The band needed a female vocalist, and Helms thought of Joplin. Ironically, a disheartened Joplin went back to Texas in early 1966, right before a friend of hers, Chet Helms, became manager of a new rock group called Big Brother and the Holding Company. She also tried living in various communes, and eventually settled in San Francisco for a few years. Joplin enrolled in several different colleges while singing folk songs for little money, but her attempts at continuing her education never lasted long.
Gradually she formed the goal of saving enough money from her gigs for bus fare to California, and after a few years she accomplished this and arrived on the Pacific coast. By the time she was seventeen, she had decided to become a singer, and she left home.Īt first Joplin found work in country and western clubs in Houston and other Texas cities. Joplin ’s favorite artists included Odetta, Leadbelly, and Bessie Smith, and she was greatly influenced by them in her own vocal style. She was something of a loner, and, unlike her siblings and neighborhood peers, she listened to folk and blues music. Though her family was middle-class, as a teenager she showed signs of the unconventional woman she would become. Joplin was born January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas. ” Renowned for her performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, and later for her solo appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969, Joplin nevertheless failed to achieve a chart-topping single until her rendition of country composer Kris Kristofferson ’s “Me and Bobby McGee ” was released posthumously in 1971. Compared to music greats like blues artist Bessie Smith and soul singer Aretha Franklin, most critics agree that she was the main reason for the group ’s success with songs like “Piece of My Heart ” and “Summertime. In such a way, Joplin used blues conventions not to transcend pain, but "to scream it out of existence".Janis Joplin, one of the most influential women singers of the late 1960s, first came to the attention of rock fans as the vocalist for the San Francisco, California-based band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. Joplin seems rather to be saying, surely if I keep taking this, if I keep setting an example of love and forgiveness, surely he has to understand, change, give me back what I have given". Noted cultural writer Ellen Willis wrote of the difference: "When Franklin sings it, it is a challenge: no matter what you do to me, I will not let you destroy my ability to be human, to love. The song is also included among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.įranklin said in an interview that when she first heard Joplin's version on the radio, she didn't recognize it because of the vocal arrangement. In 2004, the Big Brother and the Holding Company version of this song was ranked #344 on Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song has since been remade by several singers, including hit versions by Faith Hill in 1994 and Beverley Knight in 2006.
The song came to greater mainstream attention when Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company covered the song in 1968 on their album Cheap Thrills and had a hit with it.
Piece of My Heart is a song written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns and originally recorded by Erma Franklin in 1967.
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