In October 1970, the world was still reeling over the death of Jimi Hendrix. How such a wonderfully talented guitarist could be taken so suddenly was shocking. But, by the end of the month, the country would be mourning the death of another great rock icon.
Janis Joplin was shunned by the others in high school. While it may have bothered her, she had more on her mind. She was already listening to blues greats like Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, Odetta, and Big Mama Thornton. Soon, Janis began to sing both blues and folk music, playing small coffee houses and bars around Texas. Tired of small town life and feeling like an outcast, she left Texas for San Francisco in 1963. While living in Haight-Ashbury before its heyday, she met Jorma Kaukonen (a future guitarist for Jefferson Airplane) and recorded several blues standards. Unfortunately, she also began to use speed and heroin around the same time. Almost wasting away from speed use, Janis was spent back home by friends to recover. She cleaned up her act, enrolled in Lamar University, but she could not ignore her calling to sing.
By 1966, she was back in San Francisco and had teamed up with the band Big Brother and the Holding Company. They appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival and Janis’ version of “Ball and Chain” virtually made her a star overnight. The band began to tour the country, even performing in 1968 with Jimi Hendrix at a concert in New York.
But, after a second album in 1968, Janis and the band parted ways. Not that Janis was ready to give up music. She formed a new backup band named Kozmic Blues Band and continued to tour. But by 1969, that band had broken up too. In August 1969, Janis performed a memorable set at Woodstock.
By early 1970, Janis had gotten clean and sober once again. She formed her last band, the Full Tilt Boogie Band and began touring once again. She wanted to display a new public image and began calling herself “Pearl.” In fact, her next album was titled “Pearl.” It featured such beloved songs as “Mercedes Benz” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” But Janis would not live long enough to see it released.
Janis was in was supposed to show up at the Sunset Sound Studios to finish a recording on October 4th, but she never showed up. Manager John Cooke visited the Landmark Motor Hotel to look for Janis and found her Porsche still in the parking lot. When he entered her room, he found her dead of a heroin overdose. It was said she purchased the heroin after her boyfriend failed to show up for a date. Seemingly ever the outcast even when famous, Janis turned to drugs on last time, but this dose of heroin was very pure, too pure for the singer to handle. Her biggest hit, “Me and Bobby McGee” hit #1 after her death; making it only the second #1 to be awarded posthumously (“Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” was the first, awarded after Otis Redding had died).
Within nine months, the hippie culture would lose another singer, Jim Morrison, bringing the musical icon death count to four within exactly two years.