Episode Details

Janis Joplin sang like she was tearing something open inside herself. The power came from pain — a childhood of relentless bullying in Port Arthur, Texas, that left wounds no amount of fame could close. She became the greatest white blues singer of her generation and died at twenty-seven with a heroin needle in her arm.

This episode traces Joplin from her miserable Texas childhood through the Monterey Pop Festival, her struggles with addiction and loneliness, and the brief, incandescent career that ended before she could record her best album's final vocal track.

• She was voted Ugliest Man on Campus at the University of Texas, a humiliation she never forgot
• Her performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival made her an overnight star
• She died of a heroin overdose at twenty-seven, joining the same tragic club as Hendrix and Morrison
• Pearl, her final album, was released posthumously and became her biggest commercial success