Opinion: Janis Joplin's Revels

02/12/2018 - 10h57

The Rio de Janeiro carnival resurrected from the Sambadrome, where it had been buried for 30 years, and returned to the streets, which is where it belongs.

The carnival street bands have not managed to make their theme songs survive after parade day; however, there is evidence that the music is also likely to recover the same importance it had before.

We still have to give back to carnival the prestige it had and made it attract big names. In recent years, Madonna, Schwarzenegger and other celebrities attended the celebrations - we know because there are pictures of them in box seats sponsored by a brand of beer. However, in the 1950s and 60s, they did not just go to the parties.

They took over the city and (literally) mixed with the natives. Some of them, such as Rock Hudson, Romy Schneider, Jayne Mansfield and Odile Rubirosa, went down in the history of Brazilian carnival.

It was also the case of rock singer Janis Joplin, who had already become a star with the LP "Cheap Thrills" as well as her performance in Woodstock, and arrived in Rio's carnival celebrations unexpectedly in 1970.

She came to Brazil to take a break from heroin, a drug she was told did not exist in Rio de Janeiro. And, in fact, it did not exist; however, as the singer fought on two fronts, heroin and alcohol, there were plenty of substances for her: Fogo Paulista liqueur, Dunbar egg liqueur and vodka - two bottles of each per day.

During one week Joplin drank and hung around with local rock musicians, watched the samba school parades, played jams in small nightclubs, sunbathed topless at the famous Copacaba Palace hotel, got dangerously sunburned at Macumba beach and was not allowed to enter the ball at the Municipal Theater as she was mistaken for a beggar.

However, her main adventure was, amid an alcoholic coma in Ipanema, having the hair in her armpits shaved by a group of teenagers. She died eight months later, although due to other causes.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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