The second person that I can think of who changed music in some way is Janis Joplin. When she arose in the late 1960's, there weren't really any female rock singers. Many female rock singers today said she was their inspiration to be a rock singer. She not only helped pave the way for rock stars today, she also helped change the way music sounds.
Janis Joplin was born and raised in Port Arthur, Texas on January 19, 1943. Port Arther was a small, southern, petroleum industry town. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura, but her parent's said that Janis always needed more attention than the other two. The family attended the Church of Christ. Which some people wouldn't have guessed because of some of the things Janis did as she grew older.
When in school, Janis was a part of a group of outcasts. She was often taunted in school and was called names because of her weight and acne. She painted in school and she read, which might have helped her outcast image. She also sang in the local choir and listened to blues singers, like Big Mama Thorten and Leadbelly.
Janis Joplin graduated High School in 1960 and then moved on to Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas during the summer. She later went to the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, but didn't finish. In the University of Texas newspaper in 1962, they ran an article on her named, "She Dares to be Different".
While she was a student at the University of Texas, she discovered that she had an inborn talent for singing folk and blues music. She played small clubs and coffeehouses in and around Austin.
While in college, she had been experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Her favorite alcohol was Southern Comfort and she often used speed and heroin. In 1965, Janis's friends started noticing the physical changes that she was going through. They described her as skeletal and emaciated. They were worried about her so they persuaded her to go back to Port Arthur. She got on a bus to Port Arthur in May of 1965 with the help of her friends. When she arrived back home she changed her lifestyle. She wasn't into drugs and alcohol and she changed the way she dressed and even did her hair. She went back to college and enrolled again as a sociology major at Lamar University. She even got engaged. But soon after the engagement was announced, Janis's boyfriend ended it. While in college for the second time, Janis couldn't stay away from music. She often went back and forth to Austin to play solo in different clubs.
When an old friend from Austin called Janis from San Fransisco and told her about an up and coming band that he was managing called Big Brother and the Holding Company, Janis was tempted to drop everything and leave. And she did. She moved to a little San Fransisco community that was taken over by the flower children of 1966 and was offered the singing position in the band. She joined the band on June 4th, 1966. Her first public performance was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Fransisco.
Drugs weren't aloud in rehearsal or in the apartment where Janis and some of the band members lived. But when a visitor showed up at the apartment and injected drugs right in front of her, she flipped out on Dave Getz, who was the one who made the promise.
Big Brother was getting gigs in the Bay area and up and down the California coast. In August of 1966 they signed a deal with Mainstream Records. Soon after recording the contract with Mainstream, they began recording in Chicago. They recorded a few tracks and then when it was time to leave, Mainstream wouldn't pay the band's airfare back to San Fransisco. So Big Brother and the Holding Company was stuck in Chicago. They decided to drive back to Northern California, but they didn't have much money. They drove with the Grateful Dead and that was when Janis relapsed back into drugs.
In June of 1967, Big Brother and the Holding Company played the Monterey Pop Festival. By playing the festival, the band was getting well known and their fame was rising. They soon got noticed by Colombia Records and they signed a deal.
Janis was soon playing with people like Jimi Hendrix and Elvin Bishop. She was on a few talk shows including The Dick Cavett Show.
Janis Joplin announced in September of 1968 that she would be leaving Big Brother and she left the group in December of that year. In the next few years she played with Kozmic Blues Band and the Full Tilt Boogies.
On October 3rd, 1970, Janis went to the Sunset Studios in Los Angeles to listen to the instrumental track of a song she was supposed to be recording the next day. She never made it there. When the producer of the studio realized she wasn't there he went to look for her. He drove to the hotel she was staying at and saw her Porsche sitting in the parking lot. When he walked in the room he found her lying on the floor dead. She was believed to have overdosed on heroin.
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