12 - STEPPING OUT Jackson Hole News&Guide, Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The films in The Unseen Janis Joplin capture the late singers incandescent quality. They will be screened Sunday at the Center for the Arts.

JOHN BYRNE COOKE / www.cookephoto.com

Piece of her heart

Continued from cover

On Sunday evening at the Center for the Arts, Cooke will host The Unseen Janis Joplin, a screening of five movies he made from 8mm footage he took while on tour, including the never-before-seen I Got Dem Ol Kozmic Blues Again, Mama. The other four have been seen only once before, at the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to Joplin. The films range in length from 4 to 24 minutes. At the center, Cooke will introduce each film with contextual cues and then answer questions after screening all five. The event runs from 7 to 9 p.m. and costs $15 for a general admission seat. Proceeds benefit the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, which Cooke has been involved with as a faculty member since its start. Cookes films are a rare window on a life much observed: from cab rides to rehearsals, from her dressing room to panoramas from planes. A celebration rather than an examination, they capture Joplin in all her gritty glory. Nobody worked for Janis very long if they didnt love her, Cooke said. In 1967, when Cooke signed on with Big Brother, the role of road manager had just been invented by Albert Grossman, the seminal folk music manager, for Bob Dylan. Dylans road manager, Bob Neuwirth, was an old buddy of Cookes from Cambridge, Mass., and gave him crucial advice about the job: Dont be a fan. You cant just hang around being their lap dog. There will be times when you Who: John Byrne Cooke What: The Unseen Janis Joplin When: 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday Where: Center Theater, Center for the Arts How much: $15

John Byrne Cooke, Janis Joplins road manager for three years, offers a rare window into the 1960s icons life with his films. When anyone asks him about her, I always tell people what I think they dont know about her, he said, which is that she was funny and she was very smart.

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have to tell them what to do. When Big Brother signed on with Grossman, Grossman called Neuwirth, who recommended Cooke. As Joplins road manager, Cooke turned on his camera only after tending to all his responsibilities: booking travel, organizing equipment, monitoring gate receipts (in those days, the ticket office was a loose affair). One Massachusetts hotel marquee greeted the band with Welcome the John Cooke Group. Cookes footage spotlights Joplins charismatic personality, so thoroughly expressed in all aspects of her life, from her mural-painted Porsche to her favorite fur coat and hat (a gift from Southern Comfort), from her playfulness with the camera to rapture onstage. It also frames behindthe-scenes band antics such as

Richard Bell giving a high-heeled Joplin a piggyback ride across a patch of snow, only to tumble down, laughing, the instant Cooke turned to film them and the whirling energy of the time. Reunion juxtaposes the jolly Joplin, her wild mane accented by a boa headdress, with her dowdy bouffant classmates. It begins with her culinary prowess and then captures the befuddled wake that followed her around town. Road Block epitomizes the colorful cacophony that was Joplin. The short film opens with her singing Mercedes Benz as the camera pans across the riotous paint job by Dave Richards, the equipment guy for Big Brother and the Holding Company. The Porsche, originally clad in 17 coats of hand-rubbed pearl-gray

lacquer, now featured a rowdy array of imagery: a paisley sun, moon and Earth; toadstools and sunflowers; moths and butterflies; a bleeding American flag; Sputnik. Now restored, the car is parked in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Thats it, Joplin cackles as the credits roll. Before joining Joplin, Cooke worked with D.A. Pennebaker on the film crew for the Monterey Pop Festival. On the road, he filmed with a Fuji camera, using black-and-white film, then color, always silent. He edited for pictures splicing the original film himself and then added the complementary music all Joplins, of course: Road Block for the Porsche short; Work Me, Lord during the European cultural montage. In some frames, Cooke knew which songs she was singing and mirrored those moments. The Unseen Janis Joplin uses more than two-thirds of the film he shot. Cooke approached the road manager job as transitional, something to do for six months while he figured out his own art. At Harvard University, he had established himself as a folk figure with the Charles River Valley Boys, a staple of the Cambridge coffeehouse scene. My role in life is to do my work, but right now, I dont know what my work is, he said of his mindset at the time. This job is going to get me to travel all over and meet all kinds of people and have time to think about what I want to do. After the first month, Grossman called him: I dont think its working, he said, citing incompatible lifestyles. Cooke confronted the situation head-on, calling a meeting with the band members. He sat them down and
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