On Wednesday I went to JFK  to meet someone coming in from San Francisco.  Sitting in traffic on the Grand Central, I thought of a story told me by the late Linda Gravenites, who made marvelous clothes in Haight Ashbury in the 1960s, which led to her befriending and moving in with Janis Joplin in her apartment in a Victorian house on Lyon Street.

I met Linda in 1986 when I was doing research for my first book, Radical Rags: Fashions of the Sixties.  Her apartment in Protrero Hill was stocked with evidence of her handiwork and creativity, as was the house I later visited her in Cazadero, in the Redwoods.  She lived there after marrying Sam Lefkowitz.  The last time I saw Linda was in 1990 when she drove from Cazadero to Calistoga to have dinner with my brother, his girlfriend and myself.  We had gone there to enjoy the mud baths.  (Remind me to show you the photos.)  We stayed in touch by phone and via her fantastic home-made Christmas cards, until she died a decade ago.  A memorable person.  I was so pleased that examples of her finery were included in museum shows during her lifetime. 

Anyway, it seems that Joplin was on a plane going from New York to San Francisco during her birthday month of January.  Also in first class was Leontyne Price.  A stewardess knew that it was Joplin’s birthday and bought her a little cake.  Joplin in turn took a slice over to Price.  The great soprano told Joplin how much she loved her rendition of Gershwin’s “Summertime,” which Price liked to program in her recitals.  She had of course sung Bess in a production that toured the world in the mid-1950s.  Joplin was thrilled!