Janis Joplin & Jorma Kaukonen
The Legendary Typewriter Tape: 6/25/64 Jorma’s House
Jorma Kaukonen (later of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna) met a singer named Janis Joplin at a hootenanny in San Jose, California, in the fall of 1962. Over the following years, Janis would call on Jorma to accompany her at gigs. As they continued to play together, the Bay Area was changing musically and developing into the legendary San Francisco scene to which both Janis and Jorma would be integral. During a rehearsal for a show in North Beach, Jorma started his reel-to-reel machine to capture what they were working on. For decades, this recording was the stuff of legend, with inferior, multi-generational transfers making their way through select collector’s circles. Now, for the very first time, it is available officially, with the blessing and cooperation of both the Janis Joplin Estate and Jorma Kaukonen.
On June 25, 1964, with both booked to perform at a benefit gig at San Francisco’s Coffee Gallery, Janis arrived for a rehearsal at the apartment Jorma rented on Fremont Street in Santa Clara with his Swedish wife Margareta. Kaukonen owned a tape recorder and turned it on to capture their duets, six (known) songs in all: “Trouble in Mind,” “Kansas City Blues,” “Hesitation Blues,” “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” (a Joplin original) and “Long Black Train Blues.” (Kaukonen has speculated that there were eight more songs recorded, but those have never surfaced.)
Why typewriter? Simple: Throughout the recording of the guitar and vocals, that’s the only other sound that is heard. Off in another corner of the room, Jorma's wife Margareta had been typing a letter to her parents back home. Although her pecking away was oddly percussive in spots, and some fans have speculated that Jorma’s wife was attempting to join in on the music-making, Kaukonen told McGee, “I find the thought that the typewriter was a percussion instrument somewhat laughable considering the obvious lack of observable rhythm.”
The Legendary Typewriter Tape: 6/25/64 Jorma’s House contains this legendary recording, featuring Restoration and Mastering from acclaimed, Grammy®-winner Michael Graves. The tracks include Joplin on vocals, Kaukonen on guitar, and Jorma’s wife Margareta typing away intermittently in the background. This may have just been a rehearsal, but it is so much more.
Featuring Joplin originals, as well as blues classics, The Legendary Typewriter Tape is an intimate glimpse into two major artists at the beginnings of what would become highly influential careers. As Jorma says in his liner notes: “This is indeed a window into a simpler time when the music truly was everything.”
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