Rock & Roll’s first female superstar, Janis Joplin was also a gifted blues singer whose touch is still felt on the genre to this day.
Janis Joplin was born January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur,
Texas to working class parents who recognized and encouraged her unique creative gifts. Late in 1963, Joplin hitchhiked to California, where she became a part of the hippie movement in San Francisco. Backed by an unheralded band, Joplin emerged during the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival in California, where she gave a mesmerizing performance of the blues classic, "
Continued...
Ball and Chain." She and the band were soon offered a recording contract with Columbia records and In 1968, Joplin and band released "Cheap Thrills," which included live versions of such Janis Joplin songs as "Piece of My Heart," "Ball and Chain," and "Turtle Blues." The album climbed the charts and quickly secured a number one spot on the Billboard charts, where it remained for eight weeks in a row. Cheap Thrills went Gold within one month of its initial release, and the band was now billed "Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company." Mounting pressure to perform and drug abuse eventually led to the group’s breakup and Janis went out on her own to perform wowing audiences at 1969’s Woodstock Festival.
Now well documented, Joplin’s addiction to heroin and alcohol mounted as her success as a soloist grew. Recognizing she had a problem, Joplin quit drugs altogether in late 1969, and seemed to reinvent herself with a new group, The Full Tilt Boogie Band. With a new sound, style of music and lifestyle, Janis seemed happier than ever. Joplin hit the studio that year to work on her new album, "Pearl." Looking for inspiration and an outlet for mounting worries, Janis chanced using heroine during production, and accidentally overdosed at the Landmark
Motor Hotel in Los Angeles. Janis Joplin died October 4, 1970. She was 27 years old. Joplin’s third album, which contained such signature songs as “
Mercedes Benz” and “
Me and Bobby McGee” was released posthumously. Janis Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and is still today considered to be one of the most original and talented white female blues artists of all time.
