgänger an und verletzte diesen lebensgefährlich. Im Mai wurde er zu einer Geldstrafe sowie einer Entziehungskur verurteilt, nachdem er seine Freundin geschlagen hatte. 1993 landete er aufgrund des Verkehrsunfalls vom vorhergehenden Jahr für ein Jahr im Gefängnis mit fünfjähriger Bewährungszeit. Bereits im April 1996 wurde Pickett wegen des Besitzes von zwei Gramm Kokain erneut inhaftiert.
Einige Jahre nach seiner Entlassung kehrte er ins Studio zurück und erhielt für sein 1999er Album It’s Harder Now eine Grammy-Nominierung.
Eine Neuaufnahme seines Titel 634-5789 ist mit ihm und anderen Sängern im Film Blues Brothers 2000 zu hören.
Wilson Pickett starb in einem Krankenhaus in Reston, US-Bundesstaat Virginia, infolge eines Herzinfarkts.
In
den 60er Jahren zählte er zu den populärsten Soulsängern neben Otis
Redding und Aretha Franklin. In Wilson Picketts (1941-2006) Gesang
klingt ebenso die Klage des frühen Gospel und Blues wie auch der rauhe
Sound der Straßen von Detroit, wo er aufwuchs. Der Spitzname "Wicked
Pickett" stand Zeit seines Lebens nicht nur für seine kraftvollen
Bühnendarbietungen sondern auch für sein unberechenbares Verhalten im
Alltag.
Wilson Pickett - Biografie
Im Film "The Commitements" ist er so etwas wie eine abwesende Vaterfigur: Die Erwartung, dass Wilson Pickett mit der langsam zu lokalem Ruhm gekommenen Soulband aus Dublin jammen will, hält die Streitenden zusammen und lässt sie von einer großen Karriere träumen. Doch Pickett erscheint nicht. Dabei hatten die jungen Musiker davon geträumt, mit ihm gemeinsam Hits wie "In The Midnight Hour" oder "Mustang Sally" zu spielen. Erst nach dem großen Krach, als alle schon auseinander gelaufen waren, kommt doch noch eine Limousine. Der Klub allerdings ist geschlossen. Der Star steigt nicht mal aus.
Als Alan Parkers Film 1991 in die Kinos kam, war der Star der 60er gerade in die Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen worden. Das war eines der angenehmeren Kapitel seines späteren Lebens. Seit den 80er Jahren war er immer wieder wegen Alkohol und Gewalttätigkeiten vor Gericht und mehrfach im Gefängnis. "Wicked Pickett" war schon in den 60er Jahren ein völlig unberechenbarer Künstler, der auch schon mal Streitigkeiten mit Schusswaffen regeln wollte. Seine Gewaltausbrüche haben vielleicht einen Grund in seiner Kindheit.
Geboren wurde Wilson Pickett am 18. März 1941 in Prattville, Alabama als jüngstes von 11 Kindern, die schon früh auf dem gepachteten Baumwollfeld der Familie mithelfen mussten. In der Kirche seines Großvaters begann er schon als Kind Gospel zu singen. In den 50er Jahren zog er mit seinem Vater nach Detroit, um seiner gewalttätigen Mutter zu entfliehen. Diese hatte ebenso wie der Großvater Prügel als regelmäßige Erziehungsmethode eingesetzt. Daran war letztlich auch die Ehe seiner Eltern gescheitert.
In der Autostadt schloss sich Pickett der Gospelgruppe Violinaires an. Doch wenige Jahre später verließ er sie, um gemeinsam mit The Falcons Rhythm & Blues zu singen. Nach einem lokalen Mini-Hit startete er auf Anregung eines Produzenten 1963 seine Solokarriere.
Diese kam richtig in Gang, als er 1964 von Jerry Wexler einen Vertrag bei Atlantic angeboten bekam. Dort erschien 1965 sein erster großer Hit "In The Midnight Hour", der in Memphis mit der Hausband von Stax aufgenommen wurde. Bis zum Oktober 1965 entstanden weitere mittlerweile legendäre Aufnahmen in den Staxstudios, unter anderem "6345789" oder "Ninety-Nine and A Half (Won't Do)". Einige dieser Hits hatte Pickett selbst oder gemeinsam mit Streve Cropper oder Eddie Floyd geschrieben.
