Janis Joplin
By Lucie M. Winborne, ReMind Magazine
“I’d rather not sing than sing quiet.” There was little danger of that when it came to the larger-than-life Janis Joplin! As one writer put it, “Her whole world revolved at high speed.”
Born in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1943, Joplin showed an early appreciation for music, performing in her church choir as a child. However, conventional town life would never suit the self-described misfit, who craved acceptance yet longed just as fervently to stand out from the crowd. Bright and artistically gifted, Joplin found her peer group in high school but also suffered the slings and arrows common to misfits, especially after gaining weight and developing acne. By graduation she had already been in counseling and showed signs of alcoholism.
Still, this white girl could sing like the black blues musicians twice her age and experience whose songs kept her company for hours in Port Arthur.
In 1962, Joplin enrolled at the University of Texas with the intention of studying art, but she eventually dropped her studies to instead pursue music. While her impassioned, straight-from-the-gut style was a radical departure from the gentler sounds of other female vocalists, she struggled for recognition, further hindered by drink and drugs. By 1965 she’d returned home, where she endeavored to tame the chaos by dressing and acting the part of a conservative young woman. Not surprisingly, the transformation failed, and the following spring she took the first step on her path to rock icon with an audition for the psychedelic group Big Brother and the Holding Company.
At the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, the band stunned concertgoers, including Columbia Records president Clive Davis. Their debut album for the label, Cheap Thrills, which included “Piece of My Heart,” went gold, yet Joplin, feeling stifled, left Big Brother at the end of 1968 for a solo career. A blistering performance at Woodstock was followed by the album I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, but reviews were mixed, and Joplin was still battling both internal and substance abuse demons. Tragically, she never saw the validation later decades would heap upon her unique talent, as she succumbed to an accidental heroin overdose on Oct. 4, 1970. Her final and most successful album, Pearl, was released posthumously in 1971. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, she remains an unequaled American original.