Janis Joplin on stage. Photo courtesy Penguin Group.

John Byrne Cooke first saw Janis Joplin on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival. As a member for documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker's crew Cooke was part of the group capturing the Big Brother and the Holding Company's breakthrough performance.

"It was the first time most people saw her perform. The band was very well known around the Bay Area but not much known beyond that."

Shortly after Monterey Pop Cooke was recruited to be the road manager for Big Brother and the Holding Company. 

When Cooke moved to the Bay Area to work with the band he found not only a music scene but the beginnings of a social movement. 

"They had an anti-commercial ethic," Cooke says. "The ethic of San Francisco was a very strong influence on Janis."

Hard drugs would also creep into that counterculture. Cooke was the one to discover Joplin had died of a drug overdose.

"She was straight and extremely proud of it for many months," Cooke tells Steve Fast that Janis was "chipping" to curb the nagging addicton and not using heavily at the time of her death. "We can't say what would have happened if she hadn't died when she did but I think she might well have overcome, banished that demon forever." 

Although his years with Joplin were just a small part of his career, Cooke says that the impact of the era's music compelled him to write about his stint as Janis's road manager and friend.

"She made such an impact during that three year career on the national stage," Cooke says. "Janis grabs you. And somehow this reaches across the years to generations of people that weren't born when she was alive."

Listen to the interview: John Byrne Cooke on The Steve Fast Show

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