Als Stax-Chef Jim Stewart im Dezember 1965 allerdings beschloss, künftig keine Produktionen für labelfremde Künstler zu machen, zog Pickett für die nächsten Aufnahmen in die Fame-Studios in Muscle Shoals. Dort entstanden mit der Band des Studios weitere Hits wie "Mustang Sally", "Funky Broadway" und "Land of the 1000 Dances". Auf dem Höhepunkt seiner Karriere bei Atlantic verließ er das Label und unterzeichnete 1973 bei RCA. Diese Entscheidung allerdings sollte er schon bald bedauern. Nur noch eine Single aus dieser Zeit gelangte in die Popcharts. Dann ging es zunächst mit seiner Popularität bergab. Dies hatte allerdings auch damit zu tun, dass die aufkommende Disco-Welle das Interesse am klassischen Soul bei den Singlekäufern sinken ließ. Pickett allerdings veröffentlichte weiterhin regelmäßig Alben und tourte.
Ab den 80er Jahren machte er allerdings mehr mit seinen Gerichtsverhandlungen als durch seine Musik von sich reden: Er verprügelte Bandmitglieder, Manager und andere. Und als er einen mit einer Schusswaffe bedroht hatte, wurde er zu einer Gefängnisstrafe verurteilt. 1987 musste er nach einer Prügelei mit seiner Band gar ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert werden. Außerdem wurde er zu einem starken Alkoholiker, der 1992 betrunken einen Rentner überfuhr. Dies brachte ihm eine weitere Gefängnisstrafe ein. Weitere Inhaftierungen folgten, als er seine Freundin verprügelte und wegen des Besitzes von Kokain.
Erst 1999 kam er wieder zu Aufnahmen in ein Studio. Das Album "It's Harder Now" brachte ihm neben einer Grammy-Nominierung auch noch diverse andere Auszeichungen ein. Und im Film "Blues Brothers 2000" nahm er gemeinsam mit Johnny Lang und den Blues Brothers eine Neufassung von "634 5789" auf.
Bis 2004 war er konstant auf Tour. Dann allerdings zwang ihn seine nachlassende Gesundheit zum Ruhestand. Am 19. Januar 2006 starb er nach einem Herzinfarkt in Reston, Virginia. Sein nach dem gesundheitlichen Zusammenbruch oft geäußerter Plan, ein Gospelalbum zu veröffentlichen und damit zu seinen Wurzeln zurück zu kehren, blieb unverwirklicht.
Wilson Pickett - Biografie
Im Film "The Commitements" ist er so etwas wie eine abwesende Vaterfigur: Die Erwartung, dass Wilson Pickett mit der langsam zu lokalem Ruhm gekommenen Soulband aus Dublin jammen will, hält die Streitenden zusammen und lässt sie von einer großen Karriere träumen. Doch Pickett erscheint nicht. Dabei hatten die jungen Musiker davon geträumt, mit ihm gemeinsam Hits wie "In The Midnight Hour" oder "Mustang Sally" zu spielen. Erst nach dem großen Krach, als alle schon auseinander gelaufen waren, kommt doch noch eine Limousine. Der Klub allerdings ist geschlossen. Der Star steigt nicht mal aus.
Als Alan Parkers Film 1991 in die Kinos kam, war der Star der 60er gerade in die Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen worden. Das war eines der angenehmeren Kapitel seines späteren Lebens. Seit den 80er Jahren war er immer wieder wegen Alkohol und Gewalttätigkeiten vor Gericht und mehrfach im Gefängnis. "Wicked Pickett" war schon in den 60er Jahren ein völlig unberechenbarer Künstler, der auch schon mal Streitigkeiten mit Schusswaffen regeln wollte. Seine Gewaltausbrüche haben vielleicht einen Grund in seiner Kindheit.
Geboren wurde Wilson Pickett am 18. März 1941 in Prattville, Alabama als jüngstes von 11 Kindern, die schon früh auf dem gepachteten Baumwollfeld der Familie mithelfen mussten. In der Kirche seines Großvaters begann er schon als Kind Gospel zu singen. In den 50er Jahren zog er mit seinem Vater nach Detroit, um seiner gewalttätigen Mutter zu entfliehen. Diese hatte ebenso wie der Großvater Prügel als regelmäßige Erziehungsmethode eingesetzt. Daran war letztlich auch die Ehe seiner Eltern gescheitert.
In der Autostadt schloss sich Pickett der Gospelgruppe Violinaires an. Doch wenige Jahre später verließ er sie, um gemeinsam mit The Falcons Rhythm & Blues zu singen. Nach einem lokalen Mini-Hit startete er auf Anregung eines Produzenten 1963 seine Solokarriere.
Diese kam richtig in Gang, als er 1964 von Jerry Wexler einen Vertrag bei Atlantic angeboten bekam. Dort erschien 1965 sein erster großer Hit "In The Midnight Hour", der in Memphis mit der Hausband von Stax aufgenommen wurde. Bis zum Oktober 1965 entstanden weitere mittlerweile legendäre Aufnahmen in den Staxstudios, unter anderem "6345789" oder "Ninety-Nine and A Half (Won't Do)". Einige dieser Hits hatte Pickett selbst oder gemeinsam mit Streve Cropper oder Eddie Floyd geschrieben.
