Janis Joplin - 'Kozmic blues'

 In 1966 she returned to San Francisco to join up with Big Brother and the Holding Company as lead singer of a hard-rocking band.  In 1967 the album Big Brother and the Holding Company was released.

They released Cheap Thrills an album with Mainstream Records before giving a barnstorming performance at the 1967, Monterey Pop Festival.  Their performance climaxed with a Big Mama Thornton rhythm and blues classic “Ball and Chain”.  Her lead singing was sensational and she produced a legendary performance that was to make her name.

Inspired by their success at the festival the band recorded a chart topping album, Cheap Thrills in 1968.  A single, Piece of My Heart reached number 12 in the charts.

She left Big Brother and the Holding Company to go solo and formed the Kosmic Blues Band as her backing group.   On 11th of September, 1969 she released the album “ Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!  which within two months of release attained Gold status.  Janis had descend into heroin abuse after her Woodstock performance and the band split up

In 1970 Janis formed the Full Tilt Boogie Band and began recording Pearl a new album.  She also became engaged to marry but tragedy struck when she took an accidental overdose of heroin and died.   The album was released posthumously and topped the charts in 1971.  A single, Me and Bobby McGee also reached the top.

Musically she had been heavily influenced by blues artists such as Bessie Smith, Odetta, and Big Mama Thornton and Leadbelly.  Her lifestyle was influenced by the Beat poets such as Allen Ginsburgh and was seen as “liberated” and rebellious, but she sang her own way and lived her own way.

As a performer Janis Joplin was different to other white female singers of her day.  Her voice could be powerful and passionate or soft, tender and delicate and she could express a range of feelings in a few simple notes. When she sang she gave herself up to the music, expressing intense feelings with her voice and body movements. 

The raw intensity of her soulful, raunchy, blues vocals combined with the uninhibited way she moved to the music was not seen as conventional behaviour for a white female singer at the time.  Nevertheless, in the music world these were exciting times when conventions were being broken and boundaries were being pushed back to allow new artists with new ways to breakthrough into stardom.