Before you purchase, note the title - The Complete Piano RAGS of Scott Joplin. It may seem a bit purist to exclude his other pieces, but many of them, including his marches and songs, are rather commonplace for their time period. Two unfortunate omissions are Solace, which is actually a Tango, although it is in rag format, and Chrysanthemum, which is an intermezzo, although many in rag circles think it qualifies as a Joplin rag. Aside from these, this is a good substitute for the hard to find Complete Works of Scott Joplin from the New York Public Library. Also included are the original covers and some information on Joplin and the pieces.

The first follow up to the three larger Dover editions of collected ragtime, this is the one that really smokes, and has rags that simply will not be ignored. Not only are three Joplin greats part of the package, but the well known Dill Pickles, Wild Cherries, Temptation Rag, the incomparable Entertainer's Rag, and Scott's masterpiece, Grace and Beauty. You can find many of them on my site as well, if you want to hear them first. The three Joplin pieces alone would run in the hundreds of dollars in today's thriving collectible sheet music market. So if you can deal with the covers not printed in color, you'll be duly entertained, and hopefully entertaining, when perusing the contents of this book that you should be buying instead of just reading this rambling review!!!

Complete Piano Rags is a great book to play from. Any pianist of modest ability should get great enjoyment from these pieces once they figure out the syncopation. Ragtime is a great crowd-pleaser, too. Complete Piano Rags also shows the covers from the original sheet music for the rags, which are amusing in some cases. Like every other Dover edition, this book is a good value at a low price, and won't fall apart through use. The only thing this book doesn't have that I wish it did is Joplin's "Solace: a Mexican Serenade," which isn't a rag, but is still very beautiful (can be heard on one of J. Rifkin's records). If you do buy this book, I recommend playing "The Magnetic Rag," and "The Fig Leaf Rag." "Elite Syncopations" has a cool ending section, too.

This well-documented account of Janis's life delves deeper into her bisexuality, her insecurities, and her brassy persona than previous biographies. Ms. Echols has captured Janis without the usual condescension or idolization to which other biographers have resorted. Janis is shown as a person here --- not as "Janis Joplin, megastar." Included is a chapter of "Where Are They Now," which gives the reader an update on the lives of key players in Janis's life. Also included is a discography, as well as copious notes and sources. In all, this is the best biography of Janis and her times to come along in a while. It is well worth the read.

This book was such an interesting read that I had a hard time putting it down. Ms. Echols delves into Port Arthur in a way that is very similar to that of Mary Karr. She also looks at aspects of Janis that have not been well-contructed before this. The milieu of San Francisco and the 1960's music scene there is shown in an open and matter-of-fact way. The beginnings of the bands were more haphazard than I ever realized.One cannot understand a person unless they understand the politics and atmosphere, as with this remarkable musician.
On the personal side, Janis was a woman who wanted what we all want- to love and be loved. Echols defines where many of us let one another down by not being honest with others when they are in too deep.
As Janis wrote "It's so sad to be alone."

I highly recommend this biography to fans and people who are interested in the culture of the times.

How truly thrilling to read a biography of Janis Joplin from a radical feminist historian. The research is impeccable, the writing clear and engaging, but best of all is that for the first time a story of the 60s has been successfully conceived and narrated. Everyone from the 60s generation as well as young people today, particularly young feminists must read this book.

Despite years of detective work by musicologists, Joplin's life remains something of a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing. Berlin's work is the most coherent and robust work on Joplin's life to date, and barring some miraculous finding (such as the Sweatman files), it is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The depth of Berlin's reportage and the obvious breadth of his detective work (he's a superb "triangulator") give his assertions and educated guesses on Joplin's life, work and motivations far greater academic vailidity than that of many authors who have chased this musical ghost.

After reading Doctorow's Ragtime and visiting Scott's St. Louis home I was eager to learn more about Scott Joplin and this book satisfied that need.

It is a detective story putting the clues together how his life was lived. This makes it an interesting read.