Als Stax-Chef Jim Stewart im Dezember 1965 allerdings beschloss, künftig keine Produktionen für labelfremde Künstler zu machen, zog Pickett für die nächsten Aufnahmen in die Fame-Studios in Muscle Shoals. Dort entstanden mit der Band des Studios weitere Hits wie "Mustang Sally", "Funky Broadway" und "Land of the 1000 Dances". Auf dem Höhepunkt seiner Karriere bei Atlantic verließ er das Label und unterzeichnete 1973 bei RCA. Diese Entscheidung allerdings sollte er schon bald bedauern. Nur noch eine Single aus dieser Zeit gelangte in die Popcharts. Dann ging es zunächst mit seiner Popularität bergab. Dies hatte allerdings auch damit zu tun, dass die aufkommende Disco-Welle das Interesse am klassischen Soul bei den Singlekäufern sinken ließ. Pickett allerdings veröffentlichte weiterhin regelmäßig Alben und tourte.
Ab den 80er Jahren machte er allerdings mehr mit seinen Gerichtsverhandlungen als durch seine Musik von sich reden: Er verprügelte Bandmitglieder, Manager und andere. Und als er einen mit einer Schusswaffe bedroht hatte, wurde er zu einer Gefängnisstrafe verurteilt. 1987 musste er nach einer Prügelei mit seiner Band gar ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert werden. Außerdem wurde er zu einem starken Alkoholiker, der 1992 betrunken einen Rentner überfuhr. Dies brachte ihm eine weitere Gefängnisstrafe ein. Weitere Inhaftierungen folgten, als er seine Freundin verprügelte und wegen des Besitzes von Kokain.
Erst 1999 kam er wieder zu Aufnahmen in ein Studio. Das Album "It's Harder Now" brachte ihm neben einer Grammy-Nominierung auch noch diverse andere Auszeichungen ein. Und im Film "Blues Brothers 2000" nahm er gemeinsam mit Johnny Lang und den Blues Brothers eine Neufassung von "634 5789" auf.
Bis 2004 war er konstant auf Tour. Dann allerdings zwang ihn seine nachlassende Gesundheit zum Ruhestand. Am 19. Januar 2006 starb er nach einem Herzinfarkt in Reston, Virginia. Sein nach dem gesundheitlichen Zusammenbruch oft geäußerter Plan, ein Gospelalbum zu veröffentlichen und damit zu seinen Wurzeln zurück zu kehren, blieb unverwirklicht.
Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 – January 19, 2006) was an American R&B, soul and rock and roll singer and songwriter.
A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, many of which crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100. Among his best-known hits are "In the Midnight Hour" (which he co-wrote), "Land of 1,000 Dances", "Mustang Sally", and "Funky Broadway".[2]
Pickett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, in recognition of his impact on songwriting and recording.[3]
Early life
Pickett was born March 18, 1941 in Prattville, Alabama,[2] and sang in Baptist church choirs. He was the fourth of 11 children and called his mother "the baddest woman in my book," telling historian Gerri Hirshey: "I get scared of her now. She used to hit me with anything, skillets, stove wood — (one time I ran away) and cried for a week. Stayed in the woods, me and my little dog." Pickett eventually left to live with his father in Detroit in 1955.[4]
Early musical career (1955–1964)
Pickett's forceful, passionate style of singing was developed in the church and on the streets of Detroit,[3] under the influence of recording stars such as Little Richard, whom he referred to as "the architect of rock and roll.[5]
In 1955, Pickett joined the Violinaires, a gospel group. The group accompanied the Soul Stirrers, the Swan Silverones, and the Davis Sisters on church tours across the country.[citation needed] After singing for four years in the popular gospel-harmony group, Pickett, lured by the success of gospel singers who had moved to the lucrative secular music market, joined the Falcons in 1959.[3]
By 1959, Pickett recorded the song "Let Me Be Your Boy" with Florence Ballard and the Primettes as background singers. The song is the B-side of his 1963 single "My Heart Belongs to You".
The Falcons were an early vocal group bringing gospel into a popular context, thus paving the way for soul music. The group featured notable members who became major solo artists; when Pickett joined the group, Eddie Floyd and Sir Mack Rice were members. Pickett's biggest success with the Falcons was "I Found a Love", co-written by Pickett and featuring his lead vocals. While only a minor hit for the Falcons, it paved the way for Pickett to embark on a solo career. Pickett later had a solo hit with a re-recorded two-part version of the song, included on his 1967 album The Sound of Wilson Pickett.
