Two New Biographies About Janis Joplin Offer No Insight Into Her Character

"Love, Janis," by Laura Joplin; Villard; $22.50; "Pearl: The Obsessions and Passions of Janis Joplin," by Ellis Amburn; Warner Books; $21.95.

Although linked by what seemed like simultaneous deaths more than 20 years ago, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin have ended up with wildly disparate accommodations in the cheap hotel of public imagination.

Upstairs is Hendrix, the genius (and local hero in the Seattle area, where he was born and buried). A little less comfortable is Morrison, who, thanks largely to the adolescent fantasies of Oliver Stone, is thought of by some as a cross between Bacchus and Blake. And down in the lobby, looking for a fix, is Janis Joplin, the poster girl of '60s excess, a woman whose appetite for sex and narcotics has forever overshadowed the music she made.

Blame it on sexism. Blame it on the creeping conservatism that's infected the music industry, and American ears, since the early '70s. Blame it on the woman herself, whose output on record was erratic, and whose legendary live performances were never adequately captured. In any event, you can also blame these two new biographies, that, regardless of intent, do little but perpetuate the image of Janis Joplin as pathetic junkie and musical freak.

In "Love, Janis," Laura Joplin, Janis Joplin's kid sister, has written a book that's long on sentiment and short on insight. It includes previously unpublished letters home from Janis; the fragile, little-girl quality of the letters, written while the singer was apparently debauching and debasing herself all over the country, say more than anything else in the book ever could.

And the author's writing style is, to say the least, a distraction, careening as it does from academic mundanities to overwrought metaphors (recalling her sister's excitement upon entering college, Joplin writes, "Janis was exhilarated by the stimulation of a larger social group and broader cultural opportunities. She gulped it down like a homesteader whose throat was parched from a fruitless search for water until he finally drilled a good well").

(This book led to a Seattle lawsuit, when Laura Joplin claimed her rights as Janis Joplin's heir were infringed upon by local producer Susan Ross, whose play about Joplin closed because of the suit. Laura Joplin is working with other producers who intend to mount a Broadway play based on "Love, Janis.")

More disturbing, though, than Laura Joplin's writing style is the author's myopic view of her sister, the small-town-Texas blues belter who went on to become the biggest female attraction in pop. With a doctorate in higher education, and a career in therapeutic and motivational programs and workshops, Laura Joplin might have delivered a more probing treatment of her late rock-star sister. But this is, again, a sister writing about a sister, and the idea that the Joplin family was in any way responsible for Janis' behavior is never entertained.

Laura Joplin does raise, indirectly, the intriguing possibility that Janis Joplin was the victim of some kind of abuse, possibly rape. As she notes, almost in passing, Janis Joplin's personality made a drastic turn during her adolescence, changing her almost overnight from a "normal" Port Arthur, Texas, teenager into a self-destructive, rebellious young woman whose degrading behavior seemed rooted in an almost total lack of self-esteem. She doesn't pursue the idea, but given what else we're told - mostly in Ellis Amburn's "Pearl" - there was something going on inside Janis Joplin's head besides a desire for instant gratification.

Amburn, the celebrity biographer - his most recent book is "Dark Star: The Roy Orbison Story," and he collaborated with Priscilla Presley on "Elvis and Me" - approaches Janis Joplin with all the objectivity of Republican National Committee Chairman Richard Bond writing about George Bush. Unlike Laura Joplin, he does offer some critical evaluation of Janis Joplin's records - although from a fan's perspective, not a critic's. Amburn spends most of his time recounting Joplin's adventures in bed or at the end of a heroin needle, and the portrait he paints is both sad and repellent.

Like "Love, Janis," "Pearl" recounts the singer's upbringing in Port Arthur, her musical beginnings, her initial stardom, and her frustrating search for the right sound and the right man. In the meantime, we get a lot of sex, a lot of drugs and a lot of arguments against the '60s.

Amburn couldn't get the cooperaton of Laura Joplin or any other family members and there's bad blood between both of them and Myra Friedman, whose 1973 Joplin bio, "Buried Alive in the Blues," has just been rereleased.

Amburn comes off as the most sincere biographer, although the seaminess of his narrative undermines any appreciation he voices about his subject. The overall impression is of three people picking over the bones of a woman who led an ultimately unhappy life but who did little to harm anyone but herself.