Backstage With Janis Joplin: Doubts, Drugs And Compassion — npr.org

Janis Joplin playing autoharp John Byrne Cooke/courtesy of John Byrne Cooke hide caption Janis Joplin felt a sense of outsider isolation her throughout her life. She once said, "On stage, I make love to 25,000 different people. Then I go home alone." But she wasn't alone — she had John Byrne Cooke. Cooke was Janis Joplin's first and only road manager, from 1967 until her death from a heroin overdose in 1970. He was the one who found her body. In a new memoir, On the Road With Janis Joplin, he details the electrifying performances — and the drugs — that marked Joplin's tours.

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