Soon after recording "I Found a Love", Pickett cut his first solo recordings, including "I'm Gonna Cry", in collaboration with Don Covay. Pickett also recorded a demo for a song he co-wrote, "If You Need Me", a slow-burning soul ballad featuring a spoken sermon. Pickett sent the demo to Jerry Wexler, a producer at Atlantic Records. Wexler gave it to the label's recording artist Solomon Burke, Atlantic's biggest star at the time. Burke admired Pickett's performance of the song, but his own recording of "If You Need Me" became one of his biggest hits (#2 R&B, #37 pop) and is considered a soul standard. Pickett was crushed when he discovered that Atlantic had given away his song. When Pickett—with a demo tape under his arm—returned to Wexler's studio, Wexler asked whether he was angry about this loss, but denied it saying "It's over".[6] "First time I ever cried in my life".[citation needed] Pickett's version was released on Double L Records and was a moderate hit, peaking at #30 R&B and #64 pop.
Pickett's first significant success as a solo artist came with "It's Too Late," an original composition (not to be confused with the Chuck Willis standard of the same name). Entering the charts on July 27, 1963, it peaked at #7 on the R&B chart (#49 pop); the same title was used for Pickett's debut album, released in the same year. Compiling several of Pickett's single releases for Double L, It's Too Late showcased a raw soulful sound that foreshadowed the singer's performances throughout the coming decade. The single's success persuaded Wexler and Atlantic to buy Pickett's recording contract from Double L in 1964.
Rise to stardom: "In the Midnight Hour" (1965)
Pickett's Atlantic career began with the self-produced single, "I'm Gonna Cry". Looking to boost Pickett's chart chances, Atlantic paired him with record producer Bert Berns and established songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. With this team, Pickett recorded "Come Home Baby," a duet with singer Tami Lynn, but this single failed to chart.[2]
Pickett's breakthrough came at Stax Records' studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he recorded his third Atlantic single, "In the Midnight Hour" (1965).[7] This song was Pickett's first big hit, peaking at #1 R&B, #21 pop (US), and #12 (UK).[2] It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.[8]
The genesis of "In the Midnight Hour" was a recording session on May 12, 1965, at which Wexler worked out a powerful rhythm track with studio musicians Steve Cropper and Al Jackson of the Stax Records house band, including bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn. (Stax keyboard player Booker T. Jones, who usually played with Dunn, Cropper and Jackson as Booker T. & the M.G.'s, did not play on the studio sessions with Pickett.) Wexler said to Cropper and Jackson, "Why don't you pick up on this thing here?" He performed a dance step. Cropper explained in an interview that Wexler told them that "this was the way the kids were dancing; they were putting the accent on two. Basically, we'd been one-beat-accenters with an afterbeat; it was like 'boom dah,' but here was a thing that went 'um-chaw,' just the reverse as far as the accent goes."
Stax/Fame years (1965–1967)
Pickett recorded three sessions at Stax in May and October 1965. He was joined by keyboardist Isaac Hayes for the October sessions. In addition to "In the Midnight Hour," Pickett's 1965 recordings included the singles "Don't Fight It," (#4 R&B, #53 pop) "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A,)" (#1 R&B, #13 pop) and "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)" (#13 R&B, #53 pop). All but "634-5789" were original compositions which Pickett co-wrote with Eddie Floyd or Steve Cropper or both; "634-5789" was credited to Cropper and Floyd alone.
For his next sessions, Pickett did not return to Stax, as the label's owner, Jim Stewart, had decided in December 1965 to ban outside productions. Wexler took Pickett to Fame Studios, a studio with a closer association with Atlantic Records, located in a converted tobacco warehouse in nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Pickett recorded some of his biggest hits there, including the highest-charting version of "Land of 1,000 Dances", which was his third R&B #1 and his biggest pop hit, peaking at #6. It was a million-selling disc.[8]
Other big hits from this era in Pickett's career included two covers: Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally", (#6 R&B, #23 pop), and Dyke & the Blazers' "Funky Broadway", (R&B #1, #8 pop).[2] Both tracks were million sellers.[8] The band heard on most of Pickett's Fame recordings included keyboardist Spooner Oldham, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, drummer Roger Hawkins, and bassist Tommy Cogbill.[9]
Later Atlantic years (1967–1972)
Near the end of 1967, Pickett began recording at American Studios in Memphis with producers Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill, and began recording songs by Bobby Womack. The songs "I'm in Love," "Jealous Love," "I've Come a Long Way," "I'm a Midnight Mover," (co-written by Pickett and Womack), and "I Found a True Love" were Womack-penned hits for Pickett in 1967 and 1968. Pickett recorded works by other songwriters in this period; Rodger Collins' "She's Lookin' Good" and a cover of the traditional blues standard "Stagger Lee" were Top 40 hits Pickett recorded at American. Womack was the guitarist on all recordings.
