Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer-songwriter and musician. One of the most iconic and successful rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and her stage presence.
real name: Janis Lyn Joplin
labels: Columbia Records, Mainstream Records
genres: psychedelic rock, blues rock, soul, acid rock, hard rock, folk music, country music
awards: Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
plays: acoustic guitar, voice
member of: Kozmic Blues Band, Full Tilt Boogie Band, Big Brother and the Holding Company
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Janis Lyn Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on (1943-01-19)January 19, 1943, to Dorothy Bonita East (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Laura and Michael. The family attended First Christian Church of Port Arthur, a congregation belonging to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination.
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student. She left Texas in January 1963, "Just to get away," she said, "because my head was in a much different place", hitchhiking with her friend Chet Helms to North Beach, San Francisco. Still in San Francisco in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind",...
Joplin's death in October 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the deaths of Canned Heat guitarist Alan Wilson a month earlier, and rock icon Jimi Hendrix 16 days earlier, both aged 27. All three musicians performed at the two biggest rock festivals of the 1960s: Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock. This would later cause some people to attribute significance to the death of musicians at the age of 27, as celebrated in the "27 Club". Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice", music columnist Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable" and author Megan Terry said that Joplin was the female...
In 1988, on what would have been Joplin's 45th birthday, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original gold, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated during a ceremony in Port Arthur, Texas. In 1992, the first major biography of Joplin in two decades, Love, Janis, authored by her younger sister Laura Joplin, was published. In an interview, Laura stated that Joplin enjoyed being on the Dick Cavett Show, that Joplin had difficulties with some, but not all, people at Thomas Jefferson High School and that Joplin enthusiastically talked about Woodstock with her parents and siblings during a visit to their Texas home a few weeks after she had performed at the festival.
Underlined songs have their story further down.
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"Down on Me" is a traditional freedom song from the 1920s or earlier that became popular following its 1967 remake by Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. The first known recording was made by Deacon Leon Davis.
"Mercedes Benz" is an a cappella song written by the American singer Janis Joplin with Bob Neuwirth and the poet Michael McClure. The song was originally recorded by Joplin.
"Cry Baby" is a song originally recorded by Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters, in 1963, and later recorded by rock singer Janis Joplin in 1970. Bert Berns wrote the song with Jerry Ragovoy.
Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters recorded it for the United Artists record label. It topped the R&B chart and went to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963, paving the way for soul hits by Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding later in the decade.
"Me and Bobby McGee" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson and originally performed by Roger Miller. Fred Foster shares the writing credit, as Kristofferson wrote the song based on a suggestion from Foster.
A posthumously released version by Janis Joplin topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971, making the song the second posthumously released No. 1 single in U.S. chart history after "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. Gordon Lightfoot had previously released a version that reached number 1 on the Canadian country charts in 1970.
Roger Miller was the first artist to record the song (in May 1969), and it appeared at No. 12 on the U.S. country chart in 1969. Kenny Rogers and the First Edition recorded the song in May/June 1969, and released it on their album Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town in 1969. On the Canadian charts, Gordon Lightfoot's version (recorded in November 1969) hit No. 13 on the pop music chart and No. 1 on the country music chart in 1970. The song was included on the 1970 Statler Brothers' album Bed of Rose's, but was not released as a single.