Janis Joplin Pictures, Biography, Profile, Facts, Discography, Filmography, more.

Janis Joplin brought her powerful, bluesy voice from Texas to San Francisco’s psychedelic scene, where she went from drifter to superstar. She has been called “the greatest white urban blues and soul singer of her generation.” Joplin’s vocal intensity proved a perfect match for the high-energy music of Big Brother and the Holding Company, resulting in a mix of blues, folk and psychedelic rock. Joplin’s tenure with Big Brother may have been brief, lasting only from 1966 to 1968, but it yielded a pair of albums that included the milestone Cheap Thrills. Moreover, her performance with Big Brother at 1967’s Monterey International Pop Festival, a highlight of the film documentary Monterey Pop, is among the great performances in rock history.

Janis Joplin was arguably one of the only white female singers of the period who could generate the same kind of power and excitement as black performers like Aretha Franklin or Tina Turner, and who could sing blues and R&B with total conviction. Alongside Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane she pioneered an entirely new range of expression for women in the previously male-dominated world of post-Beatles rock. It is also notable that, in a very short time, she transcended the role of "chick singer" fronting an all-male band, to being an internationally famous solo star in her own right.

Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

In terms of her visual image, Janis is also notable as one of the few female performers of her day to regularly wear pants (or slacks), rather than skirts or dresses. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, often including coloured streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers, a style strikingly at odds with the 'regulation' perms or wigs sported by most female singers of the day. It is especially remarkable that she is probably the only major female pop-rock star of the period who never wore makeup -- a stance that was very striking (and undoubtedly quite provocative) at a time when the wearing of makeup was still considered to be de rigeur for women.

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, released six weeks after her death, included a version of Nick Gravenites' song "Buried Alive In The Blues", which was left as an instrumental because Joplin had died before she was able to record her vocal over the backing track. Many comparisons can be drawn with her close contemporary Jimi Hendrix, who was similarly catapulted to fame by his appearance at Monterey, and whose career burned bright for a few years, but who also died from drug-related causes within weeks of Joplin. But unlike Hendrix, whose fame continued to grow after his death, Janis did not enjoy a significant revival of public interest until the late 1990s.

Joplin was raised in the small town of Port Arthur, TX, and much of her subsequent personal difficulties and unhappiness has been attributed to her inability to fit in with the expectations of the conservative community. She'd been singing blues and folk music since her teens, playing on occasion in the mid-'60s with future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. There are a few live pre-Big Brother recordings (not issued until after her death), reflecting the inspiration of early blues singers like Bessie Smith, that demonstrate she was well on her way to developing a personal style before hooking up with the band. She had already been to California before moving there permanently in 1966, when she joined a struggling early San Francisco psychedelic group, Big Brother & the Holding Company. Although their loose, occasionally sloppy brand of bluesy psychedelia had some charm, there can be no doubt that Joplin - who initially didn't even sing lead on all of the material - was primarily responsible for lifting them out of the ranks of the ordinary. She made them a hit at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where her stunning version of "Ball and Chain" (perhaps her very best performance) was captured on film. After a debut on the Mainstream label, Big Brother signed a management deal with Albert Grossman and moved on to Columbia. Their second album, Cheap Thrills, topped the charts in 1968, but Joplin left the band shortly afterward, enticed by the prospects of stardom as a solo act.

Joplin's first album, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, was recorded with the Kozmic Blues Band, a unit that included horns and retained just one of the musicians that had played with her in Big Brother (guitarist Sam Andrew). Although it was a hit, it wasn't her best work; the new band, though more polished musically, was not nearly as sympathetic accompanists as Big Brother, purveying a soul-rock groove that could sound forced. That's not to say it was totally unsuccessful, boasting one of her signature tunes in "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)."

For years, Joplin's life had been a roller coaster of drug addiction, alcoholism, and volatile personal relationships, documented in several biographies. Musically, however, things were on the upswing shortly before her death, as she assembled a better, more versatile backing outfit, the Full Tilt Boogie Band, for her final album, Pearl (ably produced by Paul Rothchild). Joplin was sometimes criticized for screeching at the expense of subtlety, but Pearl was solid evidence of her growth as a mature, diverse stylist who could handle blues, soul, and folk-rock. "Mercedes Benz," "Get It While You Can," and Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" are some of her very best tracks. Tragically, she died before the album's release, overdosing on heroin in a Hollywood hotel in October 1970. "Me and Bobby McGee" became a posthumous number one single in 1971, and thus the song with which she is most .