Pickett returned to Fame Studios in late 1968 and early 1969, where he worked with a band that featured guitarist Duane Allman, Hawkins, and bassist Jerry Jemmott. A #16 pop hit cover of the Beatles' "Hey Jude" came out of the Fame sessions, as well as the minor hits "Mini-Skirt Minnie" and "Hey Joe".
Late 1969 found Pickett at Criteria Studios in Miami. Hit covers of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (#16 R&B, #92 pop) and the rchies' "Sugar Sugar" (#4 R&B, #25 pop), and the Pickett original "She Said Yes" (#20 R&B, #68 pop) came from these sessions.
Pickett then teamed up with established Philadelphia-based hitmakers Gamble and Huff for the 1970 album Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia, which featured his next two hit singles, "Engine No. 9" and "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You", the latter selling one million copies.[8]
Following these two hits, Pickett returned to Muscle Shoals and the band featuring David Hood, Hawkins and Tippy Armstrong. This lineup recorded Pickett's fifth and last R&B #1 hit, "Don't Knock My Love, Pt. 1".[2] It was another Pickett recording that rang up sales in excess of a million copies.[8] Two further hits followed in 1971: "Call My Name, I'll Be There" (#10 R&B, #52 pop) and "Fire and Water" (#2 R&B, #24 pop), a cover of a song by Free.
Pickett recorded several tracks in 1972 for a planned new album on Atlantic, but after the single "Funk Factory" reached #11 R&B and #58 pop in June 1972, he left Atlantic for RCA Records. His final Atlantic single, a cover of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not to Come," was culled from Pickett's 1971 album Don't Knock My Love.
In 2010, Rhino Handmade released a comprehensive compilation of these years titled Funky Midnight Mover – The Studio Recordings (1962–1978). The compilation included all recordings originally issued during Pickett's Atlantic years along with previously unreleased recordings. This collection was sold online only by Rhino.com.
Post-Atlantic recording career
Pickett continued to record with success on the R&B charts for RCA in 1973 and 1974, scoring four top 30 R&B hits with "Mr. Magic Man", "Take a Closer Look at the Woman You're With", "International Playboy" (a re-recording of a song he had previously recorded for Atlantic), and "Soft Soul Boogie Woogie". However, he was failing to cross over to the pop charts with regularity, as none of these songs reached higher than #90 on the Hot 100. In 1975, with Pickett's once-prominent chart career on the wane, RCA dropped Pickett from the label. After being dropped, he formed the short-lived Wicked label, where he released one LP, Chocolate Mountain. In 1978, he made a disco album with Big Tree Records titled Funky Situation, which is a coincidence as, at that point, Big Tree was distributed by his former label, Atlantic. The following year, he released an album on EMI titled I Want You.
Pickett continued to record sporadically with several labels over the following decades, occasionally making the lower to mid-range of the R&B charts, but he had no pop hit after 1974. His last record was issued in 1999, although he remained fairly active on the touring front until falling ill in 2004.
Pickett appeared in the 1998 film Blues Brothers 2000, in which he performed "634–5789" with Eddie Floyd and Jonny Lang. He was previously mentioned in the 1980 film Blues Brothers, which features several members of Pickett's backing band, as well as a performance of "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love."
Personal life and honors
Pickett's personal life was troubled. Even in his heyday in the 1960s, he was temperamental and preoccupied with guns; Don Covay described him as "young and wild".[citation needed] In 1987, as his recording career was drying up, Pickett was given two years' probation and fined $1,000 for carrying a loaded shotgun in his car.[citation needed] In 1991, he was arrested for allegedly yelling death threats while driving a car over the front lawn of Donald Aronson, the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey.[10] The following year, he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.
In 1993, Pickett struck an 86-year-old pedestrian, Pepe Ruiz, with his car in Englewood.[10] Ruiz, who had helped organize the New York animation union, died later that year.[11] Pickett pleaded guilty to drunken driving charges and received a reduced sentence of one year in jail and five years probation.[12][13] Pickett had been previously convicted of various drug offenses.[citation needed]
Throughout the 1990s, despite his personal troubles, Pickett was repeatedly honored for his contributions to music. In addition to being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, his music was prominently featured in the film The Commitments, with Pickett as an off-screen character. In 1993, he was honored with a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
Pickett was a popular composer, writing songs that were recorded by many artists, including Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, Booker T. & the MGs, Genesis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Hootie & the Blowfish, Echo & the Bunnymen, Roxy Music, Bruce Springsteen, Los Lobos, the Jam and Ani DiFranco, among others.
Several years after his release from jail, Pickett returned to the studio and received a Grammy Award nomination for the 1999 album It's Harder Now. The comeback resulted in his being honored as Soul/Blues Male Artist of the Year by the Blues Foundation in Memphis.[14] It's Harder Now was voted 'Comeback Blues Album of the Year' and 'Soul/Blues Album of the Year.'
