Janis Lyn Joplin was born at St. Mary's Hospital in Port Arthur, Texas, a small oil-refining town situated near the border with Louisiana. Her father worked as a cannery worker, while her mother was a registrar at a business college. As an overweight teenager, Janis was deeply passionate about folk music, particularly the works of Odetta, Leadbelly, and Bessie Smith.
After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School, Janis attended Lamar State College and the University of Texas, where she began to develop her musical talents by playing the auto-harp in Austin bars. Her unique voice and style earned her a nomination for the Ugliest Man on Campus in 1963. Following her time at university, Janis spent two years traveling, performing, and struggling with drug addiction.
In 1966, Janis returned to her hometown and was encouraged by her friend Chet Helms to become the lead singer for Big Brother and the Holding Company, a well-established Haight-Ashbury band consisting of guitarists James Gurley and Sam Andrew, bassist Peter Albin, and drummer Dave Getz. This marked the beginning of her rise to fame, with her performances at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 being particularly noteworthy. Highlights from the festival were released in Monterey Pop (1968),and her second album with the band, "Cheap Thrills", became a landmark in her career.
In 1968, Janis formed her own band, the Kosmic Blues Band, and achieved even greater recognition as a solo performer at Woodstock in 1969. Highlights from her Woodstock performance were released in Woodstock (1970). Later that year, Janis joined the Full Tilt Boogie Band and, on October 4, 1970, was found dead in her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel (now known as the Highland Gardens Hotel) in Hollywood, California, due to a heroin-alcohol overdose the previous day. Janis's ashes were scattered off the coast of California.
Despite her tragic death, Janis's music continued to be celebrated, and her biggest-selling album, the posthumously released "Pearl", contained her iconic song "Me & Bobby McGee".
