Janis Lyn Joplin was born at St. Mary's Hospital in the oil-refining town of Port Arthur, Texas, near the border with Louisiana. Her father was a cannery worker and her mother was registrar for a business college. As an overweight teenager she was a folk-music devotee (especially Odetta, Leadbelly and Bessie Smith). After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School she attended Lamar State College and the University of Texas, where she played autoharp in Austin bars. A fraternity voted her the Ugliest Man on Campus in 1963, and she spent two years traveling, performing and becoming drug-addicted. Back home in 1966, her friend Chet Helms suggested she become lead singer for Big Brother and the Holding Company, an established Haight-Ashbury band consisting of guitarists James Gurley and Sam Andrew, bassist Peter Albin and drummer Dave Getz). She got wide recognition through the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and the band's landmark second album, "Cheap Thrills". She formed her Kosmic Blues Band the following year and achieved still further recognition as a solo performer at Woodstock in 1969. In the spring of 1970 she sang with the Full Tilt Boogie Band, and on October 4 of that year she was found dead in Hollywood's Landmark Motor Hotel from a heroin-alcohol overdose the previous day. Her ashes were scattered off the coast of California. Her biggest selling album was the posthumously released "Pearl", which contained her quintessential song: "Me & Bobby McGee."



Was a member of the Glee Club and the Future Teachers of America while in high school. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Ranked #3 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll Was friends with Jimi Hendrix. Was good friends with Kris Kristofferson. He wrote her song, "Me and Bobby McGee," which became her only 45 single to reach #1 on Billboard chart. Was cremated and her ashes were scattered on the Pacific Ocean. October 4, 1970: Died of a heroin overdose while she was legally drunk in room 105 of the Landmark Motor Hotel located next door to the Magic Castle in Los Angeles. After she mainlined the drug she was able to leave her room, walk to the lobby, ask the desk clerk to change a five-dollar bill so she could spend 50 cents on a pack of cigarettes, pull the rigid knob on the cigarette machine, return to her room and remove some of her clothes. She then fell suddenly, breaking her nose. The desk clerk later stated that while he was giving her change she talked happily about the new album she was recording, although he believed, based on having interacted with her since her August 24 check in, that she "was not a happy person." Body was discovered approximately 18 hours later by her road manager, who was the son of Alistair Cooke. The character Frankie in American Pop (1981) was based partially on her and partially on Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick. Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen penned "Chelsea Hotel #2" about her. The manual dexterity displayed during the very last moments of life (changing a five-dollar bill, using a cigarette machine and undressing despite drunkenness and expectation of a heroin high) was a lifelong trait. Biographer Myra Friedman was told by Joplin's parents that when they interacted with other new parents in Port Arthur, Texas in the 1940s, everyone noticed their first-born child's dexterity with eating utensils, drinking glasses and napkins. The Joplins often took their toddler to the homes of other new parents to demonstrate these motor skills. Regularly drove drunk in California (in her custom-built Porsche) during the last two years of her life. No accidents were ever reported (in newspapers or several biographies), and only one instance of getting pulled over is noted (in a book by Peggy Caserta, who claimed the officer recognized the singer and let her go with a warning). Only one known injury during a performance, which happened in College Park, Maryland and turned out to be a source of humor on "The Dick Cavett Show" (1968). Manual dexterity and the appearance of controlling her own destiny, no matter how drunk or stoned, diverted many people's attention from the possibility of imminent death. Personal manager Albert Grossman, however, expected it and took out an insurance policy on his client in case of accidental death. Grossman, famous for signing the young Bob Dylan, collected $100,000 almost four years after his female client's "accident.". Her good friend and former lover Kris Kristofferson has on numerous occasions stated that he is absolutely sure she did not commit suicide, but also believes that the course that Janis had chosen to take was a dangerous, self-destructive one, a fact the he knows she was also aware of.