He co-starred in the 2002 documentary Only the Strong Survive, directed by D. A. Pennebaker, a selection of both the 2002 Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. In 2003, Pickett was a judge for the second annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.[15]
Pickett spent the twilight of his career playing dozens of concert dates every year until 2004, when he began suffering from health problems. While in the hospital, he returned to his spiritual roots and told his sister that he wanted to record a gospel album,[5] but he never recovered.
Pickett was the father of six children.
On September 10, 2014, TVOne's Unsung aired a documentary on him.[16]
Death
Pickett died from a heart attack on January 19, 2006, in Reston, Virginia. He was 64.[17] He was laid to rest in a mausoleum at Evergreen Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.[18] Pickett spent many years in Louisville after his mother moved there from Alabama.[citation needed] The eulogy was delivered by Pastor Steve Owens of Decatur, Georgia. Little Richard, a long-time friend of Pickett's, spoke about him and preached a message at the funeral.[19] Pickett was remembered on March 20, 2006, at New York's B.B. King Blues Club with performances by the Commitments, Ben E. King, his long-term backing band the Midnight Movers, soul singer Bruce "Big Daddy" Wayne, and Southside Johnny in front of an audience that included members of his family, including two brothers.
A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, many of which crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100. Among his best-known hits are "In the Midnight Hour" (which he co-wrote), "Land of 1,000 Dances", "Mustang Sally", and "Funky Broadway".[2]
Pickett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, in recognition of his impact on songwriting and recording.[3]
Early life
Pickett was born March 18, 1941 in Prattville, Alabama,[2] and sang in Baptist church choirs. He was the fourth of 11 children and called his mother "the baddest woman in my book," telling historian Gerri Hirshey: "I get scared of her now. She used to hit me with anything, skillets, stove wood — (one time I ran away) and cried for a week. Stayed in the woods, me and my little dog." Pickett eventually left to live with his father in Detroit in 1955.[4]
Early musical career (1955–1964)
Pickett's forceful, passionate style of singing was developed in the church and on the streets of Detroit,[3] under the influence of recording stars such as Little Richard, whom he referred to as "the architect of rock and roll.[5]
In 1955, Pickett joined the Violinaires, a gospel group. The group accompanied the Soul Stirrers, the Swan Silverones, and the Davis Sisters on church tours across the country.[citation needed] After singing for four years in the popular gospel-harmony group, Pickett, lured by the success of gospel singers who had moved to the lucrative secular music market, joined the Falcons in 1959.[3]
By 1959, Pickett recorded the song "Let Me Be Your Boy" with Florence Ballard and the Primettes as background singers. The song is the B-side of his 1963 single "My Heart Belongs to You".
The Falcons were an early vocal group bringing gospel into a popular context, thus paving the way for soul music. The group featured notable members who became major solo artists; when Pickett joined the group, Eddie Floyd and Sir Mack Rice were members. Pickett's biggest success with the Falcons was "I Found a Love", co-written by Pickett and featuring his lead vocals. While only a minor hit for the Falcons, it paved the way for Pickett to embark on a solo career. Pickett later had a solo hit with a re-recorded two-part version of the song, included on his 1967 album The Sound of Wilson Pickett.
Soon after recording "I Found a Love", Pickett cut his first solo recordings, including "I'm Gonna Cry", in collaboration with Don Covay. Pickett also recorded a demo for a song he co-wrote, "If You Need Me", a slow-burning soul ballad featuring a spoken sermon. Pickett sent the demo to Jerry Wexler, a producer at Atlantic Records. Wexler gave it to the label's recording artist Solomon Burke, Atlantic's biggest star at the time. Burke admired Pickett's performance of the song, but his own recording of "If You Need Me" became one of his biggest hits (#2 R&B, #37 pop) and is considered a soul standard. Pickett was crushed when he discovered that Atlantic had given away his song. When Pickett—with a demo tape under his arm—returned to Wexler's studio, Wexler asked whether he was angry about this loss, but denied it saying "It's over".[6] "First time I ever cried in my life".[citation needed] Pickett's version was released on Double L Records and was a moderate hit, peaking at #30 R&B and #64 pop.
Pickett's first significant success as a solo artist came with "It's Too Late," an original composition (not to be confused with the Chuck Willis standard of the same name). Entering the charts on July 27, 1963, it peaked at #7 on the R&B chart (#49 pop); the same title was used for Pickett's debut album, released in the same year. Compiling several of Pickett's single releases for Double L, It's Too Late showcased a raw soulful sound that foreshadowed the singer's performances throughout the coming decade. The single's success persuaded Wexler and Atlantic to buy Pickett's recording contract from Double L in 1964.
