Fact #64326
When:
Short story:
Janis Joplin dies of a heroin overdose in The Landmark Motel, Los Angeles, California, USA.Full article:
THE DEATH OF JANIS JOPLIN by Johnny Black
It's October 3, 1970 and after an exhausting tour Janis Joplin and her new group, the Full Tilt Boogie Band are holed up in Sunset Sound, Hollywood, working on a new album. Joplin's about to finish her version of 'Me And Bobby McGhee'. In 24 hours she'll be found dead.
DATE: October 3 & 4, 1970
LOCATION: Los Angeles
SATURDAY
12.00 noon
Richard Bell (pianist): Janis was anything but depressed that day. We'd gotten to Sunset Sound ahead of her, and we started working on the instrumental tracks for a Nick Gravenites song, 'Buried Alive In The Blues'.
3.00pm
Richard Bell: I've heard some reports that lots of people dropped by the studio that day but that's not the case. We had a closed set with very few people around unless they needed to be there. When Janis got to the studio in the middle of the afternoon, we were on pins and needles as to whether she'd like it. I remember the feeling of relief when she grinned and said, "I love it."
4.00pm
Carl Gottlieb (TV producer, friend): It was nearly John Lennon's birthday, so everybody who'd been using Sunset Sound had been making their own versions of 'Happy Birthday' for John, and the idea was that Paul Rothchild would edit them all together and send them on to John. So Janis did her version, and right at the end she went into her inimitable cackle and said, "Happy birthday John, from Janis Joplin and the Full Tilt Boogie Band."
Richard Bell: It was a good day. We were doing really well. She was satisfied with 'Me And Bobby McGhee', which we got on the first or second take. There was the question of her vocal for 'Buried Alive In The Blues', but she decided to do it the next day.
11.00pm
Richard Bell: We'd had a really good evening in the studio, because we could see the end of the road. 'Buried Alive' was the last cut on the album and we knew we'd get that done the next day. We finished around eleven, which was reasonably early, so Kenny (Pearson, organist) and I went out with Janis for a bite to eat at Barney's Beanery. I remember that she said she was going to have just one drink. She was happy, real excited. We knew we had something good in the can. We talked about how she'd been restricted, and she was seeing what the future could be. In the end, I think she had two vodkas.
SUNDAY
1.00am
Richard Bell: It can't have been much after midnight that we drove back to the hotel in her Porsche, and a couple of minutes later we said goodnight. I think the last person to see her was the hotel clerk.
5.00pm
John Cooke (road manager): Early in the evening of October 4th, I got a call from Seth Morgan (Janis's fiancé). He was at San Francisco airport, I was at the Landmark Hotel. He was looking for Janis who was going to meet him at Burbank Airport. He had called the studio where Paul Rothchild and the band were working on the record and found her not there. I told Seth I was on my way to the studio and would talk to Paul and locate Janis before he arrived in Burbank.
6.00pm
John Cooke: People imagine that, because of her drinking and heroin problems, Janis would have been an irresponsible person. That wasn't true at all. I was always stressing that we had to behave like adults, and she did. She was usually at the studio within half an hour of the time she was due, so when Paul Rothchild rang me from Sunset to say that he was worried because Janis was very late, I figured it might be something serious. I rang her room and there was no reply. I checked the pool and she wasn't there, so I decided to go to the studio with her equipment men, Phil Badella and Vince Mitchell, to see if she'd turned up there. The hotel has an underground car park and as I pulled my car out, we noticed her car was in the driveway. By now it was getting dusk. I looked up to Janis's window and saw the light was on. It must have been on all day, but in the daylight we hadn't noticed. I assumed she'd just come in and switched it on, so I went up there but the door was locked.
