American singer Janis Joplin is born - January 19th, 1943

On this day in 1943, legendary rock singer Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that belts out the greatest hits of history every
day of the week on Gay Bluesier And in this episode,
we're looking at the fast paced life and untimely death

(00:20):
of Janis Joplin, an icon of the nineteen sixties counterculture
and a true trailblazer for women in rock and roll.
As a warning, today's episode includes discussion of drug abuse
and self inflicted unintentional death, which may be disturbing for
some listeners. The day was January nineteenth, nineteen forty three.

(00:47):
Legendary rock singer Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas.
She developed a love of music as a young girl,
and sang in the church choir with the bright sopranos
singing voice she'd inherit it from her mother. She was
an only child until age six, when her sister Laura
was born, followed four years later by her brother Michael.

(01:10):
Joplin was a model student in her elementary and middle
school years, and even put her vocal talents to use
in the school glee club, but by the time she
entered high school, she'd become an outsider. Her fellow students
teased her for her acne and weight gain, both of
which were side effects of puberty, and for dressing differently
from the other girls. Around the same time, Joplin started

(01:33):
hanging out with a group of male friends who shared
her interest in music and beat poetry. They hung out
at working class bars and listened to a lot of folk, blues,
and jazz music, which exposed Joplin to new styles of
vocals that she'd never heard before. She was especially taken
with the sounds of legendary Black artists such as Lead Belly,

(01:54):
Otis Redding, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Odetta. She loved
how raw and heartfelt they sounded, and after imitating Odetta
one night at a party, Joplin discovered that her own
voice could sound just as powerful. After graduating from high school,
Joplin bounced from one Texas college to the next, generally

(02:14):
doing more drinking and socializing than studying. Finally, in nineteen
sixty two, she enrolled as an art student at the
University of Texas at Austin. She didn't stick around long
there either, but during her brief stint, she began performing
folk music at casual gatherings with a musical trio called
the Waller Creek Boys. She stunned audiences with her forcefull

(02:38):
blues inspired singing style, and pretty soon she began to
write her own original songs to sing. One of them,
titled What Good Can Drink and Do, became her very
first recording when she sang it into a tape recorder
at the house of a fellow UT student. Take a
listen and be sure to note the contrast between Joplin's

(02:58):
soft speaking voice her down and dirty singing. This is
a song called what Good Gan Drink and Do? That
I wrote one night after drinking myself into a stupor
What Good candreecond What Good Candy? I I recorded? But

(03:30):
the next studable. In January of nineteen sixty three, Joplin
quit school for good and headed west to San Francisco
to pursue singing. She started performing Bessie Smith songs in
the budding Bay Area music scene, and the thrill of
singing the sexually charged lyrics of songs like Need a

(03:54):
Little Sugar in My Bowl began to influence both her
songwriting and her performance style. Joplin spent the next few
years trying to get her career off the ground, but
she didn't make much headway until nineteen sixty six, when
she joined a new psychedelic rock band called Big Brother
and the Holding Company. After nailing her audition in San Francisco,

(04:16):
she was invited to join the group and start playing
gigs alongside other emerging local artists such as The Grateful
Dead and Jefferson Airplay. At first, her role was limited.
She mostly played the tambourine and only sang a handful
of songs, but as the band's following grew, Joplin's vocals
became more and more of a draw. Pretty soon she

(04:39):
was front and center at most concerts, including Big Brother's
breakout performance at the nineteen sixty seven Monterey Pop Festival.
The band played two sets that weekend, and the show
stopper for both of them was their rendition of Ball
and Chain, a classic blues song first made famous by
Big Mama Thornton. Take a Listen, Came a Hannah Grabbed

(05:02):
a hold of, and a Like a ball Shade on

(05:30):
Monterey took Big Brother to a new level of fame,
but most of the attention was focused squarely on Janis Joplin.
Her raw, whiskey soaked vocals couldn't have been more different
from the gentle voices of other white female singers of
the era like Joan Bias and Judy Collins. And then
there was her stage presence, a frenetic, free wheeling performance