Rise to stardom: "In the Midnight Hour" (1965)
Pickett's Atlantic career began with the self-produced single, "I'm Gonna Cry". Looking to boost Pickett's chart chances, Atlantic paired him with record producer Bert Berns and established songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. With this team, Pickett recorded "Come Home Baby," a duet with singer Tami Lynn, but this single failed to chart.[2]
Pickett's breakthrough came at Stax Records' studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he recorded his third Atlantic single, "In the Midnight Hour" (1965).[7] This song was Pickett's first big hit, peaking at #1 R&B, #21 pop (US), and #12 (UK).[2] It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.[8]
The genesis of "In the Midnight Hour" was a recording session on May 12, 1965, at which Wexler worked out a powerful rhythm track with studio musicians Steve Cropper and Al Jackson of the Stax Records house band, including bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn. (Stax keyboard player Booker T. Jones, who usually played with Dunn, Cropper and Jackson as Booker T. & the M.G.'s, did not play on the studio sessions with Pickett.) Wexler said to Cropper and Jackson, "Why don't you pick up on this thing here?" He performed a dance step. Cropper explained in an interview that Wexler told them that "this was the way the kids were dancing; they were putting the accent on two. Basically, we'd been one-beat-accenters with an afterbeat; it was like 'boom dah,' but here was a thing that went 'um-chaw,' just the reverse as far as the accent goes."
Stax/Fame years (1965–1967)
Pickett recorded three sessions at Stax in May and October 1965. He was joined by keyboardist Isaac Hayes for the October sessions. In addition to "In the Midnight Hour," Pickett's 1965 recordings included the singles "Don't Fight It," (#4 R&B, #53 pop) "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A,)" (#1 R&B, #13 pop) and "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)" (#13 R&B, #53 pop). All but "634-5789" were original compositions which Pickett co-wrote with Eddie Floyd or Steve Cropper or both; "634-5789" was credited to Cropper and Floyd alone.
For his next sessions, Pickett did not return to Stax, as the label's owner, Jim Stewart, had decided in December 1965 to ban outside productions. Wexler took Pickett to Fame Studios, a studio with a closer association with Atlantic Records, located in a converted tobacco warehouse in nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Pickett recorded some of his biggest hits there, including the highest-charting version of "Land of 1,000 Dances", which was his third R&B #1 and his biggest pop hit, peaking at #6. It was a million-selling disc.[8]
Other big hits from this era in Pickett's career included two covers: Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally", (#6 R&B, #23 pop), and Dyke & the Blazers' "Funky Broadway", (R&B #1, #8 pop).[2] Both tracks were million sellers.[8] The band heard on most of Pickett's Fame recordings included keyboardist Spooner Oldham, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, drummer Roger Hawkins, and bassist Tommy Cogbill.[9]
Later Atlantic years (1967–1972)
Near the end of 1967, Pickett began recording at American Studios in Memphis with producers Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill, and began recording songs by Bobby Womack. The songs "I'm in Love," "Jealous Love," "I've Come a Long Way," "I'm a Midnight Mover," (co-written by Pickett and Womack), and "I Found a True Love" were Womack-penned hits for Pickett in 1967 and 1968. Pickett recorded works by other songwriters in this period; Rodger Collins' "She's Lookin' Good" and a cover of the traditional blues standard "Stagger Lee" were Top 40 hits Pickett recorded at American. Womack was the guitarist on all recordings.
Pickett returned to Fame Studios in late 1968 and early 1969, where he worked with a band that featured guitarist Duane Allman, Hawkins, and bassist Jerry Jemmott. A #16 pop hit cover of the Beatles' "Hey Jude" came out of the Fame sessions, as well as the minor hits "Mini-Skirt Minnie" and "Hey Joe".
Late 1969 found Pickett at Criteria Studios in Miami. Hit covers of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (#16 R&B, #92 pop) and the rchies' "Sugar Sugar" (#4 R&B, #25 pop), and the Pickett original "She Said Yes" (#20 R&B, #68 pop) came from these sessions.
Pickett then teamed up with established Philadelphia-based hitmakers Gamble and Huff for the 1970 album Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia, which featured his next two hit singles, "Engine No. 9" and "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You", the latter selling one million copies.[8]
Following these two hits, Pickett returned to Muscle Shoals and the band featuring David Hood, Hawkins and Tippy Armstrong. This lineup recorded Pickett's fifth and last R&B #1 hit, "Don't Knock My Love, Pt. 1".[2] It was another Pickett recording that rang up sales in excess of a million copies.[8] Two further hits followed in 1971: "Call My Name, I'll Be There" (#10 R&B, #52 pop) and "Fire and Water" (#2 R&B, #24 pop), a cover of a song by Free.