The Life of Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin is born January 19th, 1943 in Port Arthur (Texas) and died on October 3rd, 1970 in Hollywood (California). Her father was a canning factory worker and her mother a registrar at a business college. She attended various colleges for short periods during the 1960s.

She sang in several small clubs in Texas and California from 1960 to 1966; then she was vocalist for Big Brother and the Holding Company from 1966 to 1968, and finally solo recording artist and concert performer up to 1970.

Despite her family was middle-class, she showed when she was a teenager signs of the unconventional woman she would become. She was a loner, and contrary to her siblings and neighbourhood peers, she listened to folk and blues music. Her favourite artists were Odetta, Leadbelly or Bessie Smith, and she was influenced by them in her vocal style. At seventeen, she decided to leave home.

First, Janis found work in country and western clubs in Houston and Texas cities. Progressively she formed the goal of saving enough money to pay bus fare to California, and after a few years she accomplished this and arrived on the Pacific coast. Janis enrolled in various colleges while singing fork songs to earn money. But, her attempts at continuing education never lasted long. She also tried to live in several communes, and notably settled in San Francisco for a few years. Janis went back in Texas in early 1966, just before one of her friend, Chet Helms, became the manager of a new rock group called Big Brother and the Holding Company. This band needed a female vocalist so Helms immediately thought of Joplin.

After contacting her, she then returned to San Francisco. Even if Janis didn’t have a rock singing experience before, her gravely, bluesy voice with the hard rock sound of Big Brother was a success. The band quickly become popular in the San Francisco area. Especially their performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 attracted attention. Then, they took part at the Woodstock in 1969. Nowadays, many specialists accord to say that this performance is part of the classic moments in the history of rock.

Janis Joplin is described of the most influential women singers of the late 1960s. Compared to music greats like blues singer Bessie Smith or soul artist Aretha Franklin, most critics agree that she was the only responsible for the success of Big Brother with songs like Piece of My Heart and Summertime. Famed by her performances in 1967 at Monterey and two years later at Woodstock, she meanwhile never got chart-topping until her interpretation of Me and Bobby McGee released after her death, in 1971. Big Brother’s success at Monterey gained them a recording contract with small label, Mainstream, with whom they released their first album Big Brother and the Holding Company. Their were asked to play all around the USA and Canada.

But, it came quickly that only Janis Joplin were appreciated. "She sure projects. ...She jumps and runs and pounces, vibrating the audience with solid sound. The range of her earthy dynamic voice seems almost without limits." : critics like this must be responsible to what happened : Janis left Big Brother in 1968, just after having recorded their second album Cheap Thrills.

The first group of musicians with whom Janis played during her solo career was the Kozmic Band.

She recorded with them an album called I Got dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mamma. Despite it contained no successful single, Kozmic blues went gold and the popularity of Janis continued. After a brief come-back with Big Brother in early 1970, she then formed another group, the Full-Tilt Boogie Band. They play on the last Joplin’s album in 1970 : Pearl, which was the nickname her closest friends called her. This album included an acclaimed version of Kritofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee, Get It While You Can, Cry Baby and the humorous Mercedes Benz she wrote herself.

Nevertheless, before Pearl was released Janis found the death. On October the 4th, 1970 the singer’s body was found in the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood (California). Janis had died the day before from an overdose of heroin. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered off the California coast. Twenty-five years after her death, her blues-mamma lifestyle and heartfelt music make she is remembered as one of the best blues singer of the 60s and even classified alongside of Jimi Hendrix or Elvis Presley.

What they said?

"I only saw Janis Joplin one time--on a hot summer day in San Jose, California, at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds...She was extraordinary. She had a connection with the audience that I had not seen before, and when she left the stage--I knew that a little bit of my destiny had changed--I would search to find that connection that I had seen between Janis and her audience. In a blink of an eye--she changed my life.

--Stevie Nicks

"The thing about Janis is that she just looked so unique, an ugly duckling dressed as a princess, fearlessly so. Seeing her live (Blossom Music Center, Richfield, Ohio 1970) was like watching a boxing match. Her performance was so in your face and electrifying that it really put you right there in the moment. There you were living your nice little life in the suburbs and suddenly there was this train wreck, and it was Janis."

- Chrissie Hynde

"I remember thinking that Janis Joplin sang like Mae West talked. When I first heard the primal scream in 'Piece Of My Heart,' I was hooked.... During the 'whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa's' in 'Combination Of Two,' I couldn't help but go to the mirror and pretend I was a wild woman like Janis, in a rock band."

- Joan Jett

"Janis Joplin was, and remains, beautiful. Hers will always be that bruised, yet strong voice that to me has no gender. It is so raw that it has gone beyond...."

- Kim Gordon