Big Brother & the Holding Company

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 - October 4, 1970) was a blues-influenced rock and soul singer and occasional songwriter with a particularly distinctive voice. Joplin released four albums as the frontwoman for several bands from 1967 through to a posthumous release in 1971.

Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, United States of America. She grew up listening to blues musicians such as Bessie Smith and Big Mama Thornton and singing in the local choir. Joplin graduated from Jefferson High School in Port Arthur in 1960 and went to college at the University of Texas in Austin, where she began singing blues and folk music with friends.

Cultivating a rebellious manner that could be viewed as "liberated", Joplin styled herself after the beat poets, left Texas for San Francisco in 1963, lived in North Beach, and worked occasionally as a folk singer. Around this time her drug use began to increase, and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other intoxicants. She was a heavy drinker throughout her career, and her "trademark" beverage was Southern Comfort brand whiskey. Her drug use became more important to her then singing and eventually ruined her health.

After a return to Port Arthur to recuperate, she again moved to San Francisco in 1966, where her bluesier vocal style saw her join Big Brother and The Holding Company, who were gaining some renown amongst the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. The band signed a deal with independent Mainstream Records and recorded an eponymously titled album in 1967. However, the lack of success of their early singles led to the album being withheld, until after their subsequent success.

The band's big break came at the Monterey Pop Festival, which included a version of Thornton's "Ball and Chain" featuring a barnstorming vocal by Joplin. Their 1968 album Cheap Thrills featured more raw emotional performances and made Joplin's name.

Splitting from Big Brother, she formed a backup group, named the Kozmic Blues Band, which backed her on I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! (1969). That group broke up, and Joplin then formed the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The result was the posthumously released Pearl (1971), which featured a hit single in the form of Kris Kristofferson's Me and Bobby McGee and the wry social commentary of Mercedes-Benz, written by beat poet Michael McClure.

Her last public appearance was on The Dick Cavitt Show in 1970, where she said that she was going to attend her 10 year high school reunion, although she said in high school she was "laughed out of class, out of school, out of town." She made it there, but it would be one of her last decisions.

Shortly thereafter, Joplin died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970 in a Los Angeles, California motel room, at the age of 27. She was cremated in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California, and her ashes scattered into the Pacific Ocean in a burial at sea. The album Pearl was released 6 weeks after her death. The movie The Rose, with Bette Midler playing the Joplin character, was based on her life.

She is now remembered best for her powerful, distinctive voice, significantly divergent from the soft folk-influenced styles most common at the time, as well as her lyrical themes of pain and loss.

Samples

• Download sample of "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" from I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!