Less than two months later, she was dead of an overdose. Harvard Stadium was her final public performance. I was crushed, but figured I'd catch Joplin at her next Boston-area concert. I looked at my sister, but she kept walking to the car. She announced we were leaving and no sooner had we gotten onto the parking lot, heading for our car, when we heard a crowd roar and then some music. We would learn later that the band’s sound gear was stolen and they were waiting for replacement equipment.Īfter three hours, my sister, who had the car and car keys, had had enough. We waited and waited and waited some more. More than a Red Sox game where nearly everyone in the stadium roots for the team, a Janis Joplin concert drew hardcore fans and not people who couldn’t think of anything better to do that night. When we arrived at the stadium, it was my chance to get a taste of one of the headliners at the Woodstock event I missed the summer before. To be sure, Joplin was not her cup of tea, but I’ve got to give her credit for agreeing to take me. I begged my sister Debbie, already in college, to take her younger, 16-year-old brother to see his idol wail her version of the blues. And it just happened that nine days after her appearance with Dick Cavett, she was scheduled to appear with her Full Tilt Boogie Band at Harvard Stadium as part of the Schaefer Music Festival, just 40 minutes away. Seeing Joplin on TV was second best to seeing her in person. I loved Cavett’s introduction of Joplin: “I would like you to meet a lady who has been called a combination of Lead Belly, a steam engine, Calamity Jane and Bessie Smith.” Somehow, it captured her. While Joplin wailed the blues with pink and green feather boas in her hair, other guests that night included Old Hollywood legend Gloria Swanson, new Hollywood actress Margot Kidder and former NFL player Dave Meggesy. Cavett, as I recall, had eclectic taste in guests. But it was odd as well, that this symbol of the counterculture was on a mainstream television network. It was a treat to see her on the Dick Cavett show on August 3, 1970. The album reached the top of the Billboard 200 album chart in 1968 and Joplin’s classic single from that album, "Piece of My Heart,” came in at No. I must have played her "Cheap Thrills" album on my reel-to-reel tape machine more times than I can count. Janis Joplin had a raw, rebellious howl that spoke to me in ways I still can’t fully explain. One of the performers at Max Yasgur’s farm - a white blues artist from Port Arthur, Texas - was already a star, thanks to her performance two years earlier at Monterrey Pop. Two years later, I was too young (according to my parents) to go to Woodstock, but oh, how I wanted to be there. When Aretha Franklin released "Respect," I was 13 and instantly hooked. Growing up in Marblehead, not far from the ocean, I probably spent more time with clunky headphones on (decades before the earbud), listening to music, than I did on the beach or at the harbor. But to understand why I’ve been nursing this festering wound for half a century, you have to know a bit about my teenage years. I’m the first to concede that 50 years is a long time to not fully let go. It’s something I should have gotten over quickly, a fleeting disappointment. It was August 12, 1970, a painful night, to be sure - not in the root canal sense, but in the missed opportunity sense. Until I saw a story in The Boston Globe a few days ago, I didn’t realize the 50th anniversary of an evening I’ll never forget had snuck up on me. Facebook Email Amateur photographer Peter Warrack shot photos of Janis Joplin performing at Harvard Stadium, August 12, 1970.
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