Walking past the grand facade of the Royal Albert Hall, Michael Joplin is surprised when the tears start falling. The legendary concert venue was the site of his late sister Janis’s only solo performance in the UK. And returning there brings the memories of his beloved sibling flooding back.
“I just happened to be out on a walk in the morning and saw it and I just started crying,” Michael says. “It was just so beautiful. My parents would have been blown away by the thought of Janis performing there.
” Michael was in London to oversee auditions for the new West End musical A Night With Janis Joplin, which opens in August. He was just 17 in 1970 when his sister, 27, was found dead from a heroin overdose on the floor of an LA hotel room. It was a tragic end for a musician who was riding the crest of a wave.
Just 18 months earlier, in April 1969, Joplin had won rave reviews in the British press. Pictures from the Mirror archive show the star, a cigarette in hand, relaxed and laughing for the cameras in central London. Buoyed by the success of her European tour, Joplin returned to the US, where her career went stratospheric.
Teenage Michael watched in awe as his sister grew into a superstar. It was far removed from their roots growing up in ultra-conservative Port Arthur, Texas, in the 1940s. Their parents used to push them both academically and musically.
“She was so articulate,” he recalls. “Our parents really urged us to be well-read. My dad used to have two volu.
