Born in 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas, Joplin was musical and artistic from an early age. She suffered as a youth and didn’t fit in with her classmates – they often called her “freak,” “pig,” and “creep”. When Joplin studied at the University of Texas at Austin, she was nominated for “ugliest man on campus.” Joplin reacted to these stresses by reading, painting and making music more intensely, and by developing an exaggerated, flamboyant persona.
After discovering her love of music, Joplin began singing the blues. On principle, Joplin disliked racism towards blacks and was inspired by black musicians such as Otis Redding and Big Mama Thornton. Big Brother and the Holding Company — that band she sang lead vocals for — played psychedelic rock and together they fused the two, along with her later backing bands: the Kozmic Blues Band and Full Tilt Boogie. She is often referred to as one of the most expressive female vocalists of her time, and gained enormous popularity in the USA and abroad with her raw, distinctive voice. In her lifetime, Joplin released the albums Big Brother and the Holding Company, Cheap Thrills, Live at Winterland ’68, I Got Dem Ol’ Kosmic Blues Again Mama!, and Pearl.
Janis Joplin struggled with substance abuse throughout her adult life. She was fond of alcohol, her drink of choice being Southern Comfort. She also experimented with amphetamines, and while living with the Grateful Dead in San Francisco in 1966, Joplin lapsed into hard drug use. She eventually died of a heroin overdose in 1970 at the age of 27.