Pickett recorded several tracks in 1972 for a planned new album on Atlantic, but after the single "Funk Factory" reached #11 R&B and #58 pop in June 1972, he left Atlantic for RCA Records. His final Atlantic single, a cover of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not to Come," was culled from Pickett's 1971 album Don't Knock My Love.
In 2010, Rhino Handmade released a comprehensive compilation of these years titled Funky Midnight Mover – The Studio Recordings (1962–1978). The compilation included all recordings originally issued during Pickett's Atlantic years along with previously unreleased recordings. This collection was sold online only by Rhino.com.
Post-Atlantic recording career
Pickett continued to record with success on the R&B charts for RCA in 1973 and 1974, scoring four top 30 R&B hits with "Mr. Magic Man", "Take a Closer Look at the Woman You're With", "International Playboy" (a re-recording of a song he had previously recorded for Atlantic), and "Soft Soul Boogie Woogie". However, he was failing to cross over to the pop charts with regularity, as none of these songs reached higher than #90 on the Hot 100. In 1975, with Pickett's once-prominent chart career on the wane, RCA dropped Pickett from the label. After being dropped, he formed the short-lived Wicked label, where he released one LP, Chocolate Mountain. In 1978, he made a disco album with Big Tree Records titled Funky Situation, which is a coincidence as, at that point, Big Tree was distributed by his former label, Atlantic. The following year, he released an album on EMI titled I Want You.
Pickett continued to record sporadically with several labels over the following decades, occasionally making the lower to mid-range of the R&B charts, but he had no pop hit after 1974. His last record was issued in 1999, although he remained fairly active on the touring front until falling ill in 2004.
Pickett appeared in the 1998 film Blues Brothers 2000, in which he performed "634–5789" with Eddie Floyd and Jonny Lang. He was previously mentioned in the 1980 film Blues Brothers, which features several members of Pickett's backing band, as well as a performance of "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love."
Personal life and honors
Pickett's personal life was troubled. Even in his heyday in the 1960s, he was temperamental and preoccupied with guns; Don Covay described him as "young and wild".[citation needed] In 1987, as his recording career was drying up, Pickett was given two years' probation and fined $1,000 for carrying a loaded shotgun in his car.[citation needed] In 1991, he was arrested for allegedly yelling death threats while driving a car over the front lawn of Donald Aronson, the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey.[10] The following year, he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.
In 1993, Pickett struck an 86-year-old pedestrian, Pepe Ruiz, with his car in Englewood.[10] Ruiz, who had helped organize the New York animation union, died later that year.[11] Pickett pleaded guilty to drunken driving charges and received a reduced sentence of one year in jail and five years probation.[12][13] Pickett had been previously convicted of various drug offenses.[citation needed]
Throughout the 1990s, despite his personal troubles, Pickett was repeatedly honored for his contributions to music. In addition to being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, his music was prominently featured in the film The Commitments, with Pickett as an off-screen character. In 1993, he was honored with a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
Pickett was a popular composer, writing songs that were recorded by many artists, including Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, Booker T. & the MGs, Genesis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Hootie & the Blowfish, Echo & the Bunnymen, Roxy Music, Bruce Springsteen, Los Lobos, the Jam and Ani DiFranco, among others.
Several years after his release from jail, Pickett returned to the studio and received a Grammy Award nomination for the 1999 album It's Harder Now. The comeback resulted in his being honored as Soul/Blues Male Artist of the Year by the Blues Foundation in Memphis.[14] It's Harder Now was voted 'Comeback Blues Album of the Year' and 'Soul/Blues Album of the Year.'
He co-starred in the 2002 documentary Only the Strong Survive, directed by D. A. Pennebaker, a selection of both the 2002 Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. In 2003, Pickett was a judge for the second annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.[15]
Pickett spent the twilight of his career playing dozens of concert dates every year until 2004, when he began suffering from health problems. While in the hospital, he returned to his spiritual roots and told his sister that he wanted to record a gospel album,[5] but he never recovered.
Pickett was the father of six children.
On September 10, 2014, TVOne's Unsung aired a documentary on him.[16]
Death
Pickett died from a heart attack on January 19, 2006, in Reston, Virginia. He was 64.[17] He was laid to rest in a mausoleum at Evergreen Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.[18] Pickett spent many years in Louisville after his mother moved there from Alabama.[citation needed] The eulogy was delivered by Pastor Steve Owens of Decatur, Georgia. Little Richard, a long-time friend of Pickett's, spoke about him and preached a message at the funeral.[19] Pickett was remembered on March 20, 2006, at New York's B.B. King Blues Club with performances by the Commitments, Ben E. King, his long-term backing band the Midnight Movers, soul singer Bruce "Big Daddy" Wayne, and Southside Johnny in front of an audience that included members of his family, including two brothers.
Wilson Pickett - In The Midnight Hour - HQ Audio )))
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen