Hmm. Interesting.

A few years back, one of Seattle's many theaters (Seattle is a great town for actors. Lots of live theater, both large and small) was in the process of assembling a play about Janis Joplin. Sounds like it might possibly be related to the play that Amos mentioned. The trick, of course, was to find an actor-singer who could play Janis. They did. A locally-based singer named Duffy Bishop, who looks a bit like Janis, and although she has her own style, she can do such a spot-on imitation of Janis that it's downright spooky!

The musical play, as I understand it, was aborted by Janis's "estate." There was a lot of flak flying around about the play, and the story never did get told clearly, but what I heard was that Janis's family (who was so-o-o-o supportive of her singing career when she was alive that they considered her an embarrassment to both the family and the conservative little community of Port Arthur, Texas—then they found out that, even dead, she's a "hot property") didn't have absolute control over the production, nor were they getting as big a cut of the proceeds as they wanted. They filed a law suit and had the Seattle production closed.

Duffy's doing fine, though. She has one helluva singing career going.

Web site. Click on the CD graphic for sound-clips.

Don Firth