On October 1, 1970, during what would be her final studio session, Joplin recorded “Mercedes Benz,” a sly commentary on consumerism in America. John Byrne Cooke Estate/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Janis Joplin on New York City's Fifth Avenue in the summer of 1970.
Janis Joplin never got her Mercedes-Benz. Others to subsequently join the “ 27 Club” include Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. In July of 1971, fellow ’60s superstar Jim Morrison succumbed to heart failure, possibly as a result of drug use. Less than a month before Joplin’s overdose, Jimi Hendrix asphyxiated while under the influence of barbiturates. Joplin died at 27, a sadly common age for brilliant musicians to shuffle off their mortal coils. Janis Joplin is a member of the “27 Club.” 12, helping to propel the album Cheap Thrills-her second and final LP with Big Brother-to No. Prior to the posthumous “Me and Bobby McGee,” Joplin only managed one Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100: “Piece of My Heart,” released by Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1968. In her lifetime, Janis Joplin only had one real hit.
1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 20, 1971, giving the late singer her first and only chart-topping single. The posthumous album Pearl arrived three months later and spawned the hit “Me and Bobby McGee,” co-written by Kris Kristofferson and originally recorded by Roger Miller. Joplin died of an accidental heroin overdose on October 4, 1970. Janis Joplin’s biggest chart hit came after her death. But Joplin would sometimes tell people she was Bessie reincarnated. The epitaph reads: “The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing.” Smith died in 1937, about six years before Joplin was born, so the two never met. In August 1970, Joplin teamed up with Juanita Green-who’d once worked in Smith’s house-to purchase a headstone for the late blues great’s previously unmarked grave. Joplin never forgot the power of Bessie Smith, the singer whose music changed her life as a teenager. Janis Joplin bought a gravestone for her idol.
Soul-jazz legend Nina Simone covered “To Love Somebody” that same year. This may seem strange, but the late 1960s Bee Gees were a groovy pop-rock group years away from morphing into the white-suited disco mavens they’d become with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Janis Joplin covered the Bee Gees on her first solo album.Īfter leaving Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1968, Joplin made her solo debut with 1969’s I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! The album features "To Love Somebody," a song written and originally recorded by the Bee Gees.
"There was a lot of placating her at that point." Joplin was electric on Sunday, especially while singing Big Mama Thornton’s “Ball and Chain,” and within months of the star-making performance, Big Brother had a deal with Columbia Records. “She wanted to be successful," Getz said. There was disagreement within the band, but Joplin convinced everyone to return the next day. But after Janis and the boys turned in a phenomenal set, festival organizers urged them to come back on Sunday and work their magic for director D.A. As drummer Dave Getz told Billboard, they were under the impression everyone was playing for free, and a documentary seemed contradictory to the era’s hippie spirit. Before taking the stage on Saturday afternoon at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, Joplin’s band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, refused to sign a film release.
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