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‘She knew where she wanted to go – and just kept going’: the real Janis Joplin, by those closest to her

She was the epitome of Summer of Love chic – and became overshadowed by tragedy. But as her raw power is celebrated on stage in London, her family and bandmates explain there was far more to the singer than her legend

Fifty-four years later, journalists such as I are still knocking on his door, searching for new insight into the life of a singer whom the talkshow host Dick Cavett once introduced as “a combination of Leadbelly, a steam engine, Calamity Jane and Bessie Smith”. Photograph: Courtesy of Janis JoplinBorn in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1943, by her teens Joplin felt at odds with her surroundings, routinely bullied at school for the attributes that set her apart: the beatnik clothing, her love of the blues, the acne that blighted her skin. “James Gurley [Big Brother’s lead guitarist] couldn’t go where she wanted to go.” Seduced by the brass-led clarion call of Otis Redding, she formed a new group, the Kozmic Blues Band, in order to pursue a funkier sound that pushed her beyond Haight-Ashbury.

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