The only warning I would have is that it is blocky and interrupted with music scores and other interludes which don't lend itself to a reading rhythm.

My review in two words: BUY IT.

This book is probably as thorough of a study into the life of Scott Joplin as is possible. Edward Berlin has obviously exhausted every resource available to him, and throughout, the book is well-noted - that is to say he gives credit to probably 99.9% of the sources of his information in the section for notes. Berlin has went through census records, newspapers, other books on ragtime, interviews with/statements given by numerous people affiliated with Scott Joplin and countless other sources for this book. This book is 99.9% true, solid facts; he seldom states a personal opinion, and when he does, it is made blatantly clear that that is what he is doing. This book also includes a listing of the complete known works of Scott Joplin, and the sheet music for the three songs "Good-bye Old Gal Good-bye", "Snoring Sampson" and "Lovin' Babe". (I would like to say in response to someone else's review that it is very difficult for me to see how the biography of a *musician* can be "interrupted" with music scores.)

Janis Joplin is commonly portrayed as a woman struggling with her demons, but this book goes a step further by allowing Janis herself to speak through letters home. Her anguish and turmoil, as well as her innocent hopefulness, are heartbreakingly evident. Unfortunately, the book lacked cohesion. I found myself skipping entire chapters, such as the one on the early life of the Joplin pioneers, as it did not seem to explain how their lives shaped Janis.

It is evident through the writing style that Laura Joplin adored and lionized her older sister. So much so that she seems intent on placing herself in the context of Janis' life with passages like (paraphrased), "In March of that year, two days before my birthday, Janis did..."

Although the personal insights I gleaned through Janis' letters was revealing and poignant, this bio was far from the no-punches-pulled treatment that the book jacket claims it is. Read it only as an account of a younger sister trying to come to terms with the troubled life and early death of a beloved older sister.

These letters from Janis to her family are warm, poignant and heartbreaking. They chronicle how quickly she moved, from folk-singing "beatnik" to counter-culture icon, and how even this lightening pace wasn't fast enough for her. And they reveal a longing for acceptance that we all sensed from her stage persona and her music. Hearing the dates on the letters as we move with her from Texas to SF to the world, I shuddered, thinking "So little time left, dear, and you don't even know it." Of course, none of us knows what life has in store for us, and that makes Janis' story in her own words all the more moving. That Laura loved her sister and wished she knew her better comes through in these pages. The story is unique to the Joplins, yet universal to all, and I recommend it. I subtracted one star for the reading by Debra Winger. At times I thought she was an inspired choice. Her smoky voice is so reminiscent of Janis'. But at other times I was exasperated, when Ms. Winger stumbled and gave me the impression she was reading these words for the first time.

I read this book after Buried Alive. I feel it offers a more compassionate and complete picture of Janis Joplin.

I am a cousin of the author. She also died before her time. Although the book never received the recognition that other versions received, it was a well thought out and presented version of the life and death of an icon.

Black and White photos with some text of Janis Joplin's concert at Madison Square Garden. Banks capture's the spirit Janis. Photojournalism at it's best. An excellent discography as well in included. Well worth having in your library

In 1971 I first purchased the NYPL edition of the Collected Works (later Complete Works) of Scott Joplin. The first volume had all of his piano instrumentals, (plus 3 additional rags in the Complete works) save Frolic of the Bears from Treemonisha. It is now hard to find, and people have to scavange a bit to get a copy.

So now we have the next best thing - sort of. I wanted to give this book a better rating because of my admiration of the composer, much less my knowledge of his works through recording them all over the past few years for CD release. It is intended to balance out the alternate Dover title Complete Piano Rags. But in that regard there are still omissions. This book contains Joplin's Marches and Waltzes, as well as his single tango that the book is titled for and one collaborative rag (Lily Queen).

While these pieces are not quite piano rags or even ragtime (except Lily Queen, and arguable for Solace and Bethena) they do represent a balance for a disciplined composer who was serious not only about his work, but about making the ordinary into something much more.