(05:52):
fueled by amphetamines and heroine and dripping with confidence. The
rest of the band wasn't thrilled that all eyes were
on Joplin, but after their star making turn at Monterey
landed them a contract at Columbia Records, all the growing
tension went on the back burner, at least for the
time being. Big Brother's earlier recordings hadn't made much of

(06:14):
a splash outside of San Francisco, but the band's first
album for Columbia proved wildly successful. Released in the summer
of nineteen sixty eight, Cheap Thrills was just as raw
and energetic as the group's live performances, and even incorporated
the noise of a crowd to make it seem as
though it were recorded live. Cheap Thrills reached number one

(06:36):
on the Billboard charts that October and went on to
become one of the best selling albums of the year.
Although the band's popular cover of Ball and Chain was
included on the album, the soul single was actually a
different cover song, Joplin's take on a soul song by
Irma Franklin called Peace of My Heart Take a Listen.

(07:21):
After butting heads with her bandmates throughout the recording of
Cheap Thrills, Joplin decided to leave the group on a
high note and strike out on her own. She delivered
a historic performance at Woodstock in August of nineteen sixty nine,
and then followed it up a month later with the
release of her first solo album, titled I Got Damn
Old Cosmic Blues Again, Mama. The project featured original compositions

(07:46):
like Cosmic Blues and One Good Man, as well as
distinctive covers like Try Just a Little Bit Harder and
to Love Somebody by the bee Gees. Yet, despite the
album's strengths, the reviews were decidedly mixed. Joplin had assembled
a rather large band, including a brass section, to accompany her,
and the singer herself wound up getting a bit lost

(08:09):
in the shuffle. Some outlets also criticized Joplin personally, taking
shots at her sexuality, her struggles with substance abuse and
her decision to part ways with Big Brother. In the
nineteen seventy interview with The Village Voice, the singer revealed
the pressure she felt as a female solo artist in
a mostly male industry, and how the criticism of her

(08:31):
debut album reinforced the idea that she still had something
to prove. That was a pretty heavy time for me,
she said. It was really important, you know, whether people
were going to accept me or not. Joplin made several
attempts to get clean during this time in her life,
but as she prepared to record what would be her
final album, she returned to using heroin as a way

(08:54):
to numb herself to all the pressures and fears she
felt over her career. In the fall of nineteen seventy,
she was in Los Angeles recording the final tracks for
her album Pearl with a recently formed full tilt boogie band.
The album's single Me and Bobby McGhee, written by her
one time lover Chris Christofferson, would go on to become

(09:15):
the biggest hit of her career, but sadly, Joplin herself
wouldn't be alive to see it. She had written two
original songs for Pearl move Over, a powerful song about
a woman let down once too often by men, and
Mercedes Benz, a gospel style satire poking fun in American consumerism.

(09:36):
On October first, nineteen seventy, Joplin attended what proved to
be her final recording session, and the last thing she
ever committed to tape was the vocals track for Mercedes Benz.
Take a list on everybody. Oh Lord, won't you buy
me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drugh porsches. I

(09:57):
must make A man's worked hard all my lifetime, no
help from my friends, So, oh Lord, won't you buy
me a mercedies me? That's it. Three days later, Janis

(10:19):
Joplin accidentally overdosed on heroin and was discovered dead in
her Hollywood hotel room after failing to attend her next
recording session. She was just twenty seven years old when
she died, a sad detail which she shares with several
other brilliant musicians, including Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain,
and Amy Winehouse, all unfortunate members of the so called

(10:44):
twenty seven Club. Although she died far too young, Janis
Joplin left an indelible mark on American music, and her
fame has only grown since her passing. In nineteen ninety five,
she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame, and in two thousand and five she was
honored with a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement. A tragic figure

(11:07):
and a one of a kind talent, Joplin lives on
through her music and through the generations of fans and
performers that it's inspired. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you
now know a little more about music history today than
you did yesterday. You can learn even more about history

(11:28):
by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI
HC Show, and if you have any feedback you'd like
to share, you can always send it my way by
writing to this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to
Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you
for listening. I'll see you back here again soon for

(11:48):
another Day in History class.