Janis Joplin | An inscribed copy of the only solo record released in Joplin's lifetime

Janis Joplin

I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! CBS: 1970

LP in the original record sleeve (catalogue number CBS 37650), inscribed by Janis Joplin on the rear cover; overall worn and rubbed, splitting along top and bottom edges, some soiling to rear cover, but inscription bright and clear, ownership signature on rear cover and ownership labels on front cover, lacking the original inner sleeve but with plastic inner sleeve. [With:] A signed letter of authenticity from James Spence Authentication.

An inscribed copy of the only solo record released in Joplin's lifetime. The present copy is the Brazilian mono pressing of the record, and the inscription reads, "To Carlos, voce bonito!!! Thank you so much | Love | Amor | Love | Janis Joplin." I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! was the singer-songwriter's solo debut, following her departure from Big Brother and the Holding Company.

The present copy was presumably signed during her 1970 visit to Brazil. During the summer and fall of 1969, Joplin had performed a number of high-profile shows under increasingly debilitating levels of intoxication, as her addiction to heroin and alcohol worsened. In a contemporary interview with David Dalton, she recognized the dire state of the situation, when she told him that her audiences at Madison Square Garden, "watch[ed] every note, every movement, with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes" (Dalton, p. 176). By the end of December, her Kozmic Blues Band had broken up, and in February she left the United States for Brazil.

There she attempted to kick her heroin addiction and fell in love with a fellow American traveler, David Niehaus, who helped to keep her from drugs. In a phone interview at the time she said, "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" (Rolling Stone).

Upon returning to the Bay Area, however, her battles with heroin addiction began once again. On 4 October of that same year, Joplin died of an overdose in her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Los Angeles, where she was staying while in the process of recording her next album with her new band, Full Tilt Boogie.

REFERENCE:

David Dalton, Piece of My Heart: A Portrait of Janis Joplin, New York: Da Capo Press, 1991; "Goodbye, Janis Joplin," Rolling Stone, 29 October 1970