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Aretha Franklin's Career and Janis Joplin's Porsche at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Aretha Franklin's Career and Janis Joplin's Porsche at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

An exhibit on Aretha Franklin's career and Janis Joplin's Porsche 356C were among the offerings at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 2011.
Great Museums Television (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
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Transcript

MARC DOYLE: Hi, I'm Marc Doyle, one of the executive producers of "Great Museums." We're in Cleveland for the first of several shoots here at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. We're excited to begin our field production at the 16th annual American Music Masters week, honoring the great Aretha Franklin, the first woman inducted into the Rock Hall, back in 1987.

As an American Music Master, Aretha Franklin joins a select group of pioneering musicians hailed for their role in changing the shape and sound of American culture.

You know, the Rock Hall is filled to overflowing with iconic treasures from the history of rock and roll. Right here Janis Joplin's famous psychedelic car, a 1965 Porsche. Janis bought this beauty for $3,500 back in 1968 in Beverly Hills. It was white, but one of the roadies in her band repainted it for her with symbols of the time. Hallucinogenic mushrooms, astrological signs, flowers, butterflies, a bloody American flag, and a sketch of Janis and her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. Everybody knew this car belonged to Janis. When she would park it somewhere, fans would leave notes and messages for her tucked underneath the windshield wipers. She was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 1995, and she was honored as an American Music Master in 2009.

Be sure to check out greatmuseums.org in the coming months for more field reports from our production at the Rock Hall in Cleveland.

[Music]
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