But I have a question that I am not alone in asking. Between these two volumes, what about the missing pieces? We have to find another source for them now? These include Cleopha (A March), and The Chrysanthemum (of which many of us have had spirited discussions with editor Dave Jasen as to its rag vs.intermezzo status). Two pieces are hardly enough to create another volume, yet the Chrysanthemum in particular is so rich and enjoyable to play and listen to that this omission is frustrating indeed.

This consideration aside, if you don't have the NYPL edition, Solace is still worth having as a compliment to Complete Rags. And you can always come to my ragtime site to listen to the missing pieces if you want.

I enjoyed reading your book. A friend of mine, knowning that I had written the story also, and am awaiting its printing, brought me a copy. Your illustrator is very good. I enjoyed his work. Somehow, I got the impression that Remus becomes the leader of the village. Am I correct. If so, that is not what Joplin was about. He was about female leadership. That is why she asked the question to the crowd three times in three different ways. That is also why the opera was not picked up by the publishers. Woman sufferage was a sore topic at that time, and would not have created a reason for another million dollar block buster for them. Joplin was way ahead of his time in that aspect. I have a friend whose father was in Joplin's band, and she was able to give me added insight to the man. I'm glad you did the book. Nevilla E. Ottley

Most Joplin fans will want this book for the many marvelous,unpublished photos. The diary of live performances is very interesting, but the calander format is annoying. Another book that compliments "A Performance Diary" is "Janis Garden Party", a collection of photos taken at Madison Square Garden in Dec. 1969 by photographer Steve Banks. The book is published by Bugiganga Press, 1998.

This book has to lie on the shelf of all Janis fans, who are interested both in her music and personality - although the texts are not really informative, so you won`t learn much about the details of her life. But this book is not intended to be a biography~it`s more a TRIBUTE. And she deserved it. A beautiful collection of pictures and letters ~some in her own handwriting~ a cronological list of her performances and the summary of the main steps in her carreer. A VERY NICE piece of HIGH LEVEL!

This book contains any number of beautiful photographs, it has beautifully written reflections on Janis from friends and lovers. In short it has it all. A good read.

This book seemed really negative to me. Most every page sounds like the author couldn't stand Janis Joplin or her music. She uses way too much dialogue that couldn't possibly be verbatim, just her take on conversations that may have taken place. It's hard to believe that someone who says she was close to Janis for two years would ridicule her like this after she's dead. I feel bad for Janis that this book is supposed to be the best representation we have of her. It left me with a lot of unanswered questions about Janis, particularly her music.

That Myra Friedman was able to publish a biography of Joplin which is so poetic, so intense, and so engaging a mere three years after Joplin's tragic death is nothing short of miraculous. However, in the context of two other superlative Joplin biographies--LOVE, JANIS by Laura Joplin (Janis's younger sister)(1992) and SCARS OF SWEET PARADISE by Alice Echols (1999)--I find Friedman's compulsive rationalizing and anxious tone here (especially in the book's concluding section) to be less illuminating of the REAL Janis Joplin than the other two books. If you read only one Joplin bio, read LOVE, JANIS; if only two, add SCARS...; but if you are a die-hard Joplin fan (as I am), read all three. Taken together, it is a tribute to Janis herself that three stunningly intelligent, articulate writers could be moved to so obsess over Joplin's work and life that they produced biographies of such high caliber within thirty years of her death.

Myra Friedman's classic biography of Janis Joplin is a must read for anyone interested in the life and art of this great singer. The Harmony edition of Buried Alive contains the most on the mark, intelligent description of Joplin's art that has been published to date. "Want to be hippies" will no doubt dislike this book, as the author smashes any romantic fantasies that people may have about the turbulent decade of the sixties. The author's love and affection for her subject is evident throughout this magnificent work, which won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award when first published. Of the many books available on Janis Joplin, Buried Alive has no serious competition. Joplin was a complex, and troubled young woman and no one has come closer to revealing the truth about this extraordinary, sensitive artist than Myra Friedman.