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Description
Raspy, raucous, emotional and self-destructive, Janis Joplin died at the prime of her life at the age of 27. During her short life as a star performer, personality, song writer and poet, she became the face of hard rock music - particularly in the San Francisco Bay area where, in the mid-1960's, she was the vocalist for the psychedelic band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. The native of Port Arthur, Texas, was well known for her predictably unpredictable performances that were laced with iconoclastic and raw sexuality, and which paved the way for other female artists to crack what had become an almost male dominated industry. In redefining the role for women in hard rock music she turned out hit after hit including the impassioned and raw "Ball and Chain" from the Cheap Thrills album that topped the charts for eight weeks in 1968. Other notable hits included the 1967 R&B top ten hit, "Piece of My Heart", and "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)".
Joplin left Big Brother in 1968 and recorded her first solo album with her new band, The Kasmic Blues Band. By mid-1970 the bawd and ribald queen of hard rock music disbanded The Kasmic Blue Band and had formed another band, Full Tilt Boogie. During 1970 Joplin and Full Tilt Boogie produced Pearl (which is Janis' nickname) that contained , among other hits, what has become her signature song, "Me and Bobby McGee", written by Kris Kristopherson. Few can forget the haunting, raspy tale of a Bohemian-type love affair on the road between young lovers searching for something they know they can never achieve. Pearl, Janis Joplin's biggest seller was released after her death and held down the top spot on the album charts for nine weeks in 1971.
Joplin's personal life was once described a runaway train wreck. Living the fast life she personalized the "…sex, drugs and rock and roll…" culture into which she hurled herself. Her excessive/compulsive personality and her self-destructive lifestyle finally caught up to her as she was found dead of a heroin overdose in a Hollywood hotel room in October of 1970.
With a brash and compelling and sometimes adversarial temperament, this outwardly strong and once seemingly indestructible legend of hard rock music was, in reality, a vulnerable, passionate and complex individual whose tragic life and death will remain etched in the minds and memories of fans and observers of that era.
The world's most proficient pointillism artist, Michael Coupe, has managed to recreate the thumping, gyrating, pulsating beat of hard rock as interpreted by Janis Joplin as she belts out a Rhythm and Blues hit during one of her impassioned stage performances. Through Coupe's imagination and talent the raspy incantations of a dead Rock and Roll legend are captured.
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