7.30pm
John Cooke: I went straight to the desk and got a key, then went in and found Janis lying by the bed. I knew as soon as I went in that she was dead. It felt like her spirit was already gone. Rigor mortis had set in, so she must have been dead for some while. I can't say that it was completely unexpected. I know for a fact that she had been completely off heroin for about six months, but LA is the worst place for an addict, especially one who has lots of time to hang out. I had noticed a couple of weeks earlier that she was 'chipping' again — using small amounts of heroin to keep her going in the studio. I told her I was very disappointed, but in the end only an addict can do anything about getting off the stuff. One odd thing was that she had $4.50 in her hand. That didn't get explained until much later when the clerk remembered that Janis had come to the desk shortly after arriving from Barney's about one. She had a $5 bill and wanted change for cigarettes, which he gave her.
8.00pm
John Cooke: I think I got a bit irrational then. I re-locked the room and went and drove the car back into the garage. It was like I wanted to put everything back the way it had been before. We phoned Bob Gordon, Janis's lawyer in Brentwood, who called his brother-in-law, a doctor, who arrived at the hotel shortly after Bob.
8.15pm
John Cooke: I notified the hotel manager, Jack Hagy, a wonderful man who loved Janis and was very helpful. He and Bob Gordon called the police and I called Janis's parents. It was one of the worst things I've ever had to do. I woke her father up and, what can you do? There's no way to soften the blow. I just told him I had some terrible news, that his daughter was dead.
9.00pm
Thomas M. Noguchi (coroner): An L.A.P.D. policeman was on duty when I arrived. He told me that a needle and syringe had been removed from the scene but no heroin. I made my customary survey of the room and looked into a wastepaper basket. It contained a red 'balloon' with heroin. The policeman came over and stared. "Where'd that come from?" The expression on his face was comical. "We went over this room a hundred times and that basket was empty." Ironically, the reason for Janis Joplin's death was exactly the opposite of the tragedies caused by cut heroin. When an analysis came back from the lab, I found that what the dealer had sold her was almost pure heroin, more than ten times the power of the normal heroin she used. Her system was not prepared for, and could not cope with, the unexpected jolt.
Thanks: Barney Hoskyns, Peter Albin, John Goddard, Nick Gravenites, Myra Friedman, Ellis Amburn and Richard Bell's mum.
© Johnny Black, 1997
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It's October 3, 1970 and after an exhausting tour Janis Joplin and her new group, the Full Tilt Boogie Band are holed up in Sunset Sound, Hollywood, working on a new album. Joplin's about to finish her version of 'Me And Bobby McGhee'. In 24 hours she'll be found dead.
DATE: October 3 & 4, 1970
LOCATION: Los Angeles
SATURDAY
12.00 noon
Richard Bell (pianist): Janis was anything but depressed that day. We'd gotten to Sunset Sound ahead of her, and we started working on the instrumental tracks for a Nick Gravenites song, 'Buried Alive In The Blues'.
3.00pm
Richard Bell: I've heard some reports that lots of people dropped by the studio that day but that's not the case. We had a closed set with very few people around unless they needed to be there. When Janis got to the studio in the middle of the afternoon, we were on pins and needles as to whether she'd like it. I remember the feeling of relief when she grinned and said, "I love it."
4.00pm
Carl Gottlieb (TV producer, friend): It was nearly John Lennon's birthday, so everybody who'd been using Sunset Sound had been making their own versions of 'Happy Birthday' for John, and the idea was that Paul Rothchild would edit them all together and send them on to John. So Janis did her version, and right at the end she went into her inimitable cackle and said, "Happy birthday John, from Janis Joplin and the Full Tilt Boogie Band."
Richard Bell: It was a good day. We were doing really well. She was satisfied with 'Me And Bobby McGhee', which we got on the first or second take. There was the question of her vocal for 'Buried Alive In The Blues', but she decided to do it the next day.
11.00pm
Richard Bell: We'd had a really good evening in the studio, because we could see the end of the road. 'Buried Alive' was the last cut on the album and we knew we'd get that done the next day. We finished around eleven, which was reasonably early, so Kenny (Pearson, organist) and I went out with Janis for a bite to eat at Barney's Beanery. I remember that she said she was going to have just one drink. She was happy, real excited. We knew we had something good in the can. We talked about how she'd been restricted, and she was seeing what the future could be. In the end, I think she had two vodkas.
