King of Ragtime

King of Ragtime
Author: Stephen Costanza
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2021-09-14
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1534410376

A stunning, rhythmic picture book biography of African American composer Scott Joplin, whose ragtime music paved the way for jazz. There was something special about Scott Joplin… This quiet kid could make a piano laugh out loud. Scott, the son of a man who had been enslaved, became a king—the King of Ragtime. This celebration of Scott Joplin, whose ragtime compositions paved the way for jazz, will captivate audiences and put a beat in their step, and the kaleidoscope-like illustrations will draw young readers in again and again.

Joplin: 5

Joplin: 5
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2011-10-03
Genre: Jasper County (Mo.)
ISBN: 9781611690170

Details of the tornado that destroyed central Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011.

Janis

Janis
Author: Holly George-Warren
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476793123

Longlisted for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence This blazingly intimate biography of Janis Joplin establishes the Queen of Rock & Roll as the rule-breaking musical trailblazer and complicated, gender-bending rebel she was. Janis Joplin’s first transgressive act was to be a white girl who gained an early sense of the power of the blues, music you could only find on obscure records and in roadhouses along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But even before that, she stood out in her conservative oil town. She was a tomboy who was also intellectually curious and artistic. By the time she reached high school, she had drawn the scorn of her peers for her embrace of the Beats and her racially progressive views. Her parents doted on her in many ways, but were ultimately put off by her repeated acts of defiance. Janis Joplin has passed into legend as a brash, impassioned soul doomed by the pain that produced one of the most extraordinary voices in rock history. But in these pages, Holly George-Warren provides a revelatory and deeply satisfying portrait of a woman who wasn’t all about suffering. Janis was a perfectionist: a passionate, erudite musician who was born with talent but also worked exceptionally hard to develop it. She was a woman who pushed the boundaries of gender and sexuality long before it was socially acceptable. She was a sensitive seeker who wanted to marry and settle down—but couldn’t, or wouldn’t. She was a Texan who yearned to flee Texas but could never quite get away—even after becoming a countercultural icon in San Francisco. Written by one of the most highly regarded chroniclers of American music history, and based on unprecedented access to Janis Joplin’s family, friends, band mates, archives, and long-lost interviews, Janis is a complex, rewarding portrait of a remarkable artist finally getting her due.

Buried Alive

Buried Alive
Author: Myra Friedman
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2011-04-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307790525

Electrifying, highly acclaimed, and intensely personal, this new and updated version of Myra Friedman's classic biography of Janis Joplin teems with dramatic insights into Joplin's genius and into the chaotic times that catapulted her to fame as the legendary queen of rock. It is a stunning panorama of the turbulent decade when Joplin's was the rallying voice of a generation that lost itself in her music and found itself in her words. From her small hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, from the intimate coffeehouses to the supercharged concert halls, from the glitter of worldwide fame to her tragic end in a Hollywood hotel, here is all the fire and anguish of an immortal, immensely talented, and troubled performer who devoured everything the rock scene had to offer in a fatal attempt to make peace with herself and her era. Yet, in an eloquent introduction recently written by the author, Joplin emerges from her "ugly duckling" childhood as a woman truly ahead of her time, an outrageous rebel, a defiant outcast and artist of incomparable authenticity who, almost in spite of herself, became to so many a symbol of triumph over adversity. This edition also contains an afterword detailing the whereabouts of a large and colorful cast of characters who were part of Joplin's life, as well as "We Remember Janis," a new chapter of poignant and affectionate anecdotes told by friends.

32 Minutes in May

32 Minutes in May
Author: Joplin Globe
Publisher:
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2011-11
Genre: Disaster relief
ISBN: 9781597253413

"Pictorial book that chronicles the devastation wrought by the tornado that hit the city of Joplin, Missouri and the indomitable spirit of the citizens as they recover and rebuild." --publisher website

Love, Janis

Love, Janis
Author: Laura Joplin
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2017-12-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062798170

A revealing and intimate biography about Janis Joplin, the Queen of Classic Rock, written by her younger sister. Janis Joplin blazed across the sixties music scene, electrifying audiences with her staggering voice and the way she seemed to pour her very soul into her music. By the time her life and artistry were cut tragically short by a heroin overdose, Joplin had become the stuff of rock–and–roll legend. Through the eyes of her family and closest friends , we see Janis as a young girl, already rebelling against injustice, racism, and hypocrisy in society. We follow Janis as she discovers her amazing talents in the Beat hangouts of Venice and North Beach–singing in coffeehouses, shooting speed to enhance her creativity, challenging the norms of straight society. Janis truly came into her own in the fantastic, psychedelic, acid–soaked world of Haight–Asbury. At the height of her fame, Janis's life is a whirlwind of public adoration and hard living. Laura Joplin shows us not only the public Janice who could drink Jim Morrison under the table and bean him with a bottle of booze when he got fresh; she shows us the private Janis, struggling to perfect her art, searching for the balance between love and stardom, battling to overcome her alcohol addiction and heroin use in a world where substance abuse was nearly universal. At the heart of Love, Janis is an astonishing series of letters by Janis herself that have never been previously published. In them she conveys as no one else could the wild ride from awkward small–town teenager to rock–and–roll queen. Love, Janis is the new life of Janis Joplin we have been waiting for–a celebration of the sixties' joyous experimentation and creativity, and a loving, compassionate examination of one of that era's greatest talents.

