{"id":123063,"date":"2019-09-26T07:43:33","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T12:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=123063"},"modified":"2019-09-27T08:24:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T13:24:20","slug":"a-night-with-janis-joplin-a-snapshot-of-rock-icons-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2019\/09\/26\/a-night-with-janis-joplin-a-snapshot-of-rock-icons-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Joplin musical snapshot of rock icon’s life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday\u2019s performance of A Night with Janis Joplin<\/em> captures the essence of the rock superstar: her humor, her humanity, and her passion for her music, but it\u2019s not a carbon copy of Joplin, who died in 1970 at age 27, her younger brother, Michael, says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A Night with Janis Joplin <\/em>comes to the Niswonger Performing Arts Center this Saturday evening. <\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Joplin said he and his sister, Laura, were looking for something that would capture a moment in time of their older sibling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur intention was to do a \u2018night with\u2019; we didn\u2019t want to do a \u2018Madame Tussaud\u2019 thing, we didn\u2019t want to do a \u2018birth to death\u2019 thing,\u201d Joplin said. \u201cMy sister, Laura, and I wanted to just enjoy an evening with her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s the kind of production theatre veteran Randy Johnson has created for the Joplins and the theatre-going public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it was presented to us, we went \u2018oh my god, this is so in the realm of what we wanted: to spend an evening with Janis, let her talk to us, sing for us, be with us\u2019,\u201d he noted. \u201cI love it to death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

While Joplin acknowledged it\u2019s hard to lose a sibling at a young age — or any time, for that matter — it\u2019s somewhat different when that person is a musical icon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn some aspects, she hasn\u2019t gone,\u201d he said, noting that interest in Janis and her music is still strong nearly 50 years after her death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Joplin shared some of his early memories of his oldest sister, noting that Janis taught sister Laura to play the guitar and, because she was also an artist growing up, she taught him to draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe was the older sibling, so she did that older sibling stuff,\u201d Joplin said of Janis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted though, that while Janis dressed like a Hippie and interacted with that generation in San Francisco\u2019s Haight-Ashbury area after leaving her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, she identified mostly with the Beat Generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe was more of a Beatnik, did more of a Kerouac thing,\u201d he said, noting that Janis was a couple of years older than most of the Hippies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Janis\u2019 musical influences came mostly from the Blues and Soul genres: Bessie Smith, Odetta, Nina Simone, Etta James, and Aretha Franklin — powerful singers who had an impact on music, as well as America in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Joplin said it still amazes him that there is so much interest in his sister even today, but said he feels it\u2019s because of the passion she put into her music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJanis put it all on the table, which is still an unusual thing for any musician to do,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s the thing that resonates with people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe knew there was a potential price to pay for that, and she was willing to pay it,\u201d Joplin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also noted that, when he and Laura were asked for their opinion on the singers who portrayed Janis, they said they didn\u2019t want a copy of Janis, but someone who was willing to sing with passion and let the music rock in their own way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joplin said Mary Bridget Davies, who portrays Janis in A Night with Janis Joplin<\/em>, does that very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMary Bridget is a force,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tickets are still available for A Night with Janis Joplin<\/em>, which comes to the Niswonger Performing Arts Center of Northwest Ohio at 7:30 p.m. this Saturday, September 28. Tickets can be purchased by calling the NPAC box office at 419.238.6722 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. each day, or online at www.npacvw.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Saturday\u2019s performance of A Night with Janis Joplin captures the essence of the rock superstar: her humor, her humanity, and her passion for her music, but it\u2019s not a carbon copy of Joplin, who died in 1970 at age 27, her younger brother, Michael, says. Joplin said he and his sister, Laura, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 20:48:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}