SUNDAY
1.00am
Richard Bell: It can't have been much after midnight that we drove back to the hotel in her Porsche, and a couple of minutes later we said goodnight. I think the last person to see her was the hotel clerk.
5.00pm
John Cooke (road manager): Early in the evening of October 4th, I got a call from Seth Morgan (Janis's fiancé). He was at San Francisco airport, I was at the Landmark Hotel. He was looking for Janis who was going to meet him at Burbank Airport. He had called the studio where Paul Rothchild and the band were working on the record and found her not there. I told Seth I was on my way to the studio and would talk to Paul and locate Janis before he arrived in Burbank.
6.00pm
John Cooke: People imagine that, because of her drinking and heroin problems, Janis would have been an irresponsible person. That wasn't true at all. I was always stressing that we had to behave like adults, and she did. She was usually at the studio within half an hour of the time she was due, so when Paul Rothchild rang me from Sunset to say that he was worried because Janis was very late, I figured it might be something serious. I rang her room and there was no reply. I checked the pool and she wasn't there, so I decided to go to the studio with her equipment men, Phil Badella and Vince Mitchell, to see if she'd turned up there. The hotel has an underground car park and as I pulled my car out, we noticed her car was in the driveway. By now it was getting dusk. I looked up to Janis's window and saw the light was on. It must have been on all day, but in the daylight we hadn't noticed. I assumed she'd just come in and switched it on, so I went up there but the door was locked.
7.30pm
John Cooke: I went straight to the desk and got a key, then went in and found Janis lying by the bed. I knew as soon as I went in that she was dead. It felt like her spirit was already gone. Rigor mortis had set in, so she must have been dead for some while. I can't say that it was completely unexpected. I know for a fact that she had been completely off heroin for about six months, but LA is the worst place for an addict, especially one who has lots of time to hang out. I had noticed a couple of weeks earlier that she was 'chipping' again — using small amounts of heroin to keep her going in the studio. I told her I was very disappointed, but in the end only an addict can do anything about getting off the stuff. One odd thing was that she had $4.50 in her hand. That didn't get explained until much later when the clerk remembered that Janis had come to the desk shortly after arriving from Barney's about one. She had a $5 bill and wanted change for cigarettes, which he gave her.
8.00pm
John Cooke: I think I got a bit irrational then. I re-locked the room and went and drove the car back into the garage. It was like I wanted to put everything back the way it had been before. We phoned Bob Gordon, Janis's lawyer in Brentwood, who called his brother-in-law, a doctor, who arrived at the hotel shortly after Bob.
8.15pm
John Cooke: I notified the hotel manager, Jack Hagy, a wonderful man who loved Janis and was very helpful. He and Bob Gordon called the police and I called Janis's parents. It was one of the worst things I've ever had to do. I woke her father up and, what can you do? There's no way to soften the blow. I just told him I had some terrible news, that his daughter was dead.
9.00pm
Thomas M. Noguchi (coroner): An L.A.P.D. policeman was on duty when I arrived. He told me that a needle and syringe had been removed from the scene but no heroin. I made my customary survey of the room and looked into a wastepaper basket. It contained a red 'balloon' with heroin. The policeman came over and stared. "Where'd that come from?" The expression on his face was comical. "We went over this room a hundred times and that basket was empty." Ironically, the reason for Janis Joplin's death was exactly the opposite of the tragedies caused by cut heroin. When an analysis came back from the lab, I found that what the dealer had sold her was almost pure heroin, more than ten times the power of the normal heroin she used. Her system was not prepared for, and could not cope with, the unexpected jolt.
Thanks: Barney Hoskyns, Peter Albin, John Goddard, Nick Gravenites, Myra Friedman, Ellis Amburn and Richard Bell's mum.
© Johnny Black, 1997