Janis Joplin | Artist
Janis Lyn Joplin aka Pearl was an American rock, soul and blues singer and songwriter born 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas. As a teenager, Joplin immersed herself in the music of blues artists Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Lead Belly, and she started singing folk and blues in high school and later at Lamar University Texas. In 1963 she hitch-hiked from Texas to San Francisco where she fell in with musician from bands such as Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Joplin was arrested in San Francisco in 1963 for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She was also a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite beverage being Southern Comfort. In 1964, Joplin and Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards. She also made several solo blues recordings including the song "Turtle Blues", which later appeared on the 1995 album This is Janis Joplin 1965. In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who was managing Big Brother and with whom she had hitchhiked from Texas to San Francisco a few years earlier. Janis played on Big Brother's eponymous first album and on the second, the masterpiece Cheap Thrills. A San Francisco concert from the summer of 1966 was recorded and appears on Cheaper Thrills. In July '66 all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. The band often partied with the Grateful Dead, who lived nearby. She had a short relationship and long friendship with 'Dead' founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who died of alcoholism in 1972. She split Big Brother in 1968 and formed her own backing group The Full Tilt Boogie Band, with whom she recorded the classic albums I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! and Pearl, before her tragic end in 1970 at the age of 27. Five singles by Joplin became hits during her lifetime, the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain" and her final recording, "Mercedes Benz", which she completed in a single take. Joplin was one of the most gifted and widely known female rock stars of her era and all her studio and live albums are superb. Janis was also a devastatingly good live performer, as shown in her two most famous recorded performances at Monterey Pop Festival 1967 and Woodstock in 1969. Joplin's death in October 1970 from an accidental heroin overdose stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. The film The Rose (1979) is loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally planned to be titled Pearl, the film was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in the film. Janis was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and Rolling Stone ranked her #46 on its 2004 list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Artist Website: janisjoplin.com
Featured Albums: Janis Joplin
Related Artists: Big Brother & The Holding Company
Collections: Women of Note
