Influence
Joplin had a profound influence on many singers. 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.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."Read more about this topic: Janis Joplin
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“The talk shows are stuffed full of sufferers who have regained their health—congressmen who suffered through a serious spell of boozing and skirt-chasing, White House aides who were stricken cruelly with overweening ambition, movie stars and baseball players who came down with acute cases of wanting to trash hotel rooms while under the influence of recreational drugs. Most of them have found God, or at least a publisher.”
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“Concord River is remarkable for the gentleness of its current, which is scarcely perceptible, and some have referred to its influence the proverbial moderation of the inhabitants of Concord, as exhibited in the Revolution, and on later occasions.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)