Girls Like Us

Girls Like Us
Author: Sheila Weller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 706
Release: 2008-04-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1416564772

A groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America’s most important musical artists—Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon—charts their lives as women at a magical moment in time. Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music. Each woman is distinct. Carole King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York City; Joni Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers; and Carly Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. They collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s. Their stories trace the arc of the now mythic sixties generation—female version—but in a bracingly specific and deeply recalled way, far from cliché. The history of the women of that generation has never been written—until now, through their resonant lives and emblematic songs. Filled with the voices of many dozens of these women's intimates, who are speaking in these pages for the first time, this alternating biography reads like a novel—except it’s all true, and the heroines are famous and beloved. Sheila Weller captures the character of each woman and gives a balanced portrayal enriched by a wealth of new information. Girls Like Us is an epic treatment of midcentury women who dared to break tradition and become what none had been before them—confessors in song, rock superstars, and adventurers of heart and soul.

Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin
Author: Ann Angel
Publisher: ABRAMS
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1683355970

Forty years after her death, Janis Joplin remains among the most compelling and influential figures in rock-and-roll history. Her story—told here with depth and sensitivity by author Ann Angel—is one of a girl who struggled against rules and limitations, yet worked diligently to improve as a singer. It’s the story of an outrageous rebel who wanted to be loved, and of a wild woman who wrote long, loving letters to her mom. And finally, it’s the story of one of the most iconic female musicians in American history, who died at twenty-seven. Janis Joplin includes more than sixty photographs, and an assortment of anecdotes from Janis’s friends and band mates. This thoroughly researched and well-illustrated biography is a must-have for all young artists, music lovers, and pop-culture enthusiasts.

King of Ragtime

King of Ragtime
Author: Edward A. Berlin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 1996-01-11
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0195356462

In 1974, the academy award-winning film The Sting brought back the music of Scott Joplin, a black ragtime composer who died in 1917. Led by The Entertainer, one of the most popular pieces of the mid-1970s, a revival of his music resulted in events unprecedented in American musical history. Never before had any composer's music been so acclaimed by both the popular and classical music worlds. While reaching a "Top Ten" position in the pop charts, Joplin's music was also being performed in classical recitals and setting new heights for sales of classical records. His opera Treemonisha was performed both in opera houses and on Broadway. Destined to be the definitive work on the man and his music, King of Ragtime is written by Edward A. Berlin. A renowned authority on Joplin and the author of the acclaimed and widely cited Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History, Berlin redefines the Scott Joplin biography. Using the tools of a trained musicologist, he has uncovered a vast amount of new information about Joplin. His biography truly documents the story of the composer, replacing the myths and unsupported anecdotes of previous histories. He shows how Joplin's opera Treemonisha was a tribute to the woman he loved, a woman other biographers never even mentioned. Berlin also reveals that Joplin was an associate of Irving Berlin, and that he accused Berlin of stealing his music to compose Alexander's Ragtime Band in 1911. Berlin paints a vivid picture of the ragtime years, placing Scott Joplin's story in its historical context. The composer emerges as a representative of the first post-Civil War generation of African Americans, of the men and women who found in the world of entertainment a way out of poverty and lowly social status. King of Ragtime recreates the excitement of these pioneers, who dreamed of greatness as they sought to expand the limits society placed upon their race.

Haunted Joplin

Haunted Joplin
Author: Lisa Livingston-Martin
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2012-09-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1614236844

From Native American societies to the Civil War to the crime spree of Bonnie and Clyde, Joplin’s history leaves spirited legends in its wake . . . The barrier between Joplin’s boisterous past and its present is as flimsy as a swinging saloon door. Lisa Livingston-Martin kicks it wide open in this ghostly history. In her expert company, tour a hotel with a reputation made from equal parts opulence and tragedy. Visit that house of horrors, the Stefflebeck Bordello, where guests regularly got the axe and were disposed of in mine shafts. Navigate through angry lynch mobs and vengeful patrols of Civil War spirits. Catch a glimpse of Bonnie and Clyde. Keep your wits about you—it’s haunted Joplin. Includes photos! “There may be as many non-living residents of Joplin as there are live ones, according to Haunted Joplin.” —The Morning Sun