Extraordinary Women: JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE (2015) – With Q&A!

Janis Joplin tore the song out of her gut, the longing, the need to be loved, the pain, the vulnerability, the energy. Her career was meteoric – taking off in 1967 after her performance at the Monterey Pop Festival; she was a memorable act in 1969 at Woodstock; by October, 1970 she was dead at the age of 27. She left only four albums, but performances that are as powerful today as when they were made more than a half century ago.

Where did that unique voice come from? What magic combination of experience, talent, drive and happenstance created Janice Joplin? Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg tries to solve the puzzle in her documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue.

Our guest, music historian Rob Bowman will also help put Joplin’s life and unique art in perspective and explore her powerful legacy. 

In her documentary, Berg has compiled interviews with Joplin’s family, childhood friends, musical associates, TV host Dick Cavett and such noted colleagues as Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. She’s included Joplin’s own words from letters she wrote to her parents over the years. New audio and video of Joplin in concert and in the studio and footage from her emotional return to Texas for her 10th high school reunion, add texture to Joplin’s remarkable story.