Janis: Little Girl Blue Page #2

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you doing tonight'?

Where are we going?

She was a lot of trouble.

We went to Louisiana, and

she would start fights which

we didn't want started

because the Cajuns

were known, good fighters.

But she got a kick out of it,

just playing the bad girl.

She wasn't a bad girl.

I mean, she just

liked to bait the men.

You know, we would deny

all knowledge of her

and barely escape

with our lives.

That made her real

dangerous to take to a bar.

I mean, she was amusing, so we

took her to the beach with us.

She borrowed some records

which were obscure.

One of them was a

record by Odetta.

All of a sudden, she busted into

a perfect imitation of Odetta

on the record, and

everybody was just

stunned... this little,

troublesome kid, you know,

could sing that well.

This particular

night Janis said,

let's go see this

wonderful Austin

you're always talking about.

So we pulled in at

five thirty in the morning,

and you could hear music.

And it wasn't recorded music.

It was live music.

And Janis grabbed my

arm, and she said,

Jack, I am going

to like it here.

On accident, I discovered

I had an incredibly loud voice.

So I started singing blues

because that was always

what I liked, and, you know,

I got in a bluegrass band,

played hillbilly music in

Austin, Texas for free beer.

I used to sing at folk

clubs just for a goof.

We call ourselves

the Waller Creek Boys,

and instantly Janis

became one of the boys.

People just stared

open mouthed, and she

was not ever accepted, really,

except by the folk community.

Growing up, her peers picked

on her and bullied her.

And by the time

she got to Austin,

and by the time I knew

her, she had already been

profoundly hurt over and over.

And so in Austin,

it was the same way.

Every year, the

fraternities held a contest,

and people could nominate

someone to be ugliest man.

And someone nominated Janis, and

all these jerks voted for her.

And it crushed her,

saddest thing I ever saw.

You know, it really was.

To that point, I'd

never seen Janis cry.

Janis had a very tough

exterior, but it really got her.

It got her bad.

And I said, Janis, they

don't mean anything to you.

They're... they're not

even in your class.

It became increasingly

harder to fit

into a group of angry, angry

men who liked to pick on her.

Even though she ran around with

a tight group of friends that

were into books and

ideas, she needed

to go out to where

the people were

that wrote those books,

where the people were

that sung those songs.

Where does she go?

What does she do?

San Francisco.

It would have to be about

'63 or something like that.

I couldn't stand Texas anymore,

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