BIOGRAPHY
Janis Lyn Joplin was born January 19, 1943 and died October 4, 1970. In between she lived a triumphant and tumultuous blessed by an innate talent to convey powerful emotion through heart- stomping rock-and-roll singing. Born and raised in Port Arthur, Texas, a small Southern petroleum industry town, she gravitated to artistic intrests cultivated by parents Seth and Dorothy Joplin.
Janis broke with local social traditions of the tense days of racial integration,
standing up for the rights of Arican Americans whos segregated status in her hometown seared her youthful ideals. Along with fellow band beatnick-reading high school students, she pursued the non-traditional via arts an literature, especially music. They gravitated to folk and jazz with Janis especially taken with the blues. Discovering and inborn talent to belt the blues, Janis began copying the styles of Bessie Smith, Odetta and Leadbelly. She played the coffee houses and hootenannies of the day in the small towns of Texas. She later ventured to the beatnick haunts of Venice, North Beach, and the Village in New York, eventually landing in Austin, Texas as a student at the University of Texas. Jumping into the on-the-edge lifestyle cultivated by the beats, Janis thrilled at her creativity, but almost lost herself in experiments with drugs and alcohol, especially speed.
Returning home for a year to question her life direction, she excelled at college but was never content. Music still called to her dispite its association with drugs. "The two aren't wedded" her friends counseled. When old Austin friend, Chet Helms, called to offer her a singing audition with an up-and-coming local group Janis was tempted. She found a vital San Francisco community, turned upside down by the flower children of 1966 and was offered a singing position in a slightly obscure group called "Big Brother and the Holding Company."
Big Brother played in the Bay area and up and down the California coast, to ever-increasing enthusiasm for their unique brand of psychedelic rock. They initially signed with mainstream records, a small outfit that did the little promotion, but did produce an album and two singles, "Blindman" and "All Is Lonliness." Then during the summer of 1967 --the"Summer Of Love"--Big Brother played a large concert, The Monetery International Pop Festival. Janis smashed through her anonymity with Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain" and the world took note.
The group was actively courted by Albert Grossman, one of the most powerful entertainment managers of the day. Through his representation, they signed a three-record recording contract with Columbia Records, who bought out Mainstreams rights. Their "Cheap Thrill" album was released in August, 1967 and soon went gold, presenting the hits "Ball and Chain" and "Summertime." The band was playing for large audiences, for large fees, and the billing now read "Janis Joplin with Big Brother and The Holding Company." The presure mounted, income rose and hippie rockers indulged themselves with their new ability to use high-priced drugs. Drugs began effecting their perfomances and working relationships and in Christmas of 1968, the group played its last gig together.
Janis formed a new band, oriented more toward blues and released a new album "I Got Then Ol' Kozmic Blues Again, Mama" in September of 1969. In the U.S., mixed reviews greeted the new sound but in Europe the group was welcomed with loudly enthusiastic praise. Still the anything-goes lifestyle grew with greater use of drug and alcohol to both increase the artistic creativity and to hanlde the coming down. Finally, recongnizing the problems in her life, Janis quit her drug use. She formed a third band called Full Tilt Boogie Band, which evolved more professional popular sound. Janis felt she'd finally found her unique style of white blues. She was never happier with her new music. While recording her next album "Pearl", she chanced into using heroin again. Obtaining a dose more pure than usual, she accidentally overdosed in a motel in Los Angeles at the age of 27. Her third album was released posthumously to wide acclaim, launching the popular songs "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Mercedes Benz."
Janis' albums have gone gold, platinum, and triple-platunum. Her "Greatist Hits" album still tops the charts in Billboard. Several new releases have followed her death, with wide acclaim for her boxed set "Janis." She was the subject of a 1973 documentary ,"Janis," and numerous TV documentaries, the most notable being VH-1's Legends program. She is currently the subject of two hotly contested biographical movie projects.
from the Official Janis Joplin web site