In celebration of what would have been The Queen of Rock & Roll’s 81st birthday today, Julien’s Auctions, the industry leading Rock N’ Roll memorabilia auction house, announced the sale of a beloved personal artifact from Janis Joplin: her personally owned pool table from her 1969 home in Larkspur, California (estimate of $10,000 - $20,000). The circa 1920 Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. Monarch Cushion 9' pool table that was in Joplin's home at the time of her death and remains in the same room of the house today will be offered for the first time at auction Monday, January 29, 2024 online at Julien's Auctions.
In Myra Friedman's 1973 biography of Joplin, titled Buried Alive, the book shares Joplin's own description of the house and mention of the pool table taken from a letter Joplin wrote to her friend Linda Gravenites at the time of the home purchase. Friedman wrote that "Janis described the house in elaborate detail and also presented a vision of the serene life she and Linda could have there. A one-story house, it was on a quiet dead-end street where there was no traffic at all..Through an all-glass wall, you could see the sundeck, which overlooked a stream...The perfect touch was added by a beautiful old Baldwin pool table, dated 1906." Although the details of the pool table were off – as she called it a Baldwin, who makes pianos not pool tables, Joplin also stated that she wanted to get a piano. Friedman continued, “When she reflected on these possibilities and the excitement of having the house with all the peace it could bring, she was sure it would be wonderful."
Joplin was photographed playing on the pool table with friends by Rolling Stone Magazine photographer Tony Lane (who would later become the magazine's art director) and by Rolling Stone Magazine photographer, Baron Wolman. Lane’s images appeared in the August 6th, 1970 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine to accompany the cover article titled "Janis Joplin And Her New Full-Tilt Boogie Band." The article was a review of her June 12th, 1970 show at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky, where she debuted her new backing band Full-Tilt Boogie. A copy of the August 1970 issue is included with this lot. Lane later shared additional previously unpublished images of Joplin playing pool on this table, shot during his visit to the Larkspur home, via an image sharing account.
Joplin was known to play pool well and was said to be quite at home in pool halls as referenced in Holly George-Warren’s 2019 biography, Janis: Her Life and Music, and throughout the various biographies that have been published about her life that describe Joplin drinking beer, listening to rock n' roll, and playing pool as "one of the guys" at roadhouses and dance halls across the Sabine River in Louisiana.
Born on January 19th, 1943, Janis Joplin rebelled against the conservative 1950s Eisenhower era conformity of her hometown life in Port Arthur, Texas and headed for the counterculture’s “City on a Hill,” San Francisco, where the blues rock singer and songwriter rose to become one of the most electrifying performers and famous female rock stars of all time. After recording two albums as the lead singer of the San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, her stardom exploded as a solo artist with her back up groups, the Kozmic Blues Band and the Full Tilt Boogie Band and in her appearances at two of the era’s biggest rock festivals, the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival (where she performed with Big Brother and the Holding Company) and the 1969 Woodstock festival. Joplin’s most enduring classics include her cover versions of “Piece of My Heart,” “Cry Baby,” “Down on Me,” “Ball and Chain,” “Summertime,” her Billboard No. 1 single (which posthumously charted in March 1971), and cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” and her original song “Mercedes Benz,” which would be her final recording. She released just three albums before her untimely passing at the age of 27 stunned the world and was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. She continues to rank on countless lists as one of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and is one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 15.5 million albums sold.
“Julien’s Auctions has celebrated the legacies of Rock and Roll’s greatest artists in the sales of some of their most singular and iconic artifacts and there was no one more singular and more iconic than the one and only, Janis Joplin,” said Martin Nolan, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Julien’s Auctions. “On her milestone 81st birthday today, we offer a little piece of the Queen of Rock N’ Roll’s heart, her pool table, one of her most personal and loved objects that comes directly from her home in Larkspur, California.”
Registration is required to bid in this online auction and can be done in person at the exhibition, or online before the sale at the JuliensAuctions.com. Registration page to bid by phone, proxy or in person, or online at JuliensLive.com to bid live online, or by calling (310) 836-1818. For inquiries, please email info@juliensauctions.com or call 310-836-1818.
(Photo - Trinity Mirror Mirrorpix Alamy Stock Photo)
