In the early morning hours between midnight and dawn (around 2:00 a.m.) on Sunday, August 17, 1969, Janis Joplin stepped on stage for her delayed, yet historic, set during the three-day Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York. Donned in her long-sleeved tie-dyed getup, this was Joplin’s first big performance without her band Big Brother & The Holding Company, which she had left the year prior following the release of their album Cheap Thrills.
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Walking out to an audience that was bigger than she expected, Joplin braved the crowd with some new songs, along with a few covers and Big Brother favorites. Though criticized at first for not sounding like her iconic performances with her epic sets with Big Brother and the Holding Company (1967 Monterey Pop Festival), Joplin’s Woodstock performance catapulted her in rock history.
“How are you guys out there?” said Joplin to the crowd, checking on the cheering audience in the dark. “You’re staying stoned and you got enough water and you got a place to sleep and everything? Because all of us — and I don’t mean to be preachy — but we oughta remember and that means promoters too, that music’s for grooving man and music’s not for putting yourself through bad changes. You don’t have to take anybody’s shit, man, just to like music.”
Joplin opened with a rousing cover of Eddie Floyd’s “Raise Your Hand.” She was backed by the Kozmic Blues Band — guitarist John Till, keyboardist Richard Kermode, bassist Brad Campbell, drummer Maury Baker, with Terry Clements (tenor saxophone), Luis Gasca (trumpet) and Cornelius “Snooky” Flowers (baritone saxophone).
The band followed up with their first new track, “As Good As You’ve Been To This World,” off Joplin’s then-forthcoming 1969 debut I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Bringing the groove down a bit, Joplin offered a soothing cover of the Bee Gees’ hit “To Love Somebody,” which was also featured on her “new” album, along with a sultry rendition of George and Ira Gershwin’s classic standard “Summertime,” which she had previously covered on Cheap Thrills,
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Joplin ripped through the 11-song set, stretching her vocals to the limit. She took the energy back up with two more new songs, “Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)” and the ballad “Kozmic Blues.”
Tenor saxophonist Snooky Flowers helped along with a stomping rendition of Otis Redding’s 1965 hit “Can’t Turn You Loose” before they closed the set with Nick Gravenites-penned “Work Me, Lord,” which Joplin wailed through until couldn’t sing any longer.
Cheered back by the audience, Joplin returned and closed her Woodstock performance with two Cheap Thrills tracks. Those songs were her biggest hit “Piece Of My Heart” and a cover of Big Mama Thornton’s “Ball And Chain,” scratching and screaming through and giving the audience every last piece of herself.
Janis Joplin’s Woodstock 1969 Setlist:
- “Raise Your Hand”
- “As Good as You’ve Been To This World”
- “To Love Somebody”
- “Summertime”
- “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)”
- “Kozmic Blues”
- “Can’t Turn You Loose”
- “Work Me, Lord”
- “Piece of My Heart”
- “Ball and Chain”
Photo: John Byrne Cooke Estate/Getty Images
