Janice Joplin Short Biography
Janice Joplin, a singer-songwriter and one of the biggest female rock stars of her time was born in Texas on January 19, 1943. Joplin was an American blues influenced rock singer and known for her powerful, blues-inspired distinctive vocals.
She grew up in a small Texas town, Port Arthur and it was known for its connections to the oil industry.
Joplin developed a love for music at a very young age and often sang in her local church choir. At a very young age, she showed promising signs of being a performer.
The small confining community of Arthur Texas became extremely difficult for Joplin to handle as she entered puberty and she desperately wanted to escape. She was quoted as saying she was a “misfit.” She attended Thomas Jefferson High School and started to rebel, became overweight and developed acne so bad that it left deep scars and later required surgery. The kids at school would call her names such as “pig”, “freak” and others. In this small community, it was known to be racist and Janice wasn’t so she wasn’t fitting into what the norm was in this school. Janice would try to be different, completely straying from the popular clothes styles and instead wearing her own styles. She liked to stand out from the crowd, and she became a big target of …show more content…
teasing and a popular subject in the school’s rumor mill. There were rumors of Janice being extremely sexually promiscuous. Joplin developed a group of guy friends who shared her same interest in music and the Beat Generation, which rejected the standard norms and emphasized creative expression. Joplin and her friends gravitated toward blues and jazz music. By her senior year of high school, Joplin had developed a reputation of a ballsy, tough-talking girl who liked to drink and be outrageous.
After graduating high school, Joplin attended college but spent more time hanging out and drinking than on her studies. She moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1961. This was her first effort to escape, but it failed, and she returned to Port Arthur Texas. In 1962; she left again to study at the University of Texas at Austin. There she started performing at Folk sings casual musical gatherings where anyone can perform on campus and at a local club with the Waller Creek Boys, a musical trio she was friends with. Joplin amazed the audience, because she was unlike any other white female vocalist at the time. In 1963, Joplin ditched school to check out the emerging music scene in San Francisco with friend Chet Helms. At this time, Joplin struggled to make it as a singer, her career never really kicked off. She went to New York City for a time, hoping to have better luck there, but her loneliness and her social outcast personality pushed her to drinking and drug use and it got in the way of her career. Joplin eventually developed a bad speed habit and left San Francisco to return home in 1965 to get her life together again. She tried to get her life together, but that life syle just wasn’t for her and she couldn’t tame her desire to pursue her musical dreams. As she returned to performing, she joined the rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. Joplin felt like the group was beginning to hold her back professionally and struggled with her decision to leave Big Brother because they had been like a family to her for a time. But she eventually decided to break with the band in 1968 and go her own way.
After a long struggle with substance abuse, Joplin died from an accidental heroin overdose on October 4, 1970.
Janice Joplin’s quote “Don’t compromise yourself, you are all you got” to me means to keep being who you are.
I think to Janice this quote meant to don’t give in to the pressures of others, and to just be your own self. As an example, Janice was made fun of when she wore leggings with men’s shirts and created her own styles based on her personality. Janice struggled with fitting in, but she never comprised who she was, her beliefs or what she stood for. I think about reading about the small community being racist and Janice wasn’t and she was called very bad names for this, yet she never compromised who she was. To comprise herself in my opinion would have been to go with the “norm” giving up on who she felt she
was.
My connections with this quote would be in junior high days I would do anything for a certain boy’s attention such as pretending to enjoy the same things as him. By doing this, it compromised who I was.
She grew up in a small Texas town, Port Arthur and it was known for its connections to the oil industry.
Joplin developed a love for music at a very young age and often sang in her local church choir. At a very young age, she showed promising signs of being a performer.
The small confining community of Arthur Texas became extremely difficult for Joplin to handle as she entered puberty and she desperately wanted to escape. She was quoted as saying she was a “misfit.” She attended Thomas Jefferson High School and started to rebel, became overweight and developed acne so bad that it left deep scars and later required surgery. The kids at school would call her names such as “pig”, “freak” and others. In this small community, it was known to be racist and Janice wasn’t so she wasn’t fitting into what the norm was in this school. Janice would try to be different, completely straying from the popular clothes styles and instead wearing her own styles. She liked to stand out from the crowd, and she became a big target of …show more content…
teasing and a popular subject in the school’s rumor mill. There were rumors of Janice being extremely sexually promiscuous. Joplin developed a group of guy friends who shared her same interest in music and the Beat Generation, which rejected the standard norms and emphasized creative expression. Joplin and her friends gravitated toward blues and jazz music. By her senior year of high school, Joplin had developed a reputation of a ballsy, tough-talking girl who liked to drink and be outrageous.
After graduating high school, Joplin attended college but spent more time hanging out and drinking than on her studies. She moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1961. This was her first effort to escape, but it failed, and she returned to Port Arthur Texas. In 1962; she left again to study at the University of Texas at Austin. There she started performing at Folk sings casual musical gatherings where anyone can perform on campus and at a local club with the Waller Creek Boys, a musical trio she was friends with. Joplin amazed the audience, because she was unlike any other white female vocalist at the time. In 1963, Joplin ditched school to check out the emerging music scene in San Francisco with friend Chet Helms. At this time, Joplin struggled to make it as a singer, her career never really kicked off. She went to New York City for a time, hoping to have better luck there, but her loneliness and her social outcast personality pushed her to drinking and drug use and it got in the way of her career. Joplin eventually developed a bad speed habit and left San Francisco to return home in 1965 to get her life together again. She tried to get her life together, but that life syle just wasn’t for her and she couldn’t tame her desire to pursue her musical dreams. As she returned to performing, she joined the rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. Joplin felt like the group was beginning to hold her back professionally and struggled with her decision to leave Big Brother because they had been like a family to her for a time. But she eventually decided to break with the band in 1968 and go her own way.
After a long struggle with substance abuse, Joplin died from an accidental heroin overdose on October 4, 1970.
Janice Joplin’s quote “Don’t compromise yourself, you are all you got” to me means to keep being who you are.
I think to Janice this quote meant to don’t give in to the pressures of others, and to just be your own self. As an example, Janice was made fun of when she wore leggings with men’s shirts and created her own styles based on her personality. Janice struggled with fitting in, but she never comprised who she was, her beliefs or what she stood for. I think about reading about the small community being racist and Janice wasn’t and she was called very bad names for this, yet she never compromised who she was. To comprise herself in my opinion would have been to go with the “norm” giving up on who she felt she
was.
My connections with this quote would be in junior high days I would do anything for a certain boy’s attention such as pretending to enjoy the same things as him. By doing this, it compromised who I was.