Janis Joplin

Born: 19 January 1943, Port Arthur, Texas, USA. Died: 04 October 1970, Los Angeles, California, USA. Joplin was the eldest of her siblings Michael Joplin and Laura Joplin, and attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where she began painting and listening to blues artists Bessie Smith, Leadbelly, Big Mama Thornton and Odetta with the other rebellious kids in her neighborhood. She graduated high school in 1960, and in 1962, she quit university in the middle of her studies. The university then ran the headline, "She Dares To Be Different" in the student newspaper.