Craig, I wanna hear your Janis story!

Hi Craig,

You mentioned in an earlier post how you met Janis Joplin, back in the day.

She was a Texan, as we know.

Could you recount that meeting, omitting no details? Kewl!

Thanks, Dave (rasputin)

My band Mandrake opened for them in New Haven, CT. We were really "on" that night, and the crowd was going totally bonkers. Then Big Brother came on, and everything went up another level - they had their good nights and their bad nights, but that was one that really worked (their guitars were in tune, LOL). The band were super-nice people, too, I particularly remember Peter Albin as being extremely open.

Anyway, I wasn't all that much into Janis Joplin, but I have to say she just sang her butt off and dominated the stage - but not in a train wreck way, just more like she was destined to be there with a crowd going crazy. I was really impressed by the level of charisma she exuded.

I was to the side of the stage, and stayed to watch their whole set. When Janis came offstage, she grabbed my upper arm lightly and said "So, was I any good?" It just totally blew my mind that 1) she would have thought that, especially with the applause still ringing in the air, and 2) she would ask me of all people. I looked at her and sort of blurted out, "Are you crazy? That was great!" I really meant it, too.

She smiled, and I don't remember if she said "thank you" or mumbled something else, but she seemed to appreciate that having opened for her (and proven ourselves with the audience), I was qualified to render a suitable opinion My take was that she never was secure in her own talents, and that incident really underscored it for me.

Cool.

An approximate date for this concert would've been.....?

Awesome story.

Man I know now where you got that magical arm!! It has the Janis VoodOO!!

Great story.

nice!

That's an awesome story!

In the mid-70s I had a friend, an English professor, I'd say he was born in the late thirties -- he hated rock music; I never heard him say a good word about any of it (opera was his passion). I asked him if there was any rock artist that he liked, or even respected, and he replied "Janis Joplin".

She played Clark U. here in Feb. '69 with the Full Tilt Boogie Band -- had her legendary bottle of Southern Comfort with her; she'd take a swig or two between songs and put it down on the stage by her mic. Certainly didn't hurt her performance.

Janis has always been my all time favorite female singer. God, what a voice!

Very cool post Craig, very cool...

It was when she was still with Big Brother, so I would guess '68? Honestly it's all a blur, during those days we were typically playing 250 or so dates a year.

I have a zillion stories like that, I was fortunate in getting to meet so many great musicians. I mean, getting high praise from Mike Bloomfield....stuff like that meant a lot to me.

There's a story floating around that a San Francisco Board of Supervisors member and later District Attorney partied with Janis in his younger, pre-political career days. The story is that he tried heroin for the first, and probably last, time with Janis. He turned blue and almost died and was revived by her. Not many District Attorneys have that experience in their resume. (although he denies ever doing heroin)

Whose story was included in a recent biopic?

Craig, did you and Mandrake play at HEMISFAIR '68 in San Antonio?

I wanna hear the Mike Bloomfield story!!!!

I suspect that the success of an opening act can have a real effect on the big name act that comes on next, and that that may be what made everything go up a notch in this case. A bit of friendly competition maybe. Big name act comes on after a particularly good opening act and says "wow... they were great, we have to really get our act together for this one". I'm not a performer, although have hung out backstage with the likes of Prince, Doobies, Kansas and others, but these were mostly arena concerts where things are probably different from what you were doing with Janice at the time. Do you think my theory has some merit?

Craig, can you mention a few other big names? I'm totally blown away by the Small World Theory aka, six degrees of separation. I've been working on a list of connections via people I've met, and by the 2nd degree, I've got the likes of Elvis Presley, Walt Disney, and the Three Stooges. I've even got Kevin Bacon at level 3 where it really gets wild (would you believe Jesse James?!) I'm sure I could add a lot more via your meetings

Great story. I'd love to know if that gig (yours and hers) was recorded anywhere.

Yeah, that'd be really great getting high praise from him. That's gotta feel great. I got a compliment on my guitar playing from Nels Cline. That was huge for me.

Uh...okay. It's a short one.

We were on the same bill as Electric Flag (this was after Bloomfield was with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) at a club in Philadelphia called the Trauma. The dressing room was on the first floor, and the stage on the second floor. To get back and forth, you had to go through the crowd for a bit so usually, the opening act would wait onstage until the next act came up to set up/tweak settings etc., then go down to the dressing room. It was a matter of courtesy, mostly to make sure no one got on stage or stole a pedal or something during the transition between acts.

Anyway, I had always loved Bloomfield's playing with Paul Butterfield. So, I had planned to introduce myself to him when he came up, say I enjoyed his playing, then head back down to the dressing room (where I once met Gail Zappa holding Moon Unit Zappa when she was about six months old...but that's another story altogether).

We finished our set, and that particular one ended with lots of guitar soloing. I waited at the side of stage for Electric Flag to come up, and was still holding my guitar. Before I had a chance to say anything to Mike, he made eye contact, made a beeline to me, and said "Man, was that you playing guitar?!?" I said yes, and was just about to say how much I liked his playing when he shook his head, looked down, looked up at me again, shook his head again, and said "Man, that was like...uh...[reaching for words] Coltrane, man. [With certainty] That was like Coltrane on guitar!!"

To say I was blown away would be a total understatement. I mean, c'mon, Mike Bloomfield comparing me to one of my heroes?!? I was speechless. I was so flustered all I could say was thank you, give him a big smile, and go down to the dressing room.

Of all the comments that have been made about my guitar playing over the years, that's the one I'll remember until the day I die. It meant a huge amount to me. I can still see the expressions on his face as he said that.

Not that I know of.

Yes and no. I think Big Brother was probably the kind of band that just came out and did their thing, for better or for worse on any given night, regardless of what happened beforehand. BUT, the audience started out being up for a good time, and we really did deliver, so when Janis came on, there was no need for them to warm up the crowd. They started at the level of energy you normally have about a third of the way through the set, when the audience is getting into what you're doing, so it just got even better from there. One of the reasons we opened for so many bands before we started headlining was because we were good at warming up a crowd, then delivering them on a silver platter to the headliners.

But it can also work the other way. We played an arena gig opening for the Doors once, and honestly, we were a whole lot better. It was kind of sad that during the Doors' set, people started walking out - a lot of them had come primarily to see us, and considered the Doors as icing on the cake. When the Doors didn't deliver, they left.

Now, I should add that the band was fine. Morrison was the problem. Can't remember if Doug Lubahn was playing bass for that concert or not (I think he was - a great bass player for sure, whether with the Doors or Clear Light), but Ray Manzarek was always good - whenever I run into him he calls me "bro," which is kind of cool, too . Anyway, there are still some references floating around the net about the time we blew the Doors off the stage.

But really, that wasn't anywhere near as gratifying as what Mike Bloomfield said. I wanted the Doors to be great, so having people come up and say "Wow, you guys were so much better than the Doors" actually kind of bothered me. That wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

And speaking of Clear Light - their lead signer was Cliff de Young, but the driving force was their guitarist, a guy named Bob Seal. When we shared a billing with Clear Light, during afternoon sound check Bob was really distressed as he came up on stage. His guitar had been damaged somehow in transit, and he wanted to know if he could borrow a guitar for the night. Well, he seemed like a nice enough guy, so I said sure, went back to my apartment, and got a spare guitar (Gibson SG variant, IIRC). He ended up liking the guitar, and asked if he could borrow it for the rest of the tour. Uh...well...

I said yes, because my gut told me he was okay guy. Sure enough, a couple months later, the guitar showed up at my door with a thank you note. And that could have been the end of the story, but...

Fast forward about 15 years or so (give or take a few years, maybe it was more like 20), and I was giving a seminar in San Diego. Who walked in but Bob Seal, giving me some payback by supporting my seminar. It was actually great to see him after all those years. He thanked me again for loaning the guitar, and I thanked him again for returning it. And that could have been the end of the story, but...

One of the things I was doing at those seminars was what I called the "tube sound pop quiz." I wanted to show that most people who were tube snobs were really just blowing smoke and couldn't really tell the difference between real tubes, modeled tubes, solid state, etc. - I think there were about a half dozen examples. I gave that pop quiz in dozens of seminars to hundreds, maybe even thousands, of guitar players. The ONLY person who ever identified all the sounds accurately as to their source was...Bob Seal.

I'm lovin' these stories.

I gotta get back to work, but someday I'll tell you about Zappa's "Dynamite Blurch Injector" tape at Apostolic Studios in New York. Or maybe not...maybe I'll just write a book and make everyone buy it .

I really do have a zillion stories. It's very rare that I talk about them, though, nostalgia isn't really my thing because what's happening now is pretty cool, too. I feel just as honored playing with a musician as amazing as Dr. Walker. I guess the only reason I feel comfortable dropping all these names and such is because we're family here, y'all know what I'm about so this is just a conversation among friends.

Then there were all the Keith Moon stories that it seemed every security guard at every venue had...oh well, gotta go.

There are reports on the web about you upstaging the Strawberry Alarm Clock. I was there that night. I think that's when I became addicted to your sound and make your shows nearly a weekly event in my life, even forgoing a Vanilla Fudge concert next door at the Electric Factory (I think I regret that one ). You probably went over there on your break