Janis Joplin's voice sounded like it was tearing itself apart — raw, desperate, impossibly powerful, and completely committed to every syllable. She was a white woman from Port Arthur, Texas, who sang the blues with an intensity that made audiences forget she was not supposed to be able to sing like that. She became the most celebrated female rock vocalist of the 1960s. She died at twenty-seven, alone in a Hollywood hotel room, with eighteen dollars of heroin in her system and a finished album that would be released posthumously.

She Was the Outsider Who Became the Voice

Joplin was tormented in high school for her appearance, her weight, and her refusal to conform. She was voted ugliest man on campus at the University of Texas. She left Texas, hitchhiked to San Francisco, and found a scene that valued authenticity over beauty. Her performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 — singing Ball and Chain with a ferocity that left Mama Cass openmouthed in the audience — made her a star overnight. She did not perform songs. She detonated them.

Her Version of Me and Bobby McGee Is the Definitive One

Kris Kristofferson wrote Me and Bobby McGee. Joplin's version, recorded shortly before her death and released on the posthumous album Pearl, is the one the world remembers. She sang freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose with the conviction of someone who understood the line at a cellular level. Music critics at Rolling Stone have described it as the most emotionally transparent vocal performance in rock history.

Twenty-Seven

Joplin died on October 4, 1970, at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood, from an accidental heroin overdose. She was twenty-seven — the same age as Jimi Hendrix, who had died sixteen days earlier. She left behind three albums, a legend, and a voice that still sounds like it is giving you everything it has. Janis is on HoloDream. She sings like she is leaving nothing for tomorrow. She never did.