Home > Janis Joplin

Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. She grew up listening to blues musicians such as Bessie Smith and Big Mama Thornton and singing in the local choir. Joplin graduated from Jefferson High School in Port Arthur in 1960 and went to college at the University of Texas in AustinAustin is the capital of the state of Texas, within the United States of America. As of Census 2000, the population of 656,562 people (metro area population of over 1 million people) made Austin the fourth-largest city in Texas (behind Houston, Dallas, an, though she never completed a degree. There, she began singing blues and folk musicFolk music in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the people. Folk music arose, and best survives, in societies not yet affected by mass communication and the commercialization of culture. It normally was shared and performed by the entire with friends.

Cultivating a rebellious manner that could be viewed as "liberated", Joplin styled herself after the beat poets, left Texas for San Francisco in 1963Events January-March January 11 The Whisky A Go-Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the USA, is opened. January 14 George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. January 22 Elysee treaty between France and Germany January 28 Black student Harvey, lived in North BeachNorth Beach is a San Francisco, California neighborhood bounded by the former Barbary Coast, now Jackson Square, and the Financial District south of Broadway (except North Beach institutions extend down Columbus to Washington and Montgomery where the Blac, and worked occasionally as a folk singer. Around this time her drug use began to increase, and she acquired a reputation as a " speedAmphetamine is a synthetic drug originally developed (and still used) as an appetite suppressant. Amphetamine and its derivatives amphetamines are part of a broader class of compounds called phenethylamines. Overview Amphetamine is a synthetic stimulant u freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other intoxicants. She was a heavy drinker throughout her career, and her trademark beverage was Southern Comfort brand whiskey. Her drug use became more important to her than singing and eventually ruined her health.

After a return to Port Arthur to recuperate, she again moved to San Francisco in 1966, where her bluesy vocal style saw her join Big Brother and The Holding Company, a band that was gaining some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. The band signed a deal with independent Mainstream Records and recorded an eponymously titled album in 1967. However, the lack of success of their early singles led to the album being withheld until after their subsequent success.

The band's big break came at the Monterey Pop Festival, which included a version of Thornton's Ball and Chain and featured a barnstorming vocal by Joplin. Their 1968 album Cheap Thrills featured more raw emotional performances and made Joplin's name.

Splitting from Big Brother, she formed a backup group, named the Kozmic Blues Band, which backed her on I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! ( 1969). That group broke up, and Joplin then formed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The result was the posthumously released Pearl ( 1971), which featured a hit single in the form of Kris Kristofferson's Me and Bobby McGee and the wry social commentary of Mercedes-Benz, written by beat poet Michael McClure.

Her last public appearance was on The Dick Cavett Show in 1970, where she said that she was going to attend her 10-year high school reunion, although she had formerly said when in high school there she was "laughed out of class, out of school, out of town". She made it there, but it would be one if the last decisions of her life.

Shortly thereafter, Joplin died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970 in a Los Angeles, California motel room, at the age of 27. She was cremated in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California, and her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean. The album Pearl was released six weeks after her death. The movie The Rose, with Bette Midler playing the Joplin character, was based on her life.

She is now remembered best for her powerful, distinctive voice, which was significantly divergent from the soft folk-influenced styles more common at the time, as well as for her lyrical themes of pain and loss.