Janis Joplin

Born in Port Arthur, Texas, her father was a cannery worker and her mother a registrar for a business college. Graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School, she was a member of the Glee Club and the Future Teachers of America. She attended Lamar State College and the University of Texas, where a fraternity voted her the ugliest man on campus in 1963. She dropped out and spent two years traveling, performing and becoming drug addicted. In 1966, she became the lead singer for “Big Brother and the Holding Company,” and became recognized for her singing at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. She is featured on the band’s second album, “Cheap Thrills.” The next year, she formed the “Kosmic Blues Band”, and became further noticed when she performed solo at the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. On November 15, 1969, she was arrested in Tampa, Florida, for vulgar and indecent language, for which she posted fifty dollars bond. In 1970, she sang with the “Full Tilt Boogie Band.” On October 4, 1970, she was found dead in her room at the Hollywood, California Landmark Motor Hotel, from an apparent heroin-alcohol overdose. She was never married, and left no children. Her ashes were scattered off the coast of California. Her best selling album, “Pearl,” was released posthumously, and she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. During an interview, she was once asked what Acid Rock was, to which she replied, “I wouldn’t know. I’m a juicer.”