The Janis Joplin stamp is the second issue that I have produced for the Music Icons series.  The first was Lydia   Mendoza.  Because Janis is from Port Arthur, Texas, a town next door to Port Neches, I had hoped the stamp would have been released in her hometown, but it took place in San Francisco, California.  It was after I researched her life that I understood the connection.  Janis Joplin was quoted as saying, “Texas is OK if you want to settle down and do your own thing quietly, but it’s not for outrageous people, and I was always outrageous.”  I have come to believe that she was indeed outrageous!  There is no way around it, Janis Joplin was a coarse, unrefined, brazen woman.  She would stand before her audience, microphone in hand, long hair flailing, sweat flying from her contorted face, and with abandon she sang with more than just her voice.  Her involvement was total and she lived that way too.  Contrary to what has been written in regard to her relationship with her parents, Janis actually had a stable and supportive family.  Oh no, her parents didn’t understand nor accept her wild destructive behavior, but they never turned their back on her.  She always felt the freedom to return home to visit, or to live, which she did many times following graduation.  Her dad, Seth Joplin was interviewed in his home following his daughter’s death.  When asked if the media had been fair to his daughter, he said they had been fairer since her death, supposing that it’s harder to attack someone when they are gone.  Mr. Joplin said that Janis left home with their approval and their funds—it was not approval in the strictest sense, but there  wasn’t much they could do about it.  

Read the article in its entirety in the 6-page 

February 2015 Bevil newsletter, which